#also Booker being redeemed and found family goodness

[puranijeans]

Hello!! Congratulations on finishing your exams!! A (hopefully fun) question for you: What would you include in a sequel to The Old Guard? Thank you very muchly!

Thank you! 

Ooooh, a fun question indeed.

Hmm, this is an unpopular opinion probably but I wouldn’t mind Quynh being the bad guy. Some of the comics I read had such an interesting dynamic between Andy and Noriko and I would love for that to be translated on screen. I think I would also want Andy to get her immortality back, maybe towards the end though so it's not too ~easy. Also moar flashbacks! More Joe x Nicky ( I would like to see “We killed each other.” “Many times.” plth I’m a sucker for a good enemies-to-lovers story)

[rockislandadultreads]

Real Life Monsters: Mystery Thriller Book Recs

Last Seen Alive by Joanna Schaffhausen

Boston detective Ellery Hathaway met FBI agent Reed Markham when he pried open a serial killer’s closet to rescue her. Years on, their relationship remains defined by that moment and by Francis Coben’s horrific crimes. To free herself from Coben’s legacy, Ellery had to walk away from Reed, too. But Coben is not letting go so easily. He has an impossible proposition: Coben will finally give up the location of the remaining bodies, on one condition—Reed must bring him Ellery. Now the families of the missing victims are crying out for justice that only Ellery can deliver. The media hungers for a sequel and Coben is their camera-ready star. He claims he is sorry and wants to make amends. But Ellery is the one living person who has seen the monster behind the mask and she doesn’t believe he can be redeemed. Not after everything he’s done. Not after what she’s been through. And certainly not after a fresh body turns up with Coben’s signature all over it.

This Might Hurt by Stephanie Wrobel

Welcome to Wisewood. We'll keep your secrets if you keep ours. Natalie Collins hasn't heard from her sister in more than half a year. The last time they spoke, Kit was slogging from mundane workdays to obligatory happy hours to crying in the shower about their dead mother. She told Natalie she was sure there was something more out there. And then she found Wisewood. On a private island off the coast of Maine, Wisewood's guests commit to six-month stays. During this time, they're prohibited from contact with the rest of the world--no Internet, no phones, no exceptions. But the rules are for a good reason: to keep guests focused on achieving true fearlessness so they can become their Maximized Selves. Natalie thinks it's a bad idea, but Kit has had enough of her sister's cynicism and voluntarily disappears off the grid. Six months later Natalie receives a menacing e-mail from a Wisewood account threatening to reveal the secret she's been keeping from Kit. Panicked, Natalie hurries north to come clean to her sister and bring her home. But she's about to learn that Wisewood won't let either of them go without a fight.

Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda, Sarah Booker (Translator)

Fernanda and Annelise are so close they are practically sisters: a double image, inseparable. So how does Fernanda end up bound on the floor of a deserted cabin, held hostage by one of her teachers and estranged from Annelise? When Fernanda, Annelise, and their friends from the Delta Bilingual Academy convene after school, Annelise leads them in thrilling but increasingly dangerous rituals to a rhinestoned, Dior-scented, drag-queen god of her own invention. Even more perilous is the secret Annelise and Fernanda share, rooted in a dare in which violence meets love. Meanwhile, their literature teacher Miss Clara, who is obsessed with imitating her dead mother, struggles to preserve her deteriorating sanity. Each day she edges nearer to a total break with reality. Interweaving pop culture references and horror concepts drawn from from Herman Melville, H.P. Lovecraft, and anonymous 'creepypastas', Jawbone is an ominous, multivocal novel that explores the terror inherent in the pure potentiality of adolescence and the fine line between desire and fear.

Survive the Night by Riley Sager

Charlie Jordan is being driven across the country by a serial killer. Maybe. Behind the wheel is Josh Baxter, a stranger Charlie met by the college ride share board, who also has a good reason for leaving university in the middle of term. On the road they share their stories, carefully avoiding the subject dominating the news - the Campus Killer, who's tied up and stabbed three students in the span of a year, has just struck again. Travelling the lengthy journey between university and their final destination, Charlie begins to notice discrepancies in Josh's story. As she begins to plan her escape from the man she is becoming certain is the killer, she starts to suspect that Josh knows exactly what she's thinking. Meaning that she could very well end up as his next victim.

[flying-elliska]

Just watched The Old Guard yesterday....I have Emotions. Compelling characters, excellent rep, great action scenes. I see why tumblr is obsessed with it.

SPOILERS + lil essay incoming

It's not perfect obviously. It drags in places and I think it needed more flashbacks for the immortals that would have given that extra oomph (maybe they definitely couldn't afford that - the few historical flashbacks we got looked kinda cheap tbh). You feel like there is so much interesting stuff under the surface that isn't explored fully - how they got where they are because it does, at times, seem even more compelling than the present (which is already quite interesting, don’t get me wrong). The bad guy doesn't feel as scary as he should be, either - he lacks presence, he could have been more pathetic or more unhinged. The dialogue was a bit overly sparse in places. But overall, I loved it. Charlize Theron as queerish action queen badass with a gruff exterior but a core of goodness is like...my jam. And it NEEDS a sequel.

Some more thoughts :

- The tone of deep melancholy and sadness that pervades the film is so interesting. Yes, most of the main characters are the gruff action hero type who say little ; but there is so much underlying emotion there too, love and loyalty and loss, in the way they are played and interact with each other. So it doesn’t come over as the stereotypical macho cliché of ‘gotta repress those feelings and BE TOUGH’ - you really feel as if 1) those characters have spent so much time together that they function really well as a unit, they don’t need to talk a lot of the time, they just understand each other and 2) there is so much real grief and sorrow there that words wouldn’t properly adress it and it’s no use trying. AND at the same time, they still get an arc of ‘caring about the world is still good, actually.’ As an action movie fan who hates the ‘cardboard stoic is the only way to survive’ tropes of the genre, this movie just made me very happy. They have this intimacy within the group that feels so real and like...battle forged found families, again, my jam, but they’re also tied together by loss and loneliness and having no one else who understands. It’s so JUICY in terms of character dynamics. Nile’s more innocent but still a fighter thing fits very well with the older, more cynical ones. The ending, where they punish Booker with a century of loneliness for betraying them but ultimately still recognize why he did what he did and that he’s still part of the team...but that he might not ever see Andy again...my heart. 

- Also, it reminds me of this essay I read about how violence/battle/injury in film is often used an excuse to show male intimacy in a way that is not allowed anywhere else but in this movie, you both have platonic intimacy (and also between Andy and her team, which is cool! love a good m/f platonic soul bond!!!) AND you have a couple of dudes who both fight together and are actually lovers, which is awesome. The scene in the van is just so bloody brilliant because you have that idiot soldier who is at the level of homophobic taunts, ‘haha is he your boyfriend’ as if that was supposed to threaten their masculinity (because in their world it would). But Joe and Nicky are just way beyond those puerile games - they also met in this context of violence but because of their immortality, they were able to turn it into love. And it’s the thing that allowed them to survive the centuries with a relative level of happiness compared to the two others because they have each other. I love this because it 1) grounds gay love in history and clearly shows it as something that has always existed and can be an epic love able to withstand almost a thousand years (whereas gayness has been so often coded as something both modern and ephemeral) and 2) presents it as wiser, deeper and a lot more badass than the path of repression and violence as a baseline for men to interact even as a lot of male socialization is build up as brutal to avoid it so like YEAH !!!!! GOOD!!!!

- This is another movie that really REALLY shows the importance of having ppl who are not white and/or dudes behind the camera. (It was still written by one but I still feel a difference).The two leading ladies are never objectified, and their main emotional dynamic during the movie is with each other. The audience surrogate, who is also the emotional pivot of the movie who causes the other characters to change, is a young Black woman (especially since apparently Nile’s role and her relationship with Andy was expanded from the comics). Andy is the leader/main badass and mystery of the story in a way generally reserved for men. There is that scene, too, where Andy gets her wound patched up by a random woman in a pharmacy, which causes her to reflect on the good of humanity and the importance of good actions in a chaotic world. Chiwetel Eijofor’s villain being allowed complexity and a sort-of redemption. But it’s also more specific things in the way the movie is shot - especially in the non-Western countries. In action movie tropes, you have this cliché of ‘picturesque but dangerous’ ‘exotic’ locales, who are often used as the backdrop for action scenes, which is...not awesome tbh. This movie does take us to those countries, and there is action, but it’s also shot in a very humanizing way that reminds us that this is a real place where real people live : Nicky saying hello to the locals in South Sudan in their own language, Nile asking the Afghan women for help in the beginning, shots of kids playing with balloons, etc. The team accepts a mission in the beginning to rescue kidnapped Sudanese girls in the beginning - in most action movies often the populations to save are white/Western whereas locals/POC are shown as ‘tragic but acceptable collateral damage’. Or for instance, that scene in Marrakech’s Jemaa El-Fna square - a lot of the time foreign markets only appear as a ‘chaotic, dangerous’ backdrop for action to be ransacked through without a care ; here it’s just a cool lively place for the team to meet their contact, normalized instead of exotified. It’s shot the same way as the scenes in France, it’s interesting to look at and the shots take advantage of the beauty of the location but there are no weird color filters or shots that suggest that the place is bizarre, threatening, Otherized, etc. (Also interesting that most of the scenes in France take place in abandoned buildings like a church that’s half in ruins, a mine, etc...interesting reversal lmao.) The movie is not anti-imperialist by any means but it’s still...a tangibly different gaze, especially for an American movie, and it makes it a lot more humane and interesting.

- Overall, it left me wanting more, mostly in a good way. This could have made such an excellent series too. They seem to be setting Quynh as a villain for the next movie and that could be really interesting but I really hope they’re going for a ‘tragic villain gets redeemed in the end’ (with a side of lovers to ennemies to lovers with Andy...their story seems to have so much potential in such an epic tragic way) instead of ‘psycho lady too far gone to save’ thing. And that we get more flashbacks from the immortal’s pasts. Since it seems very successful, I hope we do get that sequel once the film industry starts again.

[elizabeth-mitchells]

Being with you (Makes the flame burn good) - The Old Guard (2020) - Andy/Quynh

They were somewhere in Italy. Somewhere beautiful, because Nicky always picked the best places. It had been six months since Nile joined them, since they left Booker, since Andy lost her immortality, and since Nicky and Joe started feeling more preoccupied than they’ve felt in centuries.

Then the fateful day arrived.

or, Andromache and Quynh are reunited, and it could have gone worse. X

They were somewhere in Italy. Somewhere beautiful, because Nicky always picked the best places. It had been six months since Nile joined them, since they left Booker, since Andy lost her immortality, and since Nicky and Joe started feeling more preoccupied than they’ve felt in centuries. Sure, every time they went into a fight it was a high-anxiety situation. Andy never let them get too relaxed and confident. There was always, always the fear that it would be the last time, that it would be their <i>time</i>. But still, jobs like theirs were over relatively soon. 

On the other hand, losing a friend that’s been with them for two hundred years, that took a toll on them. Also, suddenly finding themselves with a new friend, a young, intelligent and brave, but inexperienced and curious, <i>very</i> young friend that they felt immediately protective of, that was something new and exciting and kept them on their toes. <i>Additionally</i>, seeing their leader, the fearless, selfless, magnificent, almost too big for adjectives, their beloved leader suddenly mortal, suddenly fragile and… it was all… almost too much to bear.

To say they were all in an extraordinary situation would be an understatement. But they coped however they could. They had taken a job or two, because they seemed fitting and Andy insisted. Nobody could say no to Andy still. They traveled too, because there was so much of the world that Nile hadn’t seen and they were just realizing how fun it could be to introduce her to it all. They also rested. They took their time to relax and stand still for short periods of time. 

They stayed in safe houses like this one in Italy. There was a garden, and Joe would teach Nile how to cook everyone’s favorite meals, all in ways no chef alive would have thought of. There was a small library, and Nicky spent long hours trying to teach Nile a few languages, and then getting sidetracked telling her all their best stories. Meanwhile, Andy would teach her how to fight. They would train for hours on end. Andy was ruthless, sometimes too much. Nile would have complained if she hadn’t been aware of two things. One, the immense value of the lessons. She was learning more fighting styles than she could keep track of, all straight from possibly the best fighter still alive. Two, it mattered to Andy. 

Maybe Joe, Nicky, and Booker knew Andy infinitely better than Nile, after so many centuries together. But there was a chance that that same knowledge had made them immune to a few little details. Because Nile would stare at Andy with a clean, brand-new perspective, from a fresh pair of eyes. She wasn’t looking for the familiar signs of Andy when she’s mad, when she’s nostalgic, or annoyed, or tired. She looked at Andy as if she were any other person and she looked for little quirks and small reactions and somehow she knew, she got her. Andy found it all fascinating, terrifying, and a little embarrassing. But she understood that what little time she had, when compared to all the time she’s already had, there was no use in feeling shy. So, Andy let Nile get close. 

They trained and would fight for hours, but then they rested together. They would lay down in the soft grass, or they would sit side by side on the roof. The silence was welcomed, appreciated, and much needed. But it was not all just silence. Andy, Nile figured it out pretty soon, liked to listen to Nile’s stories, and Nile’s thoughts, and about Nile’s past. Luckily, Nile had made great improvements in accepting her new life, and she’d decided that she’d talk about her mother, her brother, and her past life as often as she felt like it, promising herself to never forget them. Sometimes, she talked to Andy about God, her God. Sometimes, almost every time, Andy would laugh. But afterward, more often than not, Andy would be quiet and thoughtful. Nile didn’t for one second think that Andy was considering the idea, but it must remind her something she liked to think about. So Nile let her get lost in those thoughts, offering company, being a friend, being a new addition to the family.

Then the fateful day arrived. 

The youngest of the group had retired to bed early that night, tired after another day of training, learning, and unexpected fun with her new family. This left Andy, Nicky and Joe hanging out by themselves in the living room of their temporary home. 

“Going to bed already?” Joe called after Nile’s retreating form in the hallway.

“Shut up, I’m exhausted!”

A series of chuckles followed, and then it was just the three of them. They’d grown to quickly enjoy Nile’s presence in their lives, but they couldn’t deny that they also appreciated that she represented a distraction from a series of things that deeply haunted them.

“You’re getting too soft with her,” Joe teased the man sitting beside him, playfully poking his torso with a finger.

“I am not,” Niky laughed fondly, knowing it was true. They were all developing a soft spot for the newest addition to the team.

“You are,” Andy intervened, lifting the bottle of beer she was sipping from in her friend's direction.

She was drinking less, lately. As she’d told Booker after his betrayal, they hadn’t been doing their best at managing their lives. None of them earned anything good by trying to numb it all away. Plus, under the scrutiny of Nile’s young and righteous eyes, she made it feel possible to redeem themselves. Plus, Andy wasn’t sure if she could be as reckless with her body anymore.

“I’m just the only one that has kept his manners after all these years.” Nicky’s comments made the others chuckle.

Joe stared at Andy then. Her eyes were still tired, always grieving, but her stare was clear, and she looked as relaxed as she was capable of, which wasn’t much but, it was something. “Admit it, boss,” he told her, “you like having the kid around.”

Andy took her time answering, lips turned upward slightly and she nodded. “Sure. Why not?” It was a good enough admission.

Then, for a moment, they were quiet. There was an infinite number of things to talk about, and an infinite number of things to stay quiet about. In the end, Joe and Nicky started joking about something related to Copley, and it had their leader happily chuckling along with their teasing. She appreciated the two men’s ability to pick up on the fact that she had enough deep conversations with Nile and sometimes all she wanted was to lay back and bask in the comfortable familiarity of millennia of friendship. That lasted a few more minutes, until Nile came back.

The young ex-soldier had gotten better at handling her nightmares, her dreams of the woman in the iron coffee at the bottom of the sea. She was familiar with the image, she knew the story, she learned how to wake up, calm down her breathing, and sometimes go back to sleep by herself without disturbing her friends. She had noticed how deeply affected Andy was about each mention of the dreams. But, this time, it was <i>different</i>, this time she knew she couldn’t, she seriously couldn’t deal with it by herself. She walked slowly, drowsily toward the living room. She stared at Andy, Joe, and Nicky, the most remarkable people she’d ever met and she felt a knot on her throat.

“Andy…” Nile started to say, fear and confusion clouding her voice. But she didn’t have time to say more. 

Andy had immediately been worried by the expression in Nile’s face, but there wasn’t any time for questioning. It was late at night, nobody knew where they were, nobody was supposed to find that house. Still, they all heard, clear as day, the sound of the iron gates of the garden being pulled open. In the blink of an eye, with perfected ease and speed, the three ancient warriors rushed to their front door, holding swords and guns and ready for an unexpected fight. At least, they thought they had been ready.

As soon as she walked out of the door, Andy felt her world come to a screeching halt, she felt as if the ground had given in underneath her feet. She stumbled and if it weren’t for Joe’s quick reflexes that held her up steadily she would’ve fallen down to the ground. If it had been just a dream, just an illusion, maybe some stranger that looked a lot like her, that would have been enough to shake Andy up, she would have gotten over it, but that wasn’t the case. Because the more she stared at the woman in front of her, the more she just knew it was <i>her</i>. The warm glow that came from their windows and the gentle but clear light of the moon were more than enough.

Andy could recognize that face anywhere. She’d seen her dying, and more times than she could count she’d seen her coming back to life. She’d seen her in paintings, sculptures, and in her own nightmares. She’d read about her in legends, myths, and history. Most importantly, she’d memorized that face herself, an impossible number of years ago. She knew every curve and crinkle in her skin, and knew the strength and ability of her muscles. She knew the feeling, the scent, the taste, she knew all of it. They fought together so bravely and loved each other so fiercely and still it hadn’t been enough to keep them together, to help Andy find her again. Now here she was. <i>Quynh</i>. The warrior. The Goddess. The obsession. The broken promise. She was all rage, regret, fear and grief, and all the emotions that dismally shadowed over the relief, the joy, the gratitude, and the love.

“Andromache,” Quynh spoke for the first time. Slow and deliberate after waiting five hundred years to say that one name.

“Quynh,” Andy responded in barely a whisper and nobody, none of them had ever heard her sound so fragile and completely vulnerable.

Quynh stared at her eyes and hated that they were so clear and watery they reminded her of the sea.

“I had hoped <i>so</i> badly for you to be dead. But now I know I had to find you alive, so I could be the one to find the way to kill you.”

Quynh’s firm and confident tone didn’t leave room for interpretation or doubt on her words. Andy, on the other hand, could do nothing but let out a feeble sigh. She took one step forward, but Quynh put up a hand to stop her from coming any closer. She stared at the group standing closely behind Andy.

“Hello… Nicolo, Yusuf… and a new one?” She had a hypnotizing voice that drew them all in.

“My name is Nile Freeman,” the youngest replied with courage that she wasn’t sure where it came from.

Quynh only nodded in acknowledgment, and continued, “Booker wanted you to know he would not break the agreement, and he stayed away. He let me find you myself.” As she finished talking, Quynh drew out a sword and added, “Are you not going to say anything?”

Andy’s silence unnerved them all. She looked almost in a trance, but there was no denying that in the first step she took toward Quynh that she was as strong and certain as they all knew her to be. “I searched for you for so long…” she whispered.

“I thought you would search until you died! I would have!”

“You don’t know that. It was impossible.”

“<i>We</i> are impossible! Yet here we are.”

As they talked, both were talking slow steps forward. At one moment, Nile tried to reach out to her leader, her friend, the most exceptional woman she’d ever met. “Andy, don’t…” she whispered. But she was stopped by the gentle hands of Nicky and Joe on her shoulders, stopping her from stepping into a fight that wasn’t hers to fight.

“You don’t have to do this,” Andy said. Her voice had regained some of its strength. She wasn’t scared. If anything, her body felt alive and electric at being at such close proximity to the woman that meant more to her than anything else in the world ever did.

“But I do,” Quynh replied. Her face was never still. It was obvious she struggled with keeping hold of her emotions. She was juggling rage, insanity, and something more tender and painful but unexpectedly warm. “I lost my mind, I lost my heart too. I lost myself down, down at the bottom of the ocean. Meanwhile, you-”

“Meanwhile I lost all peace of mind, broke my heart beyond repair, and lost all sense of self. I lost everything when I lost <i>you</i>.” At that moment, Quynh finally raised her sword, pointed it at Andy, but Andy didn’t back down or hesitate. She tightened her hand holding her awe, then she let it fall on the ground. Unarmed, somehow she looked stronger than ever. She kept going, moving forward, staring straight into the other woman’s eyes. “I had to learn, Quynh, that time does <i>not</i> heal all wounds. You have to actually do something to get them to heal. And I am prepared to do anything for you.”

Quynh took another step forward, her sword was now inches away from Andy’s face. It must have been something in Quynh’s eyes, a small twitch on her face, anything. But it let Nile know that it was now or never. “Don’t!” she blurted out, before it was too late and quickly say, “Don’t kill her! She’s no longer immortal!”

Nicky and Joe tightened her hold on her but it was too late, the words were out in the open. Andy closed her eyes and looked away, “Nile...” she said to herself, half touched and half annoyed as she often was by the untameable attitude of the young woman. 

“What?!” Quynh exclaimed.

For the first time, her hold on the sword wavered. For the first time since she arrived, she couldn't hold Andy’s eyes. She looked down, but her emotions still showed clear as day or her face or, more accurately, the storm of emotions she held inside. This wasn’t what she’d expected, this wasn’t what she’d hoped for. In all those years she hadn’t exactly considered this scenario. Did it make her job easier? Or was it the last thing she wanted? Did it <i>matter</i>? Quynh cursed and took a definite step forward, now the tip of her sword was tilting Andy’s brave and beautiful face up. It was now or never, and that was a first for them.

“Would you really, <i>really</i> die for me?” Quynh asked, and for a split moment, her eyes cleared. The fog of madness and resentment vanished. It was just the two of them together again. A question and a promise hanging in the air.

“Yes,” Andy replied without hesitating, “Even worse… I would <i>live</i> for you.”

Andy smiled. She genuinely smiled. And it was that little, almost playful smirk, that broke the other woman down. Quynh’s eyes darkened again. It was too much, the swirling of love and hate accumulated in her throughout centuries. She thrust her swords forward, and then just as swiftly she pulled it back, covered in her old lover’s blood. 

The second the blade went through Andy’s neck, Nile screamed. Nick and Joe felt something powerful deep inside of them crumble to pieces. It was a sight that wasn’t entirely new to them, but there was an added knowledge this one time that nobody had prepared them for.

Andy wobbled for a second, but before she could fall to the ground, Quynh threw down her sword and lunged to catch Andy in her arms. Now she was kneeling on the soil of an Italian garden under a clear night sky, holding the woman she loved for centuries, the woman she begged for hundreds of years, the woman she fiercely wanted to hate and kill and meet again just to see her eyes one last time, and she realized, this wasn’t what she wanted.

“My love…” Quynh whispered tearfully, “I had to… I’m sorry.”

Then there was a heavy silence starting to fall over them. Blood poured from Andy’s wound and she struggled to breathe, but she was relaxed. She was finally where she had so desperately wanted to be for so long, in her lover’s arms.

Nile, along with Nicky and Joe approached them cautiously. Nile fell down to her knees near Andy, feeling utterly devastated. Behind her, Joe rubbed his eyes with one hand, while with the other he held Nicky’s hand, whose head was resting on Joe’s shoulder. They all felt broken. The silence was unbearable.

That’s when Andy started coughing. At first, nobody even gasped, for fear that the smallest disturbance would take away the miracle.

“I’m sorry too,” Andy said, her voice was rough but she couldn’t stop saying it. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Quynh watched in horror and delight as the raw, red wound in Andy’s throat slowly but surely completely healed. She tenderly placed her hand over it and even though she’d seen it happen thousands of times before, this time she couldn’t help but whisper, “How? How…” One of Andy’s hands moved over’s Quynh’s hand and maybe it was just a reflex but Quynh’s fingers curled over the other woman’s hand then it couldn’t have been just a reflex after the seconds passed and she didn’t pull away. Andy held Quynh’s hand tightly against her chest and smiled, because she couldn’t help herself.

“I really don’t know what just happened,” Andy said, and turned her head to look at her friends, “Didn’t I have to use a fucking bandaid last week?”

While Joe and Nicky laughed tearfully, Nile grinned, “I told you!” she said, because it was true. She had said it to Andy once or twice during one of their long talks after training, “Maybe you thought it was your time, but maybe it <i>isn’t</i> anymore! You still have more to give. Humanity still needs you. I need you! You have to- you have to train me, you have to lead us in these difficult times, you… you have some wounds that need healing before you go.”

That made Andy turn her head again to look up at Quynh, who still held her carefully in her arms. They met each other’s eyes and they found galaxies in them. There might not be time enough on this Earth for them to unravel everything their souls held, but it looked like they might have an opportunity to try.

“It would take you an eternity,” Quynh’s said with a trembling voice. She wanted it to sound like a threat. The hurricane of emotions inside her was back in full swing, she could barely hold them from spilling over. She felt furious and she felt insane and she wanted to be angry at Andy for surviving. She didn’t want to feel so delighted, didn’t want to feel whole after being reunited with her love, but she did.

“All the time I have is yours,” Andy answered, “I swear.”

Quynh wanted to stab her. But she didn’t have a weapon at hand. So, when Andy leaned in, Quynh did the second best thing she could think of, she kissed her. Nobody on Earth had waited so long for a kiss. It was the most painful and wonderful kiss. It was worse than a threat and better than a promise. They just knew that after that kiss their grief and resentment, their love and devotion were sealed forever. Now they truly will stay together, and they will heal together, and make amends, and fight together again. They will figure out how to love each other ardently again and forever. It will be just the two of them again… until the end.

[s0ym1lk]

So I finally finished playing Burial at Sea parts 1 and 2, wrapping up my replay of Infinite. The last time I played these games, I had a really visceral dislike of the ending to Infinite, and didn’t even finish part 2 of BaS for the same reasons. Having played them again, I am really satisfied with how the games came together, and how strongly it reinforced its themes in BaS. 

Bioshock has always been about choice, consequence, and the relationship between people. More specifically it tackles choice in relation to your past, and whether you can (or should) try to make up for your mistakes. 

To me, Infinite was a very interesting experiment in telling a story, because I think without serious analysis, the player is led to the wrong conclusion. The way I read it, Infinite is making a case specifically for breaking the cycle of violence by....showing how difficult it is to break the cycle of violence.

Booker and Comstock represent two polar opposite reactions to making mistakes. Comstock discards his past completely, and with it, he discards valuable lessons in empathy and compassion. He becomes a man obsessed with righteousness, purity, and ruthlessness. Booker stews in his past and never moves past it. He refuses to forgive himself for the mistakes that he made, and that self-flagellation keeps him in a cycle of shame and wrong-doing. However, this isn’t just a case study of Booker/Comstock. Infinite raises the stakes by using Elizabeth to illustrate to us that _anyone _can fall victim to the cycle of bloodshed. The game is all about trauma, forgiveness, and violence - from Booker empathizing with how Slate is sent to war and then discarded like an old toy, to Fitzroy trying to find belonging with Comstock’s family, only to be framed for murder and radicalized into a rebellion leader, to Elizabeth finding compassion for the mother that abused her who was herself abused by Comstock, to Songbird - Elizabeth’s captor and only friend, itself a captive with a friend only in Elizabeth. The point is that every single one of these people are trapped in a cycle of violence that traumatizes them, which in turn forces them to traumatize others, perpetuating the cycle. 

The end of the game brings that big structural-level cycle back into the personal relationship between Elizabeth and Booker when it reveals that Booker and Comstock are the same person. Booker is responsible for Elizabeth's life, and she now has to decide what's more important to her - the tentative relationship she's built with Booker thus far or getting revenge for what was done to her as a child. This is the turning point for Elizabeth - and therefore where the game puts the period on its thesis. When Elizabeth chooses to kill Booker, she feeds into that cycle of violence and.... essentially becomes Comstock. She has chosen violence for the ‘greater good’. She has declared that there are some things you can never come back from, some things that you deserve to die for. And she does so discarding many of the lessons about compassion, personal connection, and forgiveness that she learned along the way. (It’s also very important to note that she makes her decision because she ‘knows how the story ends’. Upon replay, I think the game has some very interesting things to say about whether this statement is true. Comstock also knew how the story ended, which drove his own villainy. In essence, the game is saying that this type of ruthless realism is just pessimism in disguise, and that it WILL turn a person into a monster. It's only when Elizabeth loses her powers in BaS, when she becomes a regular person with no concept of the future again, that's she able to see the power of optimism and find some redemption. ) 

I believe the complexity of that message (and the admittedly confusing packaging it came in)  was lost on a lot of players, which is why in my opinion Burial at Sea doubles down so intensely on the themes. Part 1 is literally about Elizabeth becoming the villain. They make that very clear by redeeming Booker/Comstock through his kindness towards Sally, and villainizing Elizabeth via use of Sally as a tool to get to Comstock. Then, at the beginning of part 2, Elizabeth is exactly where Booker was at the beginning of Infinite - with the blood of a child on her hands, wondering what chance she has at redeeming herself. That search for redemption morphs into an understanding of the importance of human connection. Ultimately, despite it being a lost cause, it matters that Elizabeth tries, over and over again, to save Sally. It matters that Elizabeth misses Booker, that Elizabeth helps the Big Daddy, that Elizabeth saved Songbird when she was a child. Those small human connections are the true heart of Bioshock, and the thing that Elizabeth lost at the end of Infinite when she sacrificed Booker. So many little things point to this central message - the ‘lion with a thorn in its paw’ metaphor, the stories of the big daddies and songbird, the ‘imprinting is not found in genetic code’ line, the guitar/singing scene in Infinite, and - my personal favorite part of Infinite - the scene of Booker trying to get Anna back as a baby before she’s taken through the tear. 

There’s definitely something to be said there about the foolishness of playing God. All of Bioshock’s villains have sought to shape the world to its best (in their varying opinions) form. Elizabeth does the same. Upon seeing that a bad choice can be made, she chooses to take the choice away, failing to realize that there’s no way you can do that for every bad thing that will ever happen in life. Though the game doesn’t show you the consequences of Elizabeth’s choice (note however that Burial at Sea very much does), it implies by everything that comes before that killing Booker will only perpetuate the cycle of bloodshed. The 'best' choice, thematically, should have been for Elizabeth to forgive Booker for being human and making mistakes. But the game wants us as players to understand how difficult a choice that is to make - so difficult that Elizabeth herself couldn’t even make it. 

Ultimately, Elizabeth is redeemed in death, because she chose to fight for the lost cause of saving Sally, even though she knew how it would end. Even if Elizabeth had once sacrificed Sally trying to get to Booker/Comstock, it still mattered that Elizabeth tried to save her - just as it mattered that Booker tried to stop Comstock from taking Anna pre-Infinite. We, as human beings, are more than our pasts, because every moment we can make the choice to change. When we use our pasts to help us navigate the future, when we allow the past to give us empathy for other people and for ourselves, rather than wallowing in it or forgetting it completely - that’s how we can make choices that matter. 

[moody-avocado]

Why Kylo Ren will be redeemed: Tragedy vs. Rebirth, a meta

Hello everyone :)

In this meta I will compare, and emphasize the differences between the Tragedy and Rebirth plots, and explain why I believe that Kylo Ren/Ben Solo’s story is the latter. 

I see Kylo Ren as the Monstrous Hero archetype, rather than as a villain, so I will refer to him as a hero in this meta.

Let’s get started!

It is important to mention that the two types of storylines share one feature - in both Rebirth and Tragedy, the hero gets possessed by the dark part of himself; there is an egocentric obsession. I would say that in Kylo’s case, this obsession is vengeance on Luke Skywalker, whereas the dark part is anger, hurt and all the bad emotions that reside within him. I could also argue that in TLJ, aside from Luke, this obsession is also centred around becoming the new Supreme Leader - he lusts for power; Rey tells him not to go down that path. I am sure that a part of the reason for his betrayal (killing Snoke) was his compassion for Rey, but I believe that, being a predominantly dark-side user, he is getting corrupted by power, and that he has probably wanted dominion over the FO for a while now.

The difference between the two types of stories is that the tragic hero simply goes on with self-destruction. I think that you can describe a tragic hero as someone whose story starts off well, but then it all starts going on a constant downward spiral. Think Macbeth, or Anna Karenina, or Dorian Grey (while I appreciate the stories, I personally strongly dislike all these characters). Stuff seems to be going alright for them, they finally obtain a certain social status, or they get to be with the lovers they desire, or whatever their goal (or, the aforementioned egocentric obsession) is. However, they go from the Dream stage into the Frustration and Nightmare stages, and eventually their lives result in a violent death (see below). 

In a tragedy, the stages are the following:

1. Anticipation stage - the hero is unfulfilled; the hero finds a focus for their energy

2. Dream stage - commitment to goal; gratification

3. Frustration stage - things go wrong, restlessness; the hero compelled to further “dark acts”, which sets their path in stone

4. Nightmare stage - situation slipping out of control

5. Destruction or deathwish stage - hero destroyed

Now, in contrast to this, in the Rebirth type of story, the hero gets isolated, stuck in a dark and lonely state. The way I see it, “Rebirth” has a certain stasis about it. Applied to Kylo - he is now the Supreme Leader. I do not see how we could possibly see him going on a downward spiral any further - he killed innocent people in TFA; he later killed his father. He severely wounded Finn, “the Traitor”. In TLJ, he decided against killing his mother, so I would say that that’s his final thought on that. Kylo thought he might get a shot at killing his uncle out of vengeance, however, his uncle Luke is now dead, so there is no dark deed to be done there anymore. He attacked Rey, the woman he is in love with, already, however, I would say that, based on his facial expression when he sees her leaving, on Crait, he regrets that decision. My point is, he has already confronted all the people he has personal issues with, and that we as an audience perceive as good. 

The only people I can see him damaging in episode IX are some people from the First Order.

I see potential for redemption in Kylo, it is said that he is conflicted in TLJ.

In the Rebirth plot, the hero has to overcome selfishness - he has to have a dramatic switch, using a new-found love that comes from within (love that can certainly be inspired by someone, but the hero has to overcome himself). 

Here’s an example - Kay from “The Snow Queen” falls under the spell of the Queen by having shards of her mirror stuck into his heart and eye, becomes progressively more cruel, and obsessed with a seemingly impossible task - forming a word out of pieces of a mirror. That is until being found and pitied by the girl who loves him - the shard falls out and love forms in his heart again, and tears take away the mirror shard that made him see the world without emotion. Another example would be Scrooge from “A Christmas Carol” (his story starts at stage 3., although his stage 2. is mentioned (see the stages below; Scrooge had had a loving family as a child, and later a fiancee) - his obsession with money ruins his life as well as the lives of people around him, he becomes cruel. Three spirits visit him on Christmas Eve and show him his mistakes, as well as what his tragic future might be if he continues acting the way he does. Scrooge realizes his mistakes and is a changed man. He goes on and keeps doing good deeds.

Kylo should pass through the following five stages, based on the general outlay of this type of story:

1. Fall under the shadow of Snoke/the dark side of the Force (pre-TFA events)

2. Things may seem to go reasonably well for him (the beginning of TFA)

3. The darkness envelopes him in full force, and he is in the state of living death (I would say that he seems very miserable/”dead inside” throughout TLJ apart from that brief hand-touching moment, and he almost suffered a physical death at the end of TFA - he is still wounded)

4. This state continues for a long time (my assumption is that a certain amount of time will pass between the events of episodes VIII and IX - so, Kylo’s reign)

5. Miraculous redemption - classically, a Child or a Young Woman - read - Rey, play a role here - either the Monstrous hero saves the heroine, or she saves him, and redemption is shown through that act; I expect there to be a biuld-up until this stage, of course, I do not think that a single act will give us a “reborn” Kylo Ren/Ben Solo, but that he will have to meditate on things a bit - there should be a complete change from within.

I hope you liked the meta, as always, I am open for discussion! :)

#avocado meta

Meta based on a book called “The Seven Basic Plots”, C. Booker; Bloomsbury; 

Disclaimer: I do not own anything, I do not own the images, entertainment and educational purposes only

[uacboo]

The English author Kazuo Ishiguro has been named winner of the 2017 Nobel prize in literature, praised by the Swedish Academy for his “novels of great emotional force”, which it said had “uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world”.

With names including Margaret Atwood, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o and Haruki Murakami leading the odds at the bookmakers, Ishiguro was a surprise choice. But his blue-chip literary credentials return the award to more familiar territory after last year’s controversial selection of the singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. The author of novels including The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro’s writing, said the Academy, is “marked by a carefully restrained mode of expression, independent of whatever events are taking place”. Speaking to the BBC, he called the award a “magnificent honour, mainly because it means that I’m in the footsteps of the greatest authors that have lived”.

“The world is in a very uncertain moment and I would hope all the Nobel prizes would be a force for something positive in the world as it is at the moment,” he said. “I’ll be deeply moved if I could in some way be part of some sort of climate this year in contributing to some sort of positive atmosphere at a very uncertain time.”

Ishiguro’s fellow Booker winner Salman Rushdie – who is also regularly named as a potential Nobel laureate – was one of the first to congratulate him. “Many congratulations to my old friend Ish, whose work I’ve loved and admired ever since I first read A Pale View of Hills,” Rushdie told the Guardian. “And he plays the guitar and writes sings too! Roll over Bob Dylan.”

According to the former poet laureate Andrew Motion, “Ishiguro’s imaginative world has the great virtue and value of being simultaneously highly individual and deeply familiar – a world of puzzlement, isolation, watchfulness, threat and wonder”.

“How does he do it?” asked Motion. “Among other means, by resting his stories on founding principles which combine a very fastidious kind of reserve with equally vivid indications of emotional intensity. It’s a remarkable and fascinating combination, and wonderful to see it recognised by the Nobel prize-givers.”

Permanent secretary of the academy Sara Danius described Ishiguro’s writing as a mix of the works of Jane Austen and Franz Kafka, “but you have to add a little bit of Marcel Proust into the mix, and then you stir, but not too much, and then you have his writings.

“He’s a writer of great integrity. He doesn’t look to the side, he’s developed an aesthetic universe all his own,” she said. Danius named her favourite of Ishiguro’s novels as The Buried Giant, but called The Remains of the Day “a true masterpiece [which] starts as a PG Wodehouse novel and ends as something Kafkaesque”.

“He is someone who is very interested in understanding the past, but he is not a Proustian writer, he is not out to redeem the past, he is exploring what you have to forget in order to survive in the first place as an individual or as a society,” she said, adding – in the wake of last year’s uproar – that she hoped the choice would “make the world happy”.

“That’s not for me to judge. We’ve just chosen what we think is an absolutely brilliant novelist,” she said.

Ishiguro’s publisher at Faber & Faber, Stephen Page, said the win was “absolutely extraordinary news”.

“He’s just an absolutely singular writer” said Page, who received news of Ishiguro’s win while waiting for a flight at Dublin airport. “He has an emotional force as well as an intellectual curiosity, that always finds enormous numbers of readers. His work is challenging at times, and stretching, but because of that emotional force, it so often resonates with readers. He’s a literary writer who is very widely read around the world.”

Born in Japan, Ishiguro’s family moved to the UK when he was five. He studied creative writing at the University of East Anglia, going on to publish his first novel, A Pale View of the Hills, in 1982. He has been a full time writer ever since. According to the Academy, the themes of “memory, time and self-delusion” weave through his work, particularly in The Remains of the Day, which won Ishiguro the Booker prize in 1989 and was adapted into a film starring Anthony Hopkins as the “duty-obsessed” butler Stevens.

His more recent novels have taken a turn for the fantastical: Never Let Me Go is set in a dystopic version of England, while The Buried Giant, published two years ago, sees an elderly couple on a road trip through a strange and otherworldly English landscape. “This novel explores, in a moving manner, how memory relates to oblivion, history to the present, and fantasy to reality,” said the Swedish Academy. Apart from his eight books, which include the short story collection Nocturnes, Ishiguro has written scripts for film and television.

Awarded since 1901, the 9m Swedish krona (£832,000) Nobel prize is for the writing of an author who, in the words of Alfred Nobel’s bequest, “shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction”. Ishiguro becomes the 114th winner, following in the footsteps of writers including Seamus Heaney, Toni Morrison, Mo Yan and Pablo Neruda.

The award is judged by the secretive members of the Swedish Academy, who last year plumped for the American musician Dylan “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. He proved an elusive winner and was described as “impolite and arrogant” by academy member Per Wastberg after initially failing to acknowledge the honour.

Some members of the literary community were also less than impressed: “This feels like the lamest Nobel win since they gave it to Obama for not being Bush,” said Hari Kunzru at the time. The choice of a writer who has won awards including the Man Booker prize should pour oil on at least some of the troubled waters ruffled by Dylan’s win, though Will Self reacted to Ishiguro’s win in characteristically lugubrious fashion.

“He’s a fairly good writer,” Self declared, “and surely doesn’t deserve the dread ossification and disregard that garnishes such laurels.”

*Also from The NY Times coverage about this award: Mr. Ishiguro said that he was the only Japanese boy in his neighborhood in England. Almost from the start, he said, “I have always been conscious of not being quite like anyone else.” But, he added: “If I’d grown up in Japan, I doubt I would ever have become a writer.”

Did you know? Ishiguro wrote The Remains of the Day in four weeks. Read about that here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/06/kazuo-ishiguro-the-remains-of-the-day-guardian-book-club

[convndrums]

here the FAWK she ( the semi-finished masterlist of all my characters ) is ! took way too long but hopefully as you proceed to click on the linque below you’ll know why smh but yep ! i’ll be adding their pages on my account when i’m done with them soon i hope and maybe come back with a bunch of connections for each character but for now this is all i got & smash this like or im me for plots i’d love to get on those finally xx

reintroducing amanda wheeler;  intro & info page.

queen of irony. rich post- faux country gal who’s a loud homosexual and writes hetero fics/has an indie het smut for the absolute shits and giggles. dates a married woman she’s utterly in love with and will pull the life support cord for. said to be possessed by a possessed flapper. cute and knows it even though she looks like a republican. socially open & everywhere. morally grey.

reintroducing imogen yates; intro & info page. ( tw violence )

the grey area between your mom friend and your drunk aunt. happily vegan & owns a vegan restaurant called the fork, alt. the vegan cult’s lair. won’t kill you, but will convince you she really wants to. local brat tamer. minds her business via minding others. clashed head-first into nature’s very own reset button: amnesia. used to be satan and traumatized everyone. disgustingly active and accomplishing.

reintroducing ethan holland; intro & info page. ( tw suicide )

he is a sk8r boi, she said see ya later boy ( and meant it. they’re dating now. hey lourdes ! ) a nice person, so nice he doesn’t realize how fake he sounds/is. a certified headass. previously a bully/bully enabler, current guilty fuck. #torn. does the most for his loved ones. doesn’t remember his own birthday. googled foot fetishes once. trolls stan twitter with his fake selena gomez stan account when tumblr crashes. burned a sue of cide note with his name scribbled on it.

reintroducing sebastian miller; intro & info page ( tw violence )

kazimer sokolov whom. russian ex-cult member well-adjusted into a mundane life via lies, a fake canadian accent he’s ‘trying to get rid of’, being a twilight saga aficionado and a dickwad, a lame record store and a tumblr blog to keep himself sane by maintaining a general aesthetic and shitting on people and every discourse out there. knives/books sniffer. allegedly fucked a moose. probably kinkshames as a way to deal with his own “kinks” aka please keep the dead bodies away. ( im kidding i swear but [redacted] )

reintroducing prudence zima; intro & info page ( tw death )

parents died in a fire when she was two months old and it shows. idolizes avril lavigne & her favorite movie is lords of dogtown for aesthetics references. dude. social leech or effortless networker ? both. remains in her lane regardless. cry-types probably. here for a good time, not a long time. steals your stash and smokes you out with it. avid dick connoisseur. minimum effort lifestyle. either on her way to become a manager of some one hit wonder band that finds it’s demise in a freak accident, a drug dealer or god forbid, a guidance counselor; depends. mild cool girl syndrome. 

reintroducing jennifer meade; intro & info page ( tw death, violence and abuse )

bi/pussy muncher and proud misandrist, first and foremost. remembers killing her brother very fondly. the one girl in a room to call when you want to kill a bug and you’re relieved until she kills it with her bare hand. tops. unstable & chaotic evil, respectively. the ginger devil. biased and has her minion whom she invests a great deal of her time in brain washing and obsessing over. supposedly here to make amends but that’s not happening any time soon.

reintroducing margot williams; intro & info page ( tw mental illness )

deserves better. very gay. all her friends are heathens xtra, take it slow. corrects typos in the gc. a nerdy editorial assistant daydreaming about publishing houses instead of the magazine she works for. lowkey shy and she’s angry about it. goes off if she must. jacks off to #knowledge and yuri anime. helps with homework and essays and takes the kids out. deadpan because we’re original but she swears it’s just the face & unresolved trauma. stans her therapist. unofficial older sister.

reintroducing chandler accardi; intro ( re-written ) & info page

needs to do better. dropped out of college for culinary school then dropped out of that too. was engaged to an absolute goddess he ultimately wronged ( with her damn best friend, bitch disgostin* ) and got kicked out to the curb. currently residing in the couch of his sister until things are resolved. thot-by-default & annoying. has like three ( 3 ) redeeming qualities. has never been told to shut up and it shows. works at buzzfeed.

reintroducing abel gautier; intro & info page

french and “confused”. lives a minimalist n’ expensive life. if american psycho & french kiss were the same movie. wine sniffer. the devil bakes croissants. will watch you die. takes grudges to the afterlife. gets attached but either ruins it or ruins it to spare everyone, himself included. falls in love a lot but knows how to calm the fuck down. very giving, fortunately. manipulative but isn’t too wild about bending everything to his will. 

reintroducing simini gale; intro & info page ( tw abuse, violence & mental illness )

token white actress & character in rosie’s show. [ britney vc ] its me.... against dissociation. a loud mess with an intense mental state and anger issues dulled out by her prescribed meds and whatever pill she got in the bottom of her manager’s purse. dependent and distraught about it. grocery shopping for garbage food and attending comedy stand up shows half drunk as a hobby. stable ? where. very nice and super flighty. heels are hot. wishes she could fight someone without feeling the urge to actually fight someone. 

reintroducing calvin o’shea; intro & info page ( tw mental illness )

it’s not just the depression more than the incredible self hatred. walks into rooms with his bad energy, grumpy mood and cunty attitude. graduated college just to shut his dad up. wants to die harder than edward cullen. just doesn’t give a shit. has a baby named freddie mercury ( also known as the antichrist, with alanis, his mortal literal enemy whom he absolutely despises and will not hesitate to put his dick back in again lbr ) who will probably grow up to talk shit about his parents whom he also mentioned in his tell-all book on ellen. works at his family’s bookstore that sucks the life energy out of college students nearing a mental breakdown.

reintroducing isabel pavia; intro & info page ( tw drug use )

contemporary dances her feelings away. too ambitious for her own good but knows what she’s doing. in a goth ass secret society ( here ) a.k.a her new found purpose. knows everything eventually. oddly trustworthy. doesn’t know what speaking loudly is, let alone yelling. loves the moon & has that moon app. had to take painkillers when she twisted her ankle very badly and would take them for a while for stress and performance reasons, but has stopped. a quiet angel. 

reintroducing anastasia zeller; intro & info page

ambitious/multi-talented asshole. horror trash & an emotional/mental maze which translates well into her weird works on no sleep reddit and current horror comedy podcast. ( click here for info ). needs a therapist according to a friend, whom she dropped for saying that. will bite your head off. obsessed with her works to an unhealthy point. would love to establish a company and stuff out of it and is working on that. healthy relationships are a semi-foreign concept.

reintroducing morgan booker; intro & info page ( tw death )

vape-curious and takes photos of ghost towns and abandoned-everythings because #vision. had a roadtrip phase like the fake deep idiot he is. morally grey. genuinely here for a good laugh and spreading joy in the form of hover-friendships and taking lit candids of his friends. knows shit and comes off as a creep sometimes but does he really care. knows your mom’s name. lives in a disused hospital bc he’s marinating on that aesthetic. 

reintroducing bowie harmon; intro & info page ( tw drug use & abuse )

part of a duo in a web series as the anxious n’ cackling mess. showcases her depressión & anxieté by her colorful wigs n’ new hair dyes. painful receptionist at a tattoo parlor. recovering addict who advocates for drug use. thinks tattooing a ruler on someone’s dick one day would be the peak of her accomplishments as a tattoo artist. daily bad decisions. “ it’s complicated. ” when asked about literally any relationship she has with anyone in her life. traumas include her failed singing career. an ex viner-by-association.

reintroducing shaheen bin baz; intro & info page ( tw violence & mental illness )

the physical deception of going through hell in a short amount of time with zero mental durability to begin with during midterms. trigger-anxious. will shoot your toes off your foot if caught off guard. aided in criminal operations with the brilliance of his mind in codes. would not mind dying. seasons your food. waters his crops in his balcony garden. the grey area between a super laidback dude and a crackhead with violent tendencies. nearing a mental breakdown probably. 

reintroducing minka abbott-santos; intro & info page ( tw abuse )

defeats the evil stepmom stereotype one breath at a time. the human embodiment of a deer. gothic angel. alarmingly gets black swan. type to wake up to her staring at you from an armchair across the room, but lovingly, with a book she was reading in hand and two hot cups of tea; she was waiting to start the day with you. spooky until you get to know her and even more spookier when she’s ( note: calmly ) pissed but that’s extremely rare. gentle voice, soul and everything.

reintroducing reuben faulkner; intro & info page ( tw abuse & violence  )

rekt hell prince. lived in an amish community with his family until he got kidnapped away from home when he was seven into an awful living situation. doesn’t remember if the gas leak that happened five years later and killed everyone was his doing or not. knows where his real family is after months of tracking them down but. blood kink under investigation. shady bouncer at a shady club. has issues he has no care or time to diminish. fights for the shits and giggles. leaves texts at read. leaves you alone for your own good and his own sanity. 

reintroducing alexandra turunen;  info page

wants to do everything and be everything and doesn’t know what to do with herself ( read: post-graduation identity crisis ) currently investing in a motorcycle for no reason. essentially jobless. a “retired” kathryn merteuil who “outgrew” her cunning ways since highschool but really only found new socially destructive interests. appears to be self-possessed but she’s #shaken. doesn’t care about how well she presents herself anymore after getting rejected by four universities and refusing to accept her father’s offer to pull some strings to get her in one. sleeps a lot. 

reintroducing giuseppe del vecchio;  info page ( tw death & drug use  )

goes by pepe because well. son of italian oil peeps & is extra. said to be in a cult when all he’s in is this extra ass dining club that does the most for initiation ceremonies. ready to fall in love with you. goes to the king’s college in london and studies business & changes his minor way too often for everyone’s liking. into everything and will be down to do whatever. faux deep. mischievous shit. incredibly unbiased. had his rawrk n’ roll phase that died along with someone in a club literally. still has it but he knows god now & less drugs.

reintroducing kelian scott;  info page ( tw death & drug use  )

a father/father figure who tries™. runs a mechanic shop/chop shop because bad decisions and dire needs ( had his son to send to school and his daughter who passed away due to a disease he couldn’t afford to treat even after turning his shop into a chop shop. his wife then left him ). stares into the distance. wants the best for the kids but one of them is a junkie ( he doesn’t know yet ) and the other -- his niece -- is an orphan he’s worried about. thinks ahead 24/7. needs to pull out of this dull n’ depressing daily routine he has fallen into like the basic ass divorced dad he is. 

reintroducing sal presley;  info page

smexy trace & fingerprint detective. talks. the perfect illusion to bring home to your parents and friends. gets shit done which is both a good thing and a bad thing. looks calm, collected n’ well-rested but isn’t. his actual name is salvatore but no. knows how to mix drinks and more; used to showcase his multi-talented ass to make his ( currently ex ) fiancée look good now just himself. was engaged three times; two of those times with the same person. obsessive; gets into his job a little too intensely for no reason but #justice and maybe something else whom knows. loses sleep at least two nights a week as a habit at this point. has an extended family back home he misses occasionally. wishes he could calm down truly. 

[trendingnewsb]

Kazuo Ishiguro wins the Nobel prize in literature 2017

The British author behind books including Man Booker winner The Remains of the Day takes the award for his novels of great emotional force

The English author Kazuo Ishiguro has been named winner of the 2017 Nobel prize in literature, praised by the Swedish Academy for his novels of great emotional force, which it said had uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.

With names including Margaret Atwood, Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Haruki Murakami leading the odds at the bookmakers, Ishiguro was a surprise choice. But his blue-chip literary credentials return the award to more familiar territory after last years controversial selection of the singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. The author of novels including The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, Ishiguros writing, said the Academy, is marked by a carefully restrained mode of expression, independent of whatever events are taking place.

Speaking on Thursday afternoon, the writer said it was amazing and totally unexpected news.

It comes at a time when the world is uncertain about its values, its leadership and its safety, Ishiguro said. I just hope that my receiving this huge honour will, even in a small way, encourage the forces for goodwill and peace at this time.

Ishiguros fellow Booker winner Salman Rushdie who is also regularly named as a potential Nobel laureate was one of the first to congratulate him. Many congratulations to my old friend Ish, whose work Ive loved and admired ever since I first read A Pale View of Hills, Rushdie said. And he plays the guitar and writes songs too! Roll over Bob Dylan.

According to the former poet laureate Andrew Motion, Ishiguros imaginative world has the great virtue and value of being simultaneously highly individual and deeply familiar a world of puzzlement, isolation, watchfulness, threat and wonder.

How does he do it? asked Motion. Among other means, by resting his stories on founding principles which combine a very fastidious kind of reserve with equally vivid indications of emotional intensity. Its a remarkable and fascinating combination, and wonderful to see it recognised by the Nobel prize-givers.

Ishiguro holds a press conference outside his London home after the win. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

Permanent secretary of the academy Sara Danius spoke to Ishiguro about his win around an hour after the announcement: He was very charming, nice and well-versed, of course. He said he felt very grateful and honoured, and that this is the greatest award you can receive.

She described Ishiguros writing as a mix of the works of Jane Austen and Franz Kafka, but you have to add a little bit of Marcel Proust into the mix, and then you stir, but not too much, and then you have his writings.

Hes a writer of great integrity. He doesnt look to the side, hes developed an aesthetic universe all his own, she said. Danius named her favourite of Ishiguros novels as The Buried Giant, but called The Remains of the Day a true masterpiece [which] starts as a PG Wodehouse novel and ends as something Kafkaesque.

He is someone who is very interested in understanding the past, but he is not a Proustian writer, he is not out to redeem the past, he is exploring what you have to forget in order to survive in the first place as an individual or as a society, she said, adding in the wake of last years uproar that she hoped the choice would make the world happy.

Thats not for me to judge. Weve just chosen what we think is an absolutely brilliant novelist, she said.

Ishiguros publisher at Faber & Faber, Stephen Page, said the win was absolutely extraordinary news.

Hes just an absolutely singular writer said Page, who received news of Ishiguros win while waiting for a flight at Dublin airport. He has an emotional force as well as an intellectual curiosity, that always finds enormous numbers of readers. His work is challenging at times, and stretching, but because of that emotional force, it so often resonates with readers. Hes a literary writer who is very widely read around the world.

Born in Japan, Ishiguros family moved to the UK when he was five. He studied creative writing at the University of East Anglia, going on to publish his first novel, A Pale View of the Hills, in 1982. He has been a full time writer ever since. According to the Academy, the themes of memory, time and self-delusion weave through his work, particularly in The Remains of the Day, which won Ishiguro the Booker prize in 1989 and was adapted into a film starring Anthony Hopkins as the duty-obsessed butler Stevens.

His more recent novels have taken a turn for the fantastical: Never Let Me Go is set in a dystopic version of England, while The Buried Giant, published two years ago, sees an elderly couple on a road trip through a strange and otherworldly English landscape. This novel explores, in a moving manner, how memory relates to oblivion, history to the present, and fantasy to reality, said the Swedish Academy. Apart from his eight books, which include the short story collection Nocturnes, Ishiguro has written scripts for film and television, and revealed on Thursday that he was also working on a graphic novel.

Im always working on a novel, but Im hoping to collaborate on comics – not superheroes, he said. But Im in discussions with people to work on a graphic novel, which excites me because its new for me and it reunited me with my childhood, reading manga.

Awarded since 1901, the 9m Swedish krona (832,000) Nobel prize is for the writing of an author who, in the words of Alfred Nobels bequest, shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction. Ishiguro becomes the 114th winner, following in the footsteps of writers including Seamus Heaney, Toni Morrison, Mo Yan and Pablo Neruda.

The award is judged by the secretive members of the Swedish Academy, who last year plumped for the American musician Dylan for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition. He proved an elusive winner and was described as impolite and arrogant by academy member Per Wastberg after initially failing to acknowledge the honour.

Some members of the literary community were also less than impressed: This feels like the lamest Nobel win since they gave it to Obama for not being Bush, said Hari Kunzru at the time. The choice of a writer who has won awards including the Man Booker prize should pour oil on at least some of the troubled waters ruffled by Dylans win, though Will Self reacted to Ishiguros win in characteristically lugubrious fashion.

Hes a good writer, Self said, and from what Ive witnessed a lovely man, but the singularity of his vision is ill-served by such crushing laurels, while I doubt the award will do little to reestablish the former centrality of the novel to our culture.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2xjMHUs

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2isorcl via Viral News HQ

[shg11]

The British author behind books including Man Booker winner The Remains of the Day takes the award for his novels of great emotional force

The English author Kazuo Ishiguro has been named winner of the 2017 Nobel prize in literature, praised by the Swedish Academy for his novels of great emotional force, which it said had uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.

With names including Margaret Atwood, Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Haruki Murakami leading the odds at the bookmakers, Ishiguro was a surprise choice. But his blue-chip literary credentials return the award to more familiar territory after last years controversial selection of the singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. The author of novels including The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, Ishiguros writing, said the Academy, is marked by a carefully restrained mode of expression, independent of whatever events are taking place.

Speaking on Thursday afternoon, the writer said it was amazing and totally unexpected news.

It comes at a time when the world is uncertain about its values, its leadership and its safety, Ishiguro said. I just hope that my receiving this huge honour will, even in a small way, encourage the forces for goodwill and peace at this time.

Ishiguros fellow Booker winner Salman Rushdie who is also regularly named as a potential Nobel laureate was one of the first to congratulate him. Many congratulations to my old friend Ish, whose work Ive loved and admired ever since I first read A Pale View of Hills, Rushdie said. And he plays the guitar and writes songs too! Roll over Bob Dylan.

According to the former poet laureate Andrew Motion, Ishiguros imaginative world has the great virtue and value of being simultaneously highly individual and deeply familiar a world of puzzlement, isolation, watchfulness, threat and wonder.

How does he do it? asked Motion. Among other means, by resting his stories on founding principles which combine a very fastidious kind of reserve with equally vivid indications of emotional intensity. Its a remarkable and fascinating combination, and wonderful to see it recognised by the Nobel prize-givers.

Ishiguro holds a press conference outside his London home after the win. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

Permanent secretary of the academy Sara Danius spoke to Ishiguro about his win around an hour after the announcement: He was very charming, nice and well-versed, of course. He said he felt very grateful and honoured, and that this is the greatest award you can receive.

She described Ishiguros writing as a mix of the works of Jane Austen and Franz Kafka, but you have to add a little bit of Marcel Proust into the mix, and then you stir, but not too much, and then you have his writings.

Hes a writer of great integrity. He doesnt look to the side, hes developed an aesthetic universe all his own, she said. Danius named her favourite of Ishiguros novels as The Buried Giant, but called The Remains of the Day a true masterpiece [which] starts as a PG Wodehouse novel and ends as something Kafkaesque.

He is someone who is very interested in understanding the past, but he is not a Proustian writer, he is not out to redeem the past, he is exploring what you have to forget in order to survive in the first place as an individual or as a society, she said, adding in the wake of last years uproar that she hoped the choice would make the world happy.

Thats not for me to judge. Weve just chosen what we think is an absolutely brilliant novelist, she said.

Ishiguros publisher at Faber & Faber, Stephen Page, said the win was absolutely extraordinary news.

Hes just an absolutely singular writer said Page, who received news of Ishiguros win while waiting for a flight at Dublin airport. He has an emotional force as well as an intellectual curiosity, that always finds enormous numbers of readers. His work is challenging at times, and stretching, but because of that emotional force, it so often resonates with readers. Hes a literary writer who is very widely read around the world.

Born in Japan, Ishiguros family moved to the UK when he was five. He studied creative writing at the University of East Anglia, going on to publish his first novel, A Pale View of the Hills, in 1982. He has been a full time writer ever since. According to the Academy, the themes of memory, time and self-delusion weave through his work, particularly in The Remains of the Day, which won Ishiguro the Booker prize in 1989 and was adapted into a film starring Anthony Hopkins as the duty-obsessed butler Stevens.

His more recent novels have taken a turn for the fantastical: Never Let Me Go is set in a dystopic version of England, while The Buried Giant, published two years ago, sees an elderly couple on a road trip through a strange and otherworldly English landscape. This novel explores, in a moving manner, how memory relates to oblivion, history to the present, and fantasy to reality, said the Swedish Academy. Apart from his eight books, which include the short story collection Nocturnes, Ishiguro has written scripts for film and television, and revealed on Thursday that he was also working on a graphic novel.

Im always working on a novel, but Im hoping to collaborate on comics - not superheroes, he said. But Im in discussions with people to work on a graphic novel, which excites me because its new for me and it reunited me with my childhood, reading manga.

Awarded since 1901, the 9m Swedish krona (832,000) Nobel prize is for the writing of an author who, in the words of Alfred Nobels bequest, shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction. Ishiguro becomes the 114th winner, following in the footsteps of writers including Seamus Heaney, Toni Morrison, Mo Yan and Pablo Neruda.

The award is judged by the secretive members of the Swedish Academy, who last year plumped for the American musician Dylan for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition. He proved an elusive winner and was described as impolite and arrogant by academy member Per Wastberg after initially failing to acknowledge the honour.

Some members of the literary community were also less than impressed: This feels like the lamest Nobel win since they gave it to Obama for not being Bush, said Hari Kunzru at the time. The choice of a writer who has won awards including the Man Booker prize should pour oil on at least some of the troubled waters ruffled by Dylans win, though Will Self reacted to Ishiguros win in characteristically lugubrious fashion.

Hes a good writer, Self said, and from what Ive witnessed a lovely man, but the singularity of his vision is ill-served by such crushing laurels, while I doubt the award will do little to reestablish the former centrality of the novel to our culture.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/05/kazuo-ishiguro-wins-the-nobel-prize-in-literature

[trendingnewsb]

Kazuo Ishiguro wins the Nobel prize in literature 2017

The British author behind books including Man Booker winner The Remains of the Day takes the award for his novels of great emotional force

The English author Kazuo Ishiguro has been named winner of the 2017 Nobel prize in literature, praised by the Swedish Academy for his novels of great emotional force, which it said had uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.

With names including Margaret Atwood, Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Haruki Murakami leading the odds at the bookmakers, Ishiguro was a surprise choice. But his blue-chip literary credentials return the award to more familiar territory after last years controversial selection of the singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. The author of novels including The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, Ishiguros writing, said the Academy, is marked by a carefully restrained mode of expression, independent of whatever events are taking place.

Speaking on Thursday afternoon, the writer said it was amazing and totally unexpected news.

It comes at a time when the world is uncertain about its values, its leadership and its safety, Ishiguro said. I just hope that my receiving this huge honour will, even in a small way, encourage the forces for goodwill and peace at this time.

Ishiguros fellow Booker winner Salman Rushdie who is also regularly named as a potential Nobel laureate was one of the first to congratulate him. Many congratulations to my old friend Ish, whose work Ive loved and admired ever since I first read A Pale View of Hills, Rushdie said. And he plays the guitar and writes songs too! Roll over Bob Dylan.

According to the former poet laureate Andrew Motion, Ishiguros imaginative world has the great virtue and value of being simultaneously highly individual and deeply familiar a world of puzzlement, isolation, watchfulness, threat and wonder.

How does he do it? asked Motion. Among other means, by resting his stories on founding principles which combine a very fastidious kind of reserve with equally vivid indications of emotional intensity. Its a remarkable and fascinating combination, and wonderful to see it recognised by the Nobel prize-givers.

Ishiguro holds a press conference outside his London home after the win. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

Permanent secretary of the academy Sara Danius spoke to Ishiguro about his win around an hour after the announcement: He was very charming, nice and well-versed, of course. He said he felt very grateful and honoured, and that this is the greatest award you can receive.

She described Ishiguros writing as a mix of the works of Jane Austen and Franz Kafka, but you have to add a little bit of Marcel Proust into the mix, and then you stir, but not too much, and then you have his writings.

Hes a writer of great integrity. He doesnt look to the side, hes developed an aesthetic universe all his own, she said. Danius named her favourite of Ishiguros novels as The Buried Giant, but called The Remains of the Day a true masterpiece [which] starts as a PG Wodehouse novel and ends as something Kafkaesque.

He is someone who is very interested in understanding the past, but he is not a Proustian writer, he is not out to redeem the past, he is exploring what you have to forget in order to survive in the first place as an individual or as a society, she said, adding in the wake of last years uproar that she hoped the choice would make the world happy.

Thats not for me to judge. Weve just chosen what we think is an absolutely brilliant novelist, she said.

Ishiguros publisher at Faber & Faber, Stephen Page, said the win was absolutely extraordinary news.

Hes just an absolutely singular writer said Page, who received news of Ishiguros win while waiting for a flight at Dublin airport. He has an emotional force as well as an intellectual curiosity, that always finds enormous numbers of readers. His work is challenging at times, and stretching, but because of that emotional force, it so often resonates with readers. Hes a literary writer who is very widely read around the world.

Born in Japan, Ishiguros family moved to the UK when he was five. He studied creative writing at the University of East Anglia, going on to publish his first novel, A Pale View of the Hills, in 1982. He has been a full time writer ever since. According to the Academy, the themes of memory, time and self-delusion weave through his work, particularly in The Remains of the Day, which won Ishiguro the Booker prize in 1989 and was adapted into a film starring Anthony Hopkins as the duty-obsessed butler Stevens.

His more recent novels have taken a turn for the fantastical: Never Let Me Go is set in a dystopic version of England, while The Buried Giant, published two years ago, sees an elderly couple on a road trip through a strange and otherworldly English landscape. This novel explores, in a moving manner, how memory relates to oblivion, history to the present, and fantasy to reality, said the Swedish Academy. Apart from his eight books, which include the short story collection Nocturnes, Ishiguro has written scripts for film and television, and revealed on Thursday that he was also working on a graphic novel.

Im always working on a novel, but Im hoping to collaborate on comics – not superheroes, he said. But Im in discussions with people to work on a graphic novel, which excites me because its new for me and it reunited me with my childhood, reading manga.

Awarded since 1901, the 9m Swedish krona (832,000) Nobel prize is for the writing of an author who, in the words of Alfred Nobels bequest, shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction. Ishiguro becomes the 114th winner, following in the footsteps of writers including Seamus Heaney, Toni Morrison, Mo Yan and Pablo Neruda.

The award is judged by the secretive members of the Swedish Academy, who last year plumped for the American musician Dylan for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition. He proved an elusive winner and was described as impolite and arrogant by academy member Per Wastberg after initially failing to acknowledge the honour.

Some members of the literary community were also less than impressed: This feels like the lamest Nobel win since they gave it to Obama for not being Bush, said Hari Kunzru at the time. The choice of a writer who has won awards including the Man Booker prize should pour oil on at least some of the troubled waters ruffled by Dylans win, though Will Self reacted to Ishiguros win in characteristically lugubrious fashion.

Hes a good writer, Self said, and from what Ive witnessed a lovely man, but the singularity of his vision is ill-served by such crushing laurels, while I doubt the award will do little to reestablish the former centrality of the novel to our culture.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2xjMHUs

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2isorcl via Viral News HQ