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leezlelatch · 1 year ago

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Two Star Crossed Lovers

Copia x F!Reader - Forget about this? I hope not! Welcome back. I finally managed to pull up my britches and finish this. This was my first foray into Ghost fanfiction, and not only did it introduce me to a lovely community of writers, but helped me connect with and inspire many of you. I hope this is a worthy finish. And I hope you stick around to see what I do in the future. Thank you. Enjoy.

The wood of your bedroom desk is hard as you rest your chin against it. A sigh escapes your lips known only to aching hearts. You almost kissed Copia. Cardinal Copia. There, so brazenly upon his desk, his biretta on your head. And you think, perhaps, he was going to kiss you too. His utterance to be gentle with his heart echoes through your mind, and you want nothing more than to race back to his office and tell him yes! Yes, you will cradle his heart in the space next to your own because he deserves to be so sweetly and tenderly loved; your silly, beautiful Cardinal.

“What am I supposed to do, Portobello?” You ask your rat companion.

Portobello looks up from his very special pillow resting on the desktop and squeaks in your direction as if the answer is right in front of you. You roll your eyes and rest your cheek on a fist, grabbing a delicate morsel for your favorite boy to nibble on. Portobello rubs his little head against your fingers before snatching the small nut as if it were his first meal in hours, devouring it quickly before huffing in your direction for another.

“You’re right after all,” you say, handing him another. “I can’t just…stay away, and I can’t pretend like nothing happened either.”

Portobello rolls off his pillow to perch before you, standing back on his little legs in a T-Rex pose that makes you giggle. His little hands work to clean off his face, needing to look presentable for the grand speech cooking within his small mind about love, and loss, and birth, and death, and joy, and sorrow. An incredible feat of rodent thinking to get his beloved mother to confess her undying devotion to his father. Here it comes, Portobello Mephistopheles Cosimo Copia is ready.

“Squeak!”

You smile at your baby and scratch his little head. You wonder what it would sound like if rat noises were detectable to the human ear. Either way, there is a level of communication between you that you think is special.

“I know, I know. I already told him that I would come see him today.”

You pick up your phone and click on your most recent text with Copia, smiling softly in amusement:

You glance out the window at the dreary winter day, the tree which stands so proudly outside devoid of life as its branches flutter in the chill. Copia is going on tour soon, you think with a despondent sigh. You need to talk about what happened, you promised him you would, and yet a part of you fears that the heated moment in his office was just that...a moment. Nothing in his text betrays that he is nervous to see you, or is thinking about your almost kiss. You get up and begin to pace, Portobello's little head swiveling left and right as he watches you move.

You know your Copia better than anyone. It's the mantra in your head. You imagine him in his office, picking up his phone and then sitting it back down, the wood of his chair creaking as he fidgets, a hand coming up to run trembling fingers through his hair before falling into his customary nervous tick, forefinger and thumb rubbing anxiously together, the leather of his glove worn and discolored at the tips as he awaits your reply. And then the sigh of relief, the tension leaving his shoulders as he drops his head to the desk surface once you have agreed to lunch.

You stop your pacing to giggle softly, hand to your mouth as you grin around your knuckles. What would it be like? To be Copia's. You do not crave the light, you yearn for the cool, and gentle darkness found in the depths of his eyes. You ache for his embrace, all encompassing, like a blanket of stars across the night sky. His kiss that can snuff out any candle and drive out the hypocrisy of a false God. Darkness is not frightening, or bad...it is a companion. The Dark says you are not lost. You are found. Copia found you.

Resolved, you throw on a sweater and some warm socks, sufficient for walking across the courtyard from the residency to the offices. Portobello is tucked into the neck of your sweater, his head peeking out as you close and lock your door behind you. You live on the third floor in the northwest corner of the building which not only holds the dormitories, but also a recreational facility remodeled on the whim that Papa Emeritus III needed to maintain his "strong physique." But the add-on turned out to be beneficial for everyone not wanting to be caught outside in the Swedish cold.

The kitchens and mess hall are also found within the residency hall, convenient for anyone - Copia and yourself - to sneak out of bed for a midnight snack. But your personal favorite is the library, more specifically, the plush chair in front of the sprawling granite fireplace. The mantle is often decorated with a garland of herbs picked from the gardens to promote a cleansed space for study, thought, and escape into the fantasy realm of books.

The building which houses the clergy offices and classrooms is but a short distance away from the residency hall, their rooves nearly touching. Overall, the grounds form an unfinished rectangle with the church completing the furthest side. The abbey looks like it's falling apart on a good day although it maintains a quaint and reverential charm. Gardens full of vegetables, herbs, and the sweetest flowers pepper the landscape, affording a beautiful and tranquil walk between buildings. The church looms over it all with grotesques of Lucifer and his princes gazing out on the horizon, not the congregation; a reminder of their infernal presence, and deference to free will.

"Off we go, baby boy," you whisper to your rat as you make your way down the mustard runner which stretches down the expanse of the corridor.

The walls haven't been painted in years, and you're almost sure they were white once. A potted plant that is probably fake sits on a chipped console table splattered with pop culture magazines. A couple feet down, a green rotary phone lays off the hook on a wooden desk next to a phone book and a chair that has seen its fair share of booty calls. Slowly, things around the Ministry are improving the more money is made by the Ghost Project, like the recreational facility. Right now, there are just...more important things to attend to first before tackling the quite outdated Sibling dormitories. You find a warmth to the off-70s look, like a home that has been well-lived in, and well-loved.

The trip downstairs is quick, polite hellos not usually required once people see the very large rat poking out of your striped sweater, and you quickly make it to the bottom floor, pushing open the creaking doors to the crisp air outside. It's a little chillier than you anticipate, goosebumps erupting across your skin, the wind whipping through your hair. You hold Portobello a little closer. Your eyes are on the prize, the door to the offices opening and closing as Siblings and Clergy alike walk in and out bundled in coats and scarves. You weave around sleeping hedges and soil thirsty for spring, the fountain which captivated your attention the previous day looking just as chilled as you feel.

"Hej!" A voice calls to you as you pass one of the moving puffy coats.

Spinning around, you shiver, squinting a little as you are slow to recognize the Brother that greets you by name. Sandy hair hidden under a toboggan, grey eyes looking you over behind black framed glasses. Oh, he's from my Latin class, you think down at Portobello, sure your child can read your thoughts. It is your bond.

"Hi. What's up?" It sounds as awkward as you feel saying it. Lucifer, it's cold. Did you make a face? He's looking at you funny.

"Aren't you cold?" He asks, his eyes narrowing in on the lump that is Portobello, now hiding his face into the warmth of your skin.

"I'm good." I'm suffering.

"Okay...well, I was just wondering..."

****

Copia takes a sip of his coffee, a startled “Ai!” jumping from his throat as the scalding liquid coats his lips and mustache. He blots his mouth with a napkin, grumbling about shaving the damnable thing off before staring distastefully down at the brown liquid in his mug, Portobello’s little face printed onto the side of the white porcelain.

“Still hot…” he mutters, pushing back from his chair to move over to the little coffee station he keeps on a small table in the corner.

He has a pot, a couple mugs (although he hasn’t used any except this one you bought for him since), and his favorite dark roast placed next to little packets of hot chocolate he keeps especially for you. Kneeling with a groan, Copia opens the mini fridge under the table to pull out a container of milk, generously pouring it into his coffee. He tests the now pale liquid with a tentative sip, smacking his lips in satisfaction before rising.

Copia slowly steps through his office, patting his belly in a soothing gesture as he walks past the front of his desk, his eyes glancing over the many ledgers which require his attention this morning. He moves close to the window which overlooks the courtyard of the abbey. Frost lingers on the old panes, poor insulation allowing freezing cold air to hit his skin. He shivers a little and takes a sip of his coffee, sighing softly while watching the movement of the unholy congregation as they chat and scurry between buildings.

He holds the cup of coffee with both hands in an attempt to warm them with what little heat the drink has left. Copia hasn't stopped thinking about you, and to be perfectly honest, you are the only thing his mind is able to conjure these days. Every night he lays his weary body into bed, wondering what it would be like to draw you close to him, whispering sweet nothings as you fall asleep in each other's embrace. Perhaps sometimes he wakes from a blissful dream, his arms wrapped around a pillow, to face the painful realization that you are not there with him.

Last night was particularly difficult.

Your almost-kiss. Copia could strangle Terzo for interrupting the very moment he has yearned for since your midnight meeting in the kitchens some months ago. You felt so right in his arms, so entirely his as a blush crossed your cheeks and you smiled at him, that special smile which told him that you were willing to carry the burden of his old heart. Copia touches his fingertips to his lips, closing his eyes as if he can still feel your breath against them. He smiles sweetly, humming with the thought of you.

His eyes snap over to find the clock, and they inadvertently follow a trail from the wall to his desk to his cellphone sitting atop it, the black brick of a thing silent, but carrying your messages from this morning. How Copia agonized over texting you for lunch today, unsure of your response after the previous night. Should he have mentioned it? No, that's a conversation best held face-to-face. Copia wants you to feel safe and comfortable in his presence, and whether or not you choose to pursue a conversation about last night's activities is entirely up to you. He can wait. He will wait. And if you never return his affections, he will be glad to hold even a modicum of your attention.

As his gaze returns to the window, Copia makes a small harumph while taking in the frost on the ground. It’s supposed to be a cold winter, more so than usual, and the annual fight to keep the fireplaces going in these drafty corridors will begin anew. Copia leans a little closer to the window, his breath fogging the glass as he tries to make out a figure below near the fountain. He swipes at the glass with his sleeve, grumbling in annoyance, his eyebrow arching.

“Who in Lucifer’s name isn’t wearing a coat in this weather?” He murmurs to himself, trying to squint. It’s with a sickening drop of his heart into his gut as he realizes it’s you. You turn just enough that he can make out your features as you speak to…who is that? Copia leans so far into the window, his nose smashes into it, the cold shocking him back. Your image is blurred by the outline of his nose, and entirely fed up, Copia opens the window, practically hanging out of it as he peers down at you and the boy with narrowed eyes, his pupil nearly nonexistent in the expanse of white.

The boy stands close to you, too close, head tilted down to speak to you as you gaze up at him with that perfect innocence, that - well, actually you look fairly annoyed. The Cardinal huffs out a laugh as he watches your brow furrow, your feet shifting as you scoot a little farther away. Ah, my precious, The Cardinal thinks. What he does not like, at all, is how you’re shivering. He can practically see how red your sweet nose is from here.

Copia is gone from the window and out of his office door in the span of a few moments once he has gathered his thoughts, has reigned in the raging jealousy burning in his heart and lungs. There were more important things to attend to. That being, dragging his piccolina inside and getting her warm. Oh, you’ll hear it. The last thing he was going to do was let your health be disregarded so. Also, the Cardinal scowls, the boy should know better than to keep you out in the cold for an insipid conversation.

Siblings quickly move out of the way as the Cardinal, red cassock like a slash of blood against a winter’s day, glides through the doors to the courtyard. His eyes are on you like a hawk, his step firm as he approaches you from behind. His lips twist in satisfaction as the boy’s expression drops when his eyes find the advancing Cardinal, even going so far as to take a very big step away from you.

****

You watch with burgeoning fascination as fear flickers across your classmate’s face, and he moves swiftly away from you, throwing out a quick goodbye as he heads toward the residency. You tilt your head to the side, momentarily thrown off, watching his retreating back with barely contained relief.

“Sibling.”

Copia’s voice has you whipping around so fast, you feel Portobello slip down your sweater. Your hands come up to instinctually cup the lump underneath, and you watch Copia’s eyes flicker down to it with amusement before sharpening as they return to your face. You’re wracked with shivers from head to toe, eyes widening at the Cardinal’s rapidly hardening features.

“I believe we had an appointment,” the Cardinal continues, motioning with his head to follow him before he turns and heads back inside, not even looking to see if you’re following. You know better than not to, and make your way after his rapidly retreating figure. The warmth of the office building is a relief to your chilled skin, however your hands begin to burn, red and dry from the cold. You adjust Portobello, returning him to the neck of your sweater, his little feet resting under the lip of your bra. Copia doesn’t stop until he reaches his office, opening the door and gesturing inside with cool politeness as clergy members alike walk back and forth down the corridor.

You enter with trepidation, unsure of what to expect, your eyes falling on his half-filled cup of coffee sitting on the desk next to your Cardinal’s mountains of paperwork. You feel bad that he had to run all the way outside to fetch you, but your brow furrows with mirth when you notice the nose shaped smudge on the window. Was Copia watching you? Your cheeks heat. Was he jealous you were speaking to the guy from your class? Your heart gives a little pitter patter at the thought, and you have to school your features as you turn on your heel to face Copia. He closes his office door behind him, and then his hard expression drops in an instant.

The man is on you in a second, his gloved hands gripping your shoulders as he practically lifts you from the floor to deposit you by the fireplace. “Mio tesoro prezioso, dov'è la tua giacca!?” He frets. Copia falters for a moment, his hands out and fingers wiggling as he looks about the room for something, anything to wrap around your shoulders. With a determined frown, Copia hastily begins to remove his cassock, ripping the fascia off his waist to tangle on the floor in order to reach the buttons.

“Copia, this isn’t necessary,” you try to say, looking slightly alarmed with the ferocity in which he pulls the blood red material from his back to wrap around you.

“What isn’t necessary, amore mio, is your insistence to walk around outside without any coverings! You could freeze. Oh, your povere mani,” he groans, voice cracking as he reaches out to cradle your hands in his own, thumbs trying to work at your red skin to create friction. “What if you get frostbite, eh? What will your Cardinal do then?”

“...I’d imagine you wouldn’t be happy,” you murmur, eyes fixated on your hands.

“Certo.”

Copia pulls off his gloves, the leather looking stretched and wrinkled when not tight against his large, beautiful hands. You admire the dark hair on the backs of them, a small smile flitting over your features that broadens as he slides the gloves onto your own. The leather is so warm, wrapped around your hands like a hug, albeit a loose one that makes the both of you smile. Your eyes meet Copia’s and his expression is soft, freckled cheeks tinted pink as he gazes down at your hands, a slow smile creeping across his lips. He appears almost entranced by the sight of his gloves on you, his own fingers squeezing the material and trying to ensure they are on as tight as possible.

Copia catches your eye and blushes harder, clearing his throat, although he doesn’t let go of your hands. “Why were you outside, huh?” He murmurs, angling you a little closer to the fire. His eyes take in your entire form as if looking for any injuries brought on by the frigid weather. You can’t help but admire him in his black slacks and clergy collar, a sight you’re not very used to seeing. Copia is very rarely not pristinely dressed in his vestments when working, and when he isn’t, he prefers soft lounge clothes. Out of the hundred things you imagined was under his cassock, the black business casual outfit was farthest down the list. Although the hint of suspenders underneath is doing more for you than the fire.

“I was coming to see you, like we planned, but then that guy from my Latin class-,”

“Ah, he is a classmate? What eh…what did he want?” Copia interrupts you, his eyes falling to the crackling flames as his lips twist in displeasure. It makes you smirk, an eyebrow raising as you take in the tense set of his shoulders.

“He was asking me out,” you say as casually as possible.

“Che cosa!?” Copia’s head snaps back to attention so fast you’re worried it’ll fall off his neck, and you even put your hands up in surprise. His eyes are wide, the white nearly narrowing into a slit. This all happens in a matter of a moment before his expression melts, the circles under his eyes deepening as all color drains from his face and his gaze drops to the floor. “Forgive me. I…shouldn’t question what you do in your personal life. That is…eh, not cool.”

“Copia, I’m joking. He asked for class notes. That’s all,” you soothe, fingers coming up to gently touch his cheek. His lips part in a small gasp and his eyes flick to your fingers and then to your face.

“Hmm, not a nice joke,” he says softly, although there’s a small smile playing on his lips.

“No, it isn’t,” you agree.

There’s a beat of a moment between the two of you, your gloved fingers gently sliding across his cheek, rough with age and very warm. You notice a few flyaway hairs and brush them back behind his ear. Copia closes his eyes, blowing out a long breath through his nose. His hands cup yours and bring them to his chest, his fingers squeezing the leather wrapped so lovingly around them.

“We need to talk,” he whispers, his eyes opening, reflecting a heady desperation within the green and white depths. “But I am afraid, topolino.”

“What are you afraid of?” Your voice is equally quiet, your body gravitating closer to his. You reflect on the past several months. From meeting Copia in the Ministry kitchens to saving the rat who chooses this moment to climb from your shirt and settle on your shoulder. Copia chuckles softly, scratching Portobello fondly behind the ears.

“I’m afraid of losing this. I’m afraid of being alone again. I’m afraid of another decade roaming these halls at night like a wraith because I can’t be alone with my thoughts. I’m afraid of being cold again,” Copia sucks in a breath, blinking away the tears that are rapidly filling his eyes. “I’m afraid of losing my love.”

“Hmm,” you let out a small laugh, feeling the burn of tears behind your own eyes. “So all those ‘amores’ were real.” You give him a wobbly smile as he laughs a little, tears finally dropping and sliding down his cheeks.

“Sì, sì. I am not too subtle, eh?”

You take a steadying breath, your fingers gently wiping away his tears which sit on his gloves like rain droplets. “Copia, you could never lose me.” Your voice breaks slightly. “Knowing you has been the most beautiful experience of my life. And I want more of it. I want…,” you trail off, and turn to look at the rat on your shoulder, a smile brightening your features. “What do you say, ‘Bello? Should I kiss your daddy?” You hear Copia make a noise between a gasp and a squeak as Portobello’s little paws come up to clean his face. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

You turn and wrap your arms around Copia’s neck, drawing very close to him. His hands flail at your sides for a moment before settling at your waist, his eyes as wide as dinner plates as he blinks down at you. “What do you say?” You whisper to him, your lips inches apart, breaths intermingling. “Amore?”

Copia smiles. Wide and crooked and radiant. He’s practically shaking in your grasp, and laughs a little incredulously before his eyes flutter closed, long lashes kissing his cheeks. “I say,” he murmurs, accent heavy and deep. “Ti amo cosi tanto.” And then his lips descend on yours.

His hands slide around your back and he crushes you to him, chests flush as he thoroughly kisses you with deep, long strokes of his tongue. He explores your mouth as if he is trying to imprint your taste onto his tongue. Months of pent up frustration breaking in a moment of unbridled passion on a cold winter’s day. Copia whimpers softly into your mouth, and at this point you can’t tell if the tears on your cheeks are his or yours.

You break away with a gasp, but Copia needs you close, unable to truly pull away just yet and cradles you against his body, his hand along your jaw as he presses little kisses to your cheeks, your chin, your neck. Anywhere his wandering lips can reach. He whispers sweet things to you, words you can’t understand but know all the same. Copia smooths your hair from your face and just gazes down at you with complete adoration, his head tilting to kiss your lips softly again - once, twice, a third time.

You giggle softly in a dreamy state that makes him smile that smile again, the one that reaches his paints. “Have something to say, piccolina?” He says softly.

“I’m pretty speechless…”

“That would be a first, hmm?”

He kisses you again as you begin to roll your eyes, and you sigh into the bliss of it all. His thumbs rub circles into your cheeks, his kiss unhurried and lingering. You press a hand to his chest and push lightly, and you pull away with a smacking noise as a confused frown crosses his features.

“I nearly forgot!” You say, smiling up at him. You take a deep breath, the next words from your mouth feeling so easy and so right, and something you should have done a long time ago. “Copia, I love you too.”

Copia’s arms wrap around your waist and he pulls you with him as he brings the both of you to the floor, his arms and legs locking you into a hug. His nose nuzzles at your cheek as he holds you so incredibly close, a boyishness to the older man as he radiates joy and warmth. “Ti amo, ti amo, I love you,” he whispers over and over again into your ear, his mustache tickling you. “You have given me everything. Oh, my world is so bright. Ah, my heart.”

Your fingers slide up his back, and you lean into his embrace, closing your eyes and enjoying the glory of your newfound love. Everything, finally, is going to be okay. Your life is going to be okay…no, it’s going to be more than that. It is going to be glorious. Happy. Full of love. Full of Copia.

There’s a sliding sound and Copia’s paperwork goes crashing to the floor in a small explosion of paper. You both look up, Portobello having at some point during the last few minutes left your shoulder and made his way to Copia’s desk. He sits in the center of the desk, looking innocent as can be.

“We should have another one,” you say, smirking as you look at your outraged Cardinal. He gives you a withering glare. “I’m just saying, he might-...” Copia cuts you off with a kiss.

And you definitely recommend co-parenting a rat.

#the band ghost #the band ghost fanfiction #Cardinal Copia #cardinal copia x female reader #cardinal copia fanfiction #papa emeritus iv #papa emeritus iv fanfic #ghost #ghost bc #copia #papa iv #poorly translated italian #portobello the rat #cardinal copia x reader #copia x reader

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mogwai-movie-house · 2 years ago

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A Film A Year

Going through an old hard drive today I found this almost-completed list from 2015 in which I'd set myself the task of choosing a single film for each year of the preceding hundred. It was interesting to see in what ways my tastes had changed and just how many more films I'd discovered and fallen in love with in the meantime.

Anyways, I thought I'd finish it off and update it to the present: I very much tried to keep it to just one film per year, but the competition some years was just too high so they've had to share joint first places:

1915 A Night In The Show 1916 The Vagabond 1917 Easy Street 1918 A Dog's Life 1919 Sunnyside 1920 One Week 1921 The Kid 1922 Dr Mabuse, The Gambler 1923 Safety Last / Why Worry? 1924 Sherlock Jr / The Last Laugh 1925 The Gold Rush 1926 The General 1927 Sunrise / Seventh Heaven 1928 The Last Command / Steamboat Jr. / The Man Who Laughs / The Passion of Joan of Arc 1929 The Love Parade / Un Chien Andalou / Lucky Star 1930 All Quiet On The Western Front 1931 City Lights/ The Smiling Lieutenant 1932 Horse Feathers / Love Me Tonight 1933 Duck Soup / The Invisible Man 1934 It Happened One Night 1935 The 39 Steps 1936 My Man Godfrey 1937 Nothing Sacred 1938 Adventures Of Robin Hood / Pygmalion 1939 The Cat And The Canary / The Wizard of Oz / The Hunchback of Notre Dame 1940 His Girl Friday / Pinocchio 1941 Citizen Kane / The Maltese Falcon / Dumbo / Sullivan's Travels 1942 Casablanca 1943 Le Corbeau 1944 Arsenic & Old Lace 1945 Les Enfants du Paradis / And Then There Were None 1946 A Matter of Life and Death 1947 Black Narcissus 1948 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre 1949 The Third Man / Kind Hearts & Coronets 1950 Sunset Blvd. / La Ronde 1951 A Streetcar Named Desire 1952 Singin' In The Rain / Le Plaisir 1953 Calamity Jane 1954 Hobson's Choice 1955 The Night Of The Hunter /The Ladykillers 1956 The Searchers 1957 The Seventh Seal 1958 Vertigo 1959 North By Northwest / Ballad of A Soldier 1960 Psycho / The Virgin Spring / Two Women 1961 Breakfast At Tiffanys 1962 Le Doulos 1963 The Great Escape / The Birds 1964 Onibaba 1965 For A Few Dollars More 1966 Blow Up 1967 Le Samourai / Cool Hand Luke 1968 2001: A Space Odyssey 1969 Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid 1970 Le Cercle Rouge 1971 Get Carter / Harold & Maude 1972 The Godfather 1973 Don't Look Now 1974 The Godfather Part II / Chinatown 1975 Jaws / The Rocky Horror Picture Show 1976 Network 1977 Star Wars / Annie Hall 1978 Halloween / Superman 1979 Apocalypse Now / Alien / Life Of Brian / Manhattan 1980 Stardust Memories / Raging Bull 1981 Raiders Of The Lost Ark 1982 Blade Runner / The Thing 1983 The Dead Zone / Zelig 1984 Ghostbusters / The Terminator / Blood Simple 1985 Back To The Future 1986 Hannah & Her Sisters / The Fly 1987 Withnail & I / Wings of Desire 1988 Dangerous Liaisons 1989 Crimes & Misdemeanors / Dead Poets Society 1990 Goodfellas 1991 The Silence of The Lambs / Terminator 2 1992 Reservoir Dogs / The Player 1993 Schindler's List / Groundhog Day 1994 Pulp Fiction 1995 Se7en / Casino / The Usual Suspects 1996 Fargo 1997 LA Confidential / Grosse Point Blank / Boogie Nights 1998 The Truman Show / Happiness / Buffalo '66 1999 American Beauty / Magnolia / Being John Malkovich / Fight Club 2000 Memento 2001 Mulholland Drive / The Royal Tennenbaums / The Piano Teacher 2002 Adaptation / The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers 2003 Lost In Translation 2004 Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind / The Life Aquatic 2005 Me & You & Everyone We Know 2006 The Prestige / Perfume 2007 No Country For Old Men / There Will Be Blood 2008 The Dark Knight / Let The Right One In / Tropic Thunder 2009 Cold Souls / Up / Zombieland 2010 I Saw The Devil / The Ghost Writer 2011 The Hidden Face 2012 The Avengers 2013 Her 2014 The Grand Budapest Hotel / The Winter Soldier 2015 The Survivalist / The Lobster 2016 Like Crazy 2017 Coco 2018 Deadpool 2 2019 The Irishman 2020 Kajillionaire 2021 The French Dispatch 2022 The Banshees of Inisherin

#the real oscars #a century of film

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shade-without-color · 3 years ago

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Hello! For your ama, what draws you in for kirinmaru as a character?

Well hello!!! @lavendertwilight89

Thank you for asking me this interesting question, I think as a character- I was in fact not so impressed by his character in the beginning, being my Inukag ass- I am like DUDE WTF you separate my best girl Moroha from her parents to this ass.

And he did not have much screen time as he should...until we have little nooks of his past like he is bros with Toga, and he is quite an honourable GOAT which gave me that vibe of Lord Shimura from Ghost of Tsushima that he is honourable in behaviour but stuck in his ways, and along with that prophecy with the Shikon no Tama gave that he would be killed by a being that is neither human and demon, and I be like holy shit- this is some good Macbeth shit 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻

They do have some good shit in episode 15 of Trashhime showing a much softer side of Kirinmaru that he loves reading (I am same) and did not want to get into Zero's petty bullshit, and I am like yes I stan this man.

Unfortunaely it is that only crumb, and I am like f**k this, which I am so glad when they really dropped the ball, in the S1 of Trashhime (Mind you that I watch S1 on and off, but stalking on twitter/reddit and tumble is better) when he become impulsive when he be like murdering knvies on a 14 year old 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

I am like WTF

(THIS IS MY FACE THROUGHOUT THIS WHOLE EPISODE), it was so bad that I did a rant to a friend (Mind you a Non Inuyasha fan) that I am like f*** this, and thank god I did because Season 2 was a hot mess and I am not buying that he has a fatherly relationship with Rion 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

So it was that period of time in between the infamous episode 15 and this season finale that actually You go whenever you go actually blossomed to be a soon 13 chapter fic with many many many many conversations with @fawn-eyed-girl about the psyche of Kirinmaru which turned out to be this beast I made.

Now to canon divegerence Kirinmaru (Not the new versions which I made lately, with To Enchanted Lands and Beyond; with Bookshops and friends and now The Winter of Our Discord), so when I have that conversation which Fawnie asked me what is his backstory which propelled him to be a terrible father figure to Riku- that I build on his idea as an ambassador to human worlds though he hid it indifferently, which is a homage to his mythological inspiration of the Kirin that really set into stone of what I do in the story which I think canon writers cannot do LMAO. And yes it snowballed here to this frosty indifferent boy! and TBH I like this more than the bullshit impulsive shit canon gave me.

I think the beauty is that he is so undeveloped, that I can go nuts- and this canon divergence version, I am very inspired by Richard II from Shakespeare Richard II, while the others like To enchanted Lands and beyond, I explore the femme side of him, as I see his expressions being soft and girly LOL (Fangirl simp me likes that), for Bookshops and friends-i channel a lot of me in stressful scenarios (though he is not very extroverted) and now winter, he is just a bitch LOL

Oh my god this become an essay xD In short my boy Kirinmaru deserved better

Thanks Lav for the ask :)

#shade AMA edition #Lav asks #Kirinmaru #kirinmaru yashahime #Please enjoy my long rant over this boi

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butterflies-dragons · 4 years ago

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Hey! There was a giant lemon cake with phallic image in alayne chapter. Do you think it some coincidence or it means something? Especially it's presented by petyr. Also Sansa and her enemies giving her lemoncakes give same vibes as Hansel&gretel story.

And best of all, Lord Nestor’s cooks prepared a splendid subtlety, a lemon cake in the shape of the Giant’s Lance, twelve feet tall and adorned with an Eyrie made of sugar.

For me, Alayne thought, as they wheeled it out. Sweetrobin loved lemon cakes too, but only after she told him that they were her favorites. The cake had required every lemon in the Vale, but Petyr had promised that he would send to Dorne for more.

—The Winds of Winter - Alayne I

Petyr Baelish is grooming Sansa, that’s the awful truth. And he has studied Sansa, he knows what she likes/wants and he will use that knowledge in his favor.

He knows she had a distant relationship with Ned, so he becomes Alayne’s father.

He knows that Ned neglected her and that she always craved for her father’s validation, so he gives her that, he praised her wits for example, and called her clever and smart.

If Sansa says something like “I can’t” or “I don’t know”, he is there to encourage and support and tell her “you can do it” & “you know it”.

He knows she loves knights and tourneys, so he allows her to organize a tournament, whose winners will belong to a kind of “Kingsguard” for Sweetrobin, based on the child’s favorite hero of the legends: The Winged Knight, Ser Artys Arryn.

He knows she loves lemon cakes, so he gives her a giant lemon cake.

The Tyrells has used the same strategy:

"Sansa," Lady Alerie broke in, "you must be very hungry. Shall we have a bite of boar together, and some lemon cakes?"

"Lemon cakes are my favorite," Sansa admitted.

"So we have been told," declared Lady Olenna, who obviously had no intention of being hushed. "That Varys creature seemed to think we should be grateful for the information. I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off. Alerie, will you have them bring the food, or do you mean to starve me to death? Here, Sansa, sit here next to me, I'm much less boring than these others. I hope that you're fond of fools."

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa I

We all know how much Sansa loves her lemon cakes, but the Tyrells and Littlefinger really treat her as if she were a child like Sweetrobin:

"Will they be lemon cakes?" Lord Robert loved lemon cakes, perhaps because Alayne did.

"Lemony lemony lemon cakes," she assured him, "and you can have as many as you like."

"A hundred?" he wanted to know. "Could I have a hundred?"

"If it please you." She sat on the bed and smoothed his long, fine hair. He does have pretty hair. Lady Lysa had brushed it herself every night, and cut it when it wanted cutting. After she had fallen Robert had suffered terrible shaking fits whenever anyone came near him with a blade, so Petyr had commanded that his hair be allowed to grow. Alayne wound a lock around her finger, and said, "Now, will you get out of bed and let us dress you?"

"I want a hundred lemon cakes and five tales!"

I'd like to give you a hundred spankings and five slaps. You would not dare behave like this if Petyr were here. The little lord had a good healthy fear of his stepfather. Alayne forced a smile. "As my lord desires. But nothing till you're washed and dressed and on your way. Come, before the morning's gone." She took him firmly by the hand, and drew him out of bed.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

The lemon cake in the shape of the Giant’s Lance

The Giant's Lance is the tallest peak of the Mountains of the Moon within the Vale of Arryn, extending three and a half miles above the the valley below.

The great-grandfather of Petyr Baelish was a Braavosi sellsword that came into the Vale of Arryn at the service of Lord Corbray. His line was continued by his son, who became a hedge knight and took the head of the Titan of Braavos as his sigil.

As I mentioned in this post, a sword, Ice in particular, works as a phallic symbol in Sansa’s chapters.

So, we can also make this association:

The Titan of Braavos = A Giant

The Giant’s Lance = Tallest Peak

Lance & Peak = phallic symbols

Lemon cake in the shape of the Giant’s Lance = I don’t want to write it

We can also say that Petyr Baelish is “compensating” his “shortfalls”, after all he is a short man called Littlefinger.

Yes, I think this giant lemon cake could be seen as a phallic symbol and it makes sense with Littlefinger grooming her... yikes

¡¡¡SOMEONE SAVE HER PLEASE!!!

My friend @lostlittlesatellites has already wrote about these subjects, giant lemon cake as phallic symbol and Hansel and Gretel story:

I argued that lemon cakes in Sansa’s arc actually spell people trying to exploit Sansa’s weakness in an almost Hansel & Gretel way and a betrayal that follows.

“Interestingly Sansa’s first chapter in AGOT poses questions that will drive majority of her arc. Her desire for a courtly life in the South will not only prove to be hollow but worse a dream that turns into nightmare. Sansa asks two questions: “What could you want to see? It’s just fields and farms and holdfasts” and “Why would you want to ride a smelly old horse and get all sore and sweaty when you could recline on feather pillows and eat cakes with the queen?”

The world is larger than Sansa has been taught to believe, reclining more inward into her dreams with the strict regime that she taught to look away from the window. She doesn’t think she is prepared enough and that she needs more training. Yes, she doesn’t know enough but neither does Arya or Bran or Jon. Having Sansa finally leave her cage after completing her tutelage under Littlefinger is continuing that student-teacher dynamic she has had since Septa Mordane. People come to love the security of the cage they live in too long. This is why it takes so long to take out the fear of the outside from Sansa because the fact that she has barely any experience keeps her thinking she needs someone to rely on.

[…]

The “Feather pillows and cakes with the queen” part represents the glamour that attracts little boys and girls like Sansa. However, it is hollow as Sansa comes to realise about many things. In fact, people offering Sansa lemon cakes in Sansa’s storyline often forebodes a betrayal from the person offering it. Cersei offers her lemon cakes and a few chapters later she has Lady executed and even later, she has Ned arrested. Olenna offers Sansa lemon cakes, which Varys offers as valuable information to bring her guard down in order to lure her into her trap of marrying her to Wilas and getting hold of Winterfell and the North. They have her wear the murder weapon, which could implicate her for Joffrey’s murder even if their target is Tyrion. Littlefinger is offering her a 12 foot phallic shaped lemon cake in Sansa’s TWOW chapter. Given how happy Sansa is in this chapter that she is almost forgetting that she isn’t Alayne, the food is way too lavish when Winter is coming and along with this trend with lemon cakes, the clock is going to strike 12 and the illusion is going to break very soon. Soon Sansa will prefer riding those “smelly horses” and getting sweaty and sore in order to escape over those lemon cakes and feather beds offered by untrustworthy people. For Sansa’s arc to be fulfilling she has to experience the lives of small folk up close before she helps them. As a character whose view range is often myopic, she has to be put in the middle of the lives of the small folk to truly understand them.”

I highly recommend you to check @lostlittlesatellites blog, she’s a great ASOIAF meta writer, you can read more about these subjects here and here. She covered a lot of themes and symbolisms around Sansa in the Vale, some of them very disturbing regarding Littlefinger’s present and future actions against Sansa...

But despite all that, since GRRM is a writer that likes to give different meanings to a same thing, there are also some very interesting details that are worthy to mention about the real Giant’s Lance:

So lovely. The snow-clad summit of the Giant's Lance loomed above her, an immensity of stone and ice that dwarfed the castle perched upon its shoulder. Icicles twenty feet long draped the lip of the precipice where Alyssa's Tears fell in summer. A falcon soared above the frozen waterfall, blue wings spread wide against the morning sky. Would that I had wings as well.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne I

The Winged Knight was Ser Artys Arryn. Legend said that he had driven the First Men from the Vale and flown to the top of the Giant's Lance on a huge falcon to slay the Griffin King.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

I can see strong dragon imagery here...

I already wrote about how Sansa wishing falcon wings could be foreshadowing of her getting dragon wings.

Here I also listed all the similarities between Jon and Sweetrobin.

But the most interesting detail is that the real Giant’s Lance is Stone covered by Ice/Snow.

Sansa’s Vale arc has a lot of connections with Jon Snow, like this parallel that I called “Children of the Mountains”.

There is also the names of the waycastles Stone (Alayne) and Snow (Jon).

And one of my favorite Jon Snow reference in Sansa’s chapters, the ghost wolf, big as mountains:

All around was empty air and sky, the ground falling away sharply to either side. There was ice underfoot, and broken stones just waiting to turn an ankle, and the wind was howling fiercely. It sounds like a wolf, thought Sansa. A ghost wolf, big as mountains.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

So,

The Giant’s Lance is the tallest peak of the Mountains of the Moon.

The Giant’s Lance is Stone covered by Ice/Snow.

Sansa compared those mountains with a giant Ghost Wolf.

I’m sorry Littlefinger, you can’t touch this girl!

Thanks for your message.

#anon ask #jonsa #alayne stone #lemon cakes

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forgottenlivesobverse · 4 years ago

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Q&A with Paul Driscoll

Paul Driscoll is a writer, editor and publisher based in Leigh, Greater Manchester. He has been a Doctor Who fan ever since his parents took him to see the stage play The Seven Keys to Doomsday. He is the co-founder of Altrix Books, whose publications include his novel The Chronosmith Chronicles: After Vincent and the Doctor Who essay collection Army of Ghosts. Having written two books for Obverse Books’ Black Archive range, in 2020 he joined the editorial team. Paul’s work has also featured in various charity anthologies including You on Target (Watching Books), Whoblique Strategies (Chinbeard), The Unofficial 1987 Doctor Who Annual (Terraqueous Distributors), and The Curse of Fanfic (Obverse Books).

His story, ‘Doctor Crocus and the Pages of Fear’, stars the George Gallaccio Doctor, and it starts like this:

‘“Jack, it’s about to start, lad!”

‘Barney Forrester smiled as, with typical heavy-footedness and nearly tripping over his dressing gown cord in the process, his thirteen-year-old son Jack came bounding down the stairs to join his parents in the living room.

‘“Honestly,” laughed Barney’s wife, Mabel, who was furiously knitting a winter bedspread under a wobbly side lamp in the corner of the spacious room. “I don’t know why you watch that drivel.”’

FL: What attracted you to this project?

PD: The Brain of Morbius is one of my earliest Doctor Who memories. The six-year-old me wanted to know about the adventures of these other Doctors (it never once occurred to me that they could have been the faces of Morbius) and I even looked in the local library for them. I was fascinated by regeneration, having already seen two Doctors – Pertwee, of course, and Trevor Martin in the stage-play The Seven Keys to Doomsday. The chance to not only read, but to also write about one of them fulfils a 44-year-old ambition. I was so disappointed to learn they were never shown on TV.

FL: Each story in the book features a different incarnation of the Doctor. Tell us about yours.

PD: This Doctor is a showman with theatrical panache and a love of paradox and chaos. He styles himself as a magician and likes to make an impression. He is cheerful and optimistic by default. Scratch beneath the surface, though, and you will be left with the distinct impression that this is a man who has witnessed the most awful things. Wilfully unconventional, he thrives in places where censorship and conservatism are the order of the day. For that’s when he can best work his magic.

FL: These Doctors only exist in a couple of photos. How did you approach the characterisation of your incarnation?

PD: It started with a smile. That cheeky smile in the still of George Gallaccio set me on a path to imagining this incarnation as something of a trickster who likes to entertain only to pull the rug from under his unsuspecting victims’ feet. I decided to give him a pseudonym that he would use in a deliberately ironic way. Crocus was a slang Victorian term for a quack healer, a miracle worker suspected of being a con artist. Early on, before I started writing, I also wanted a catchphrase that reflected the fact that he styled himself as a Victorian gentleman (based on the costume Gallaccio was wearing), hence ‘dash my buttons’. That, and his rather unusual companion, helped to give me a voice for the character. Once I had established those basics, I was ready to put him into action.

FL: What's your story about?

PD: London schoolboy Jack Forrester is a comic book collector who strikes up a friendship with a mysterious new kid in town, Varne. When Jack’s father Barney, the local beat officer, arrests his comics supplier, Varne offers an alternative – pristine Penny Dreadfuls straight from the last century. The Doctor, stranded in the North London suburb, soon becomes embroiled in the censorship war and a frantic search for a missing child. But is history repeating itself?

FL: The stories are intended to represent a 'prehistory' of Doctor Who before 1963. How did that affect your approach?

PD: I wanted to make this the Gallaccio Doctor’s debut adventure, hence I set it around the time in which it might have been broadcast. From the mid-fifties there were a number of prominent campaigns to ban the sale of comics and graphic novels (mostly those imported from the USA). Although barely any prosecutions were made, the Harmful Publications Bill (Children and Young Persons) of 1955 sought to protect young people from any fiction that was believed to glorify violence and encourage criminality. The Doctor would have hated such a move!

I also re-watched a number of classic 1950s-early 60s UK television shows, including Quatermass II and Dixon of Dock Green. The former became a template for a fictional show in my story (you might recognise the words used by the announcer) and the latter is name-checked. Dixon of Dock Green is sometimes unfairly regarded as a poor representation of policing at the time (compared to say Z-Cars), but I’ve played on that tension between myth and reality in my characterisation of the police.

One of the challenges was in trying to show how Doctor Who even then might be ahead of its time, while at the same time making it something that could feasibly have got through the censors. If I was to rewrite it as if first broadcast today, I might, for instance, have reversed the roles of policeman Barney and his stay-at-home long-suffering wife Mabel.

FL: Who would be your ideal casting for a pre-Hartnell Doctor?

PD: George Cole. The kids would have loved him and he’d have played the Doctor as a rule-breaker with no heirs and graces – a true working-class hero – or Lionel Jeffries for a more eccentric take on the character.

FL: What's your next project?

PD: I’m currently on the home stretch of The Holy Hotel, my entry into Christopher Stone’s parody series Professor Howe. I’m writing Howe as Miranda Hart in what is effectively my take on The God Complex. Under the Altrix Books imprint, I’m currently editing a sequel to Master Pieces amongst other projects, and for Obverse I’ve just finished my first book as a Black Archive editor and work in progressing on my third contribution to the range – Vincent and the Doctor.

#paul hanley #forgotten lives #obverse books #fanthology #george gallaccio #the gallaccio doctor #morbius doctors #the brain of morbius #doctor who #dr who #doctorwho #drwho

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js116 · 3 years ago

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Silent Planet’s Everything Was Sound

22 May 2021

A wee bit of background before we get to the main event:

Silent Planet is an American post-rock metalcore band from California headed by retired psychologist/therapist Garrett Russell, and Everything Was Sound is their second studio album. Released in 2016, this concept album did nothing short of blow my mind; the total runtime is 41 minutes, but it took me a couple hours to write out everything I picked up from each song.

Everything Was Sound has thirteen tracks, standard, so that is the album I listened to for this review! For the purpose of sticking with the album’s story concept, I’ll be adding my standout lyric quotes with the description of the song, rather than sticking them at the end.

- I want to post a warning before I get into this album: this one covers topics some may view as disturbing. There are mentions of death, suicide, war, several mental disorders including depression and eating disorders), politics, and generally dark themes. This is where you should stop reading if any of these will bother you. -

The concept for this album revolves around the idea of the “panopticon,” which describes a circular prison surrounding a central guard tower. There are bright lights shining down from the tower so that the prisoners cannot see into the tower, where they are told there are guards watching them constantly. The prisoners are isolated from the guards and each other, being unable to see into the tower or other cells due to the walls and the lights. This setup removes the autonomy of the prisoners, and the paranoia that the guards are constantly watching (whether there are truly guards in the tower or not) removes the will to try to escape or act out.

This concept is introduced in the first track of the album, Inherit the Earth. This first song begins by referencing the events of the previous album’s last track (Depths II from album The Night God Slept, in which the viewer has a vivid vision in the forest before falling asleep) as having happened only a few hours before, and now the viewer is waking up in the woods to find it is starting to rain. The viewer (us) stumbles through the rain and the forest under they find a structure: the panopticon. They enter the prison to escape the weather, and so we are pulled into the story of the album -- a metaphor for the human condition.

“We inherit the earth, we inherit the war / I inhabit the wound, I dwell in the harm / Oh how far we fall: We’re casualties of time / Oh how far we fall: Forgive existence.”

The second track, Psychescape, (and each subsequent song, except the last one) introduces us to the contents of one of the cells: Schizophrenia. The theme of this song is paranoia and delusion, and the tower’s lights and watching guards are revealed to us; there are two distinct, conflicting voices.

“I waited on the tracks of reason / But my train of thought never came / It never came.”

“Scrawled across the walls the suffering saint cries out: / ‘Is it madness to retreat from the myopic gaze that holds us captive?’”

Dying In Circles, the third track and second cell, holds the prisoner Organized Religion. Heavily rooted in Biblical principles, I was surprised to find this track used those principles to highlight and call out the hypocrisy of the modern church; the gatekeeping, neglect of those in need, the isolation of outsiders. Silent Planet calls on systematic religion (particularly modern Christianity) to return to its original purpose: to care for others, rather than turn them away or determine their worth as an organization. They are charged with trading their religious superiority for the awe and compassion for humanity they once had; to return to being a religion about the life of God, rather than being solely about his death. I really do love the idea of the “Image of God” being represented by a homeless person sleeping on church steps.

“Beside the shadow of a frozen chapel / Under the marriage of cross and crown / Outside the privilege of the ‘chosen ones’ / The Image of God is sleeping on the ground.”

“We are the eulogy at the funeral of God.”

“Trade your certainty for awe.”

The fourth track took me for a spin, personally, as I’ve encountered the prisoner described here myself. Understanding Love as Loss opens with a few brief lyrics outlining the suicides of writers Sylvia Plath (“Searching for solace in a toxic temple--” death by toxic inhalation), Earnest Hemingway (“Fragments of lead climbing through your head--” death by shotgun to the skull), Virginia Woolf (“Stones load your coat as you wade through the winter current / Dancing with the dead on the riverbed--” death by drowning), and David Foster Wallace (“Wanton hanging of the wise pale king.” death by hanging).

The line immediately following the deaths of these writers stuck out to me, as a fellow writer who has struggled with depression: “And I see myself.”

The title of the song explains that love is sacrifice; you lose a piece of yourself when you love someone else. Lose that piece, Silent Planet urges in this song; lose that piece to another person instead of losing yourself to your suffering.

Lead vocalist Garrett Russell: “[Sometimes with depression,] the world feels like there’s no color. Even if you can’t see the color, be bold enough to ask someone to describe the colors of the world to you.”

This song was my favorite this far into the album, for its bare, unflinching honesty on the subject. The footnotes for this song in the album booklet include the number for the National Suicide Hotline. I respect that.

The fifth track, Tout Comprendre, draws its title from the first half of a French quote, and translates loosely to “To Understand All.” This song is an interlude, meaning it does not contain any lyrics, and it is the first of two interludes on the set.

Immediately following Tout Comprendre comes Panic Room, a track that tells the story of a veteran who has come home, but is mentally haunted by the war. The lyrics take us to bloody battlefields in desert sands, and lay out the plague of terror-memories. Panic Room’s prisoner is PTSD, and it delves into the American treatment of returned veterans and their struggles with armed-conflict trauma.

“Praise me for my valor, lay me in a crimson tower / Justify my endless terror as my ‘finest hour’ / Treat me as a token to deceive the child / Whom we fatten for this scapegoat slaughter / I learned to fight, I learned to kill, I learned to steal / I learned that none of this is real, none of this is real / None of this is real, NONE OF THIS IS REAL”

Just after this verse, there is a brief, almost total silence, before the song resumes. There are several breaks like this in the music; periods of calm between the intense music.

We move on to the fifth cell and seventh track, REDIVIDER. This song threw me off at first; I thought the words were being reused and rearranged before I realized the song is a palindrome. About halfway through, the lyrics flip to mirror the first half of the song.

“Death ran away then life flooded in world / This I am: Imbalance, beautifully so / Hands connected, perhaps… / Then dead reflections saw you / I did, didn’t I? / I didn’t, did I? / You saw reflections dead then / Perhaps, connected hands… / So beautifully imbalance: Am I this world? / In flooded life then away ran Death.”

The fifth prisoner is Bipolar Disorder.

Nervosa is the name of the eighth track; this one disturbed me the most out of all of them. My first impression of this song was, if you’ll excuse my Irish here, “Holy sh*t.” None of the imagery prior to this song was nearly as vivid and disturbing as it was here. The clean vocals (singing instead of metal-screaming) are very well done, capturing the desperation of the situation in a very raw way, which is fitting for the theme of the song -- this cell’s prisoner is the deadliest of psychiatric disorders, bulimia nervosa. The entirety of the lyrics are well-written (although, again, vividly disturbing), so I chose the most poignant of them.

“I am not my own reflection / I am not myself, I am not myself / I am haunted by a non-existent lover / The spectre, the ghost, the self-starving host / I am haunted by a non-existent lover / I was gifted with the vision but cursed to be the witness.”

This song, too, contains links to help services for eating disorders in the footnotes of the album booklet.

We come now to the second interlude, C’est Tout Pardonner, titled after the second half of the French quote, the entirety of which translates to “To understand all is to forgive all.” The prisoner held in the two of these is ignorance.

Just as C’est is the second, contrasting half of Tout, which was followed by war-themed Panic Room, so Orphan, the second, contrasting half of Panic Room, follows C’est.

Orphan relays the perspective of orphans of war, the prisoners of this track. Particularly focusing on crimes against peaceful civilians (especially in the Middle East), Orphan also describes the reunion of two brothers on opposite sides of war.

“I’m finding the violence -- it looks like me.”

“Terrified little son, encumbered by your sword / You can hide your fear, but won’t shed the weight of your humanity -- Humanity / You can face me toward the mountains / Where I meet our mother’s gaze / Too blinded by this hatred / To recognize your brother’s face.”

The eleventh track, No Place to Breathe, was both ahead of its time and should not have had to be written in the first place. The prisoner in this eighth cell is fascism, specifically within enforcers of the law. It dives into how easy it is to turn a blind eye to issues like systematic racism, police brutality, and inherent injustice, if these things do not affect us personally. There are three murder victims, (Eric Garner [2014], Hernan Jaramillo [2013], and Kelly Thomas [2011]) all killed by police, whose last recorded words are attributed in the song: “I can’t breathe.”

Does that sound familiar from more recent news? This album was released in 2016, to give some perspective on how things have changed.

“We shout at fascists, hands fixed on asphyxiating those in need / Place your hands to the pulse of this city / Keep your ear to the ground / Hear him gasp, / ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.’”

The ninth and final cell is explored in the twelfth track, First Father (which is the partner of a song called First Mother from their previous album). The final prisoner is the grief over losing a loved one. Switching between a rushing, loud tempo and a low-toned quiet of guitars and vocals, the song captures the process of moving forward through personal loss.

“‘You pulled me through time,’ through the edgeless night / I’ll learn to love as you learned to die / I’ll begin to feel again and finish the chapter you couldn’t write / Candles in the dark, defiant to the night / Defiant to the shadow / You pull me through time, through the edgeless night / I learned to love as you learned to die.”

With the thirteenth and final song, we’ve literally come full circle and are finally at the prison’s central tower, where we discover we are the guard watching the prisoners. Titled after a line from the first track’s lyrics (”We inherit the earth[...] We inhabit the wound”), Inhabit the Wound tears down the guard tower, freeing the prisoners from the confines of their situation or disorder. Each of the nine prisoners reaches into themselves and retrieves a seed, which is planted in the place of the tower. The album closes with this image:

“The earth, with a final gasp, shook free from our inventions. Grace and nature reconciled as I heard ‘it is finished.’ The final seal was broken, the concussion blew me back -- I teetered on the edge of re-creation and the wrath. The nine lovers stumbled out of their shells of brokenness, they reached inside their wounds to find the seeds borne from their suffering. Coalesce upon me to plant the tree of life inside the heart of the machine. Reach inside -- heal the wound -- make us whole.”

I found this album to be an absolute masterpiece, and metal isn’t usually a preferred genre of mine. I’ve got to give this one five out of five symbolic and vivid frogs. Well done, Silent Planet, both in composition and in raising awareness about different types of struggle.

Next week I’ll be reviewing an album that was recommended to me, and that was released today: Twenty One Pilots’ Scaled and Icy.

Thanks for listening with me!

#silent planet #everything was sound #metalcore #post-rock #concept album #album review #5/5 frogs

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strangehoot · 4 years ago

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New Post has been published on Strange Hoot - How To’s, Reviews, Comparisons, Top 10s, & Tech Guide

New Post has been published on https://strangehoot.com/how-to-watch-marvels-movies-in-order/

How to Watch Marvel's Movies in Order

Marvel Studio is a famous American film producing company specialized in directing and producing movies of superheros. It’s parent company, Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) produces web and TV series, comic books and short films. All over the world, people are Marvel fans and crazy to watch each production of Marvel.

Marvel has copyrights of the main superhero characters and every movie the character remains with unique characteristics in terms of their power and weapons. Marvel’s Universe is out of imagination.

Marvel studio movies receive an average of 64 nominations and awards per movie.

Most of the climatic battles that are seen in the Marvel studio movies among superheroes and villains rely heavily on computer generated effects. As we all know, each movie that Marvel studio makes has a signature shot of a cameo appearance of the late Stan Lee (the writer of many original comics). The first movie released by them was in 2008 but it all began in 1941. Most of the Marvel studio movies can be found online on streaming services like Amazon, iTunes and Disney+.

Characters of Marvel Movies

The following table gives you an overview of some characters of Marvel, their powers and weapons.

CharacterHow they got powersWeaponsCaptain AmericaThe Super Soldier Serum was injectedVibranium shieldMoon KnightThe ancient Egyptian Moon God, Khonshu and got the Werewolf scratchCrescent darts, truncheon, ankhLoki He got the power from his mother’s teachings and learnt wizardry.His magic sword, LaevateinHulk Gamma radiationHis Huge Body is enoughSpider Man Radioactive spider bite himWeb-shootersDaredevil Radioactive isotopeManrikigusariBlack PantherHad the juices of the heart-shaped herb and Wakandan God blessed him with strengthEnergy dagger, anti-metal clawsCaptain Marvel Accidental Photon Energy bestowed upon herNega BandsUltron Dr. Henry Pym created himRepulsor, plasma weaponsGhost RiderZarathos His Hellfire ChainJessica JonesRadioactive chemicals after she caught with car accident and went in comaHer talentWolverineMutant-bornAdamantium claws, daggers, katana, gunsBlack BoltInhuman-bornHis speech and strengthSpider WomanMother hit by a radiation beam during pregnancyHer powersSilver SurferCosmic Power by Galactus.His boardDoctor StrangeStudied and trained with the Ancient One.Cloak of Levitation, Eye of Agamotto, Orb of Agamotto etc.Beast Mutant-bornRazor-sharp clawsNick Fury ArmyUSP pistol, SHIELD weaponsVenom Sensory perception and talent to reproduce itselfWeb ShootersDeadpoolMysterious serum to cure his cancerGuns, grenades, knives, katanasStorm Earth’s electromagnetic fieldHandguns, firearms, knivesIron Man Armour suite and technologyRepulsor rays, uni-beam projector, lasersThanosDeath, an abstract entityStasis Rifle, Infinity GauntletThor Technological PowerWarhammer MjolnirAnt ManThe Pym Particles created by himself and experimentation on himselfStinger firearmMagnetoMutant-bornHelmet, powersDoctor DoomMagical power blessed by his mother, Roma His powersThe MandarinReceived 10 Rings from alien technology10 Rings of PowerThe Winter SoldierSuper soldier serum as a sourceSnipers, riflesStar-Lord Planet Ego’s EnergyElement Gun

Marvel Movies Release Order

The table below lists the movies already released. Phase 3 is completed. A list of movies for Phase 4 is ready. Please visit https://www.cinemablend.com/new/upcoming-marvel-movies-release-dates-for-phase-4-and-5-67944.html

Phase IIron Man (2008)The Incredible Hulk (2008)Iron Man 2 (2010)Thor (2011)Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)The Avengers (2012)Thor 2 (2013)Phase IIIron Man 3 (2013)Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)Ant-Man (2015)Phase IIICaptain America: Civil War (2016)Doctor Strange (2016)Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. II (2017)Spiderman: Homecoming (2017)Thor: Ragnarok (2017)Black Panther (2018)Avengers: Infinity War (2018)Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)Captain Marvel (2019)Avengers: Endgame (2019)Spiderman: Far From Home (2019)

Watch Marvel Movies in Sequence to Get All of it

Below is the sequence in which you need to watch the moveis if you are new to the Marvel world and get the understanding of the superheroes and their role in each movie.

1. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

In the first avenger which is most logical to watch first, Captain America is introduced through flashback as well as connecting the film to the major antagonist threat.

2. Captain Marvel (2019)

Captain Marvel can be viewed in various aspects but if we are striving to timeline continuity it makes sense to watch next where we are introduced to the most powerful superhero in the MCU and this film could exist entirely on its own outside the marvel timeline also a way to introduce important characters for later. It has been taken from endgame so it expects you to know who all the characters are.

3. Iron Man (2008)

Iron man introduces us to Tony Stark, his origin and idea of avengers initiative. This film has as well begun post credit scenes tradition.

4. Iron Man 2 (2010)

Iron man 2 introduction to another important character. This movie lays the groundwork for events and also introduces us to Black Widow.

5. The Incredible Hulk (2008)

The Incredible Hulk can be skipped.

6. Thor (2011)

Thor, first foray into cosmic elements of marvel introduces us to one of the original six The Norse God of Thunder, Thor and Norse God of Mischief, Loki.

7. The Avengers (2012)

Assembling this movie brought all the MCU heroes together and united them against a common threat. Now, the movie takes elements from the Ultimates comic and introduced both mid credit and end credit scenes and was the first step towards infinity war.

8. Iron Man 3 (2013)

We see Toney dealing with the personal aftermath of events in Avengers and introduces us to his greatest enemy.

9. Thor: The Dark World (2013)

This movie also is dealing with the aftermath.This film is important because it has a direct connection with Thor: Ragnarok.

10. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

In this movie, we see Captain America and Black Widow team up for a mission.

11. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

This movie has a first hand introduction of the cosmic side of marvel introducing Star Lord, Gamora, Nebula, Groot, Drax and Rocket and finally introducing to an alien, Thanos.

12. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

Not much has changed in this movie. The details about all the characters are extended.

13. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

In this movie, Avengers is an already established team where they team up again to take down a big threat and also sets up a lot of things heading into Phase III.

14. Ant-Man (2015)

Ant Man is the conclusion of phase 2 and also setting up the groundwork for the endgame.

15. Captain America: Civil War (2016)

This movie brings together the whole team, deals with the fall out events in Age of Ultron and also deals with the introduction of winter soldiers from the previous film.

16. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

In this movie, the spiderman is adjusting to life and it gives us a spider man origin story.

17. Doctor Strange (2016)

This is the first film to introduce Mystic Arts into the MCU as well as alternative dimensions.

18. Black Panther (2018)

Black panther doesn’t tie much into the rest of the MCU but shows the story of an original hero.

19. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

It is an adorable comics adventure. The post credits scene leads directly into the events of Avengers: Infinity war.

20. Ant-Man and The Wasp (2018)

Ant man and The Wasp introduces Quantum Realm and also the post credit scene shows a lot of characters get dusted.

21. Black Widow (2020)

One of the strongest female superheroes playing an important role in the following movies. Must watch to understand her skills.

22. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

It is largely a showdown between Avengers and Thanos. Avengers: Endgame final chapter of phase 3.

23. Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Going back to the time machine and getting all the power stones back and getting to the end of Thanos.

24. Spiderman: Far From Home (2019)

Spiderman facing monsters behind his life and fellow superhero Mysterio helps in saving him from these monsters.

Marvel has set a standard and gained popularity over the years

Marvel movie’s success is has four core principles:

(1) Select for experienced inexperience.

(2) Grasp a stable core.

(3) Need for challenging the formula.

(4) Foster customers’ curiosity.

Marvel Studios believes in granting directors majority of control in areas where they have the most experience. In order to balance the ideas, new talents and voices which are brought into each movie, the Marvel studio holds on to a tiny percentage of people from one to the next. The support and footing provided by them allows Marvel to maintain continuity among products and to give birth to an attractive community for fresh talent.

It has been noticed that Marvel movies portray differing emotional tones, that is the steadiness between positive and negative emotions conveyed verbally by its characters. Analysing the experience of Marvel shows us that franchises gain from continual experimentation.

Creativity, Animation, Character Building, and the Story Line are the main attributes of each Marvel movie and the fan followers just love to watch each of them over and over again!

Read: How to Backup WhatsApp Data [Images, Chats & documents] to PC

#Marvel #Marvel Movies

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mitsususu · 4 years ago

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Love doesn’t stop at death for these guys. Below are my Top 5 Favorite stories with ghosts:

“dance with a ghost” (T, 11k) by crinklefries

“Captain America is haunting me,” Bucky says over a bowl of ramen.

His pronouncement is met with a round of silence.

“Captain America,” Natasha says. “As in--”

“The first Avenger,” Bucky confirms. “Supersoldier and hero of World War II. The fabric of the American conscience.”

“But he’s--dead,” Sam says. His look of perplexed concern, ever perplexed and ever concerned, only increases. “You’re aware of that, right?”

“I know,” Bucky says. “That’s why I said he’s haunting me.”

+ Shrunkyclunks. Reluctant roommates, mutual crushes, and the magic power of love

-☆-

“The Afterlife of The Party” (M, 8k) by neversaydie

"Oh no. Hell no."

Bucky freezes with his hand halfway to the giant ornamental vase the new family have just unpacked. Smashing it would be the perfect way to announce himself on moving day: a big, stylish gesture that's ambiguous enough to leave them feeling only slightly unnerved until he decides things need to escalate.

That is, it would be the perfect way to announce himself if a skinny blond kid hadn't just walked through the living room wall.

"This house is taken, pal. What the fuck?"

"Uh, this is my family." The kid is standing there awkwardly, like they're still corporeal and he might have to duck or deliver a punch in the near future.

"This is my house." He narrows his eyes and slowly gets to his feet. The guy's eyes keep flicking to his missing arm and Bucky is starting to see red. "And I don't appreciate other people living in it."

+ Modern AU. Protection Spirit Steve moves into Poltergeist Bucky’s house and falls in love

-☆-

“The Idiot’s Guide of How NOT to be a Necromancer” (NR, 13k) by starbunny

It was supposed to be simple. Get rid of the hydra and stay the hell away from the necromancer’s mansion.

But as life goes, things never go according to plan, and Bucky ends up coming face to face with one of the most dangerous and feared beings in the world - a powerful necromancer who is nothing he had ever expected. Ever.

+ Modern Magical AU. The one where Steve has ghosts on keychains that ship Stucky. Part 2 is outside POV

-☆-

“Steve Rogers vs. the Midnight Psychic Carpet Emporium” (E, 20k) by yamyamyam

Sometimes solving a murder requires asking the victim what happened. That's where medium Steve Rogers comes in, helping SHIELD agent Natasha Romanoff solve crimes and helping himself pay the bills.

They've tangled with HYDRA in the past, but their latest scheme is creepier than usual: mutilated victims, necromancy, and one very dead, very badass Winter Soldier, bound by chains to do their bidding.

Steve doesn't like seeing people in chains. He's going to rescue this poor soul no matter what it takes. And maybe smooch the heck out of him. (Okay definitely smooch the heck out of him.) With a little help from his mother's star pendant, his sort-of-friend asshole oneiromancer Stephen Strange, and SHIELD's finest... archer? okay, archer, sure—what could go wrong?

+ Shrinkyclinks. Medium Steve frees ghost Bucky from Hydra (and takes him to the future via sex)

-☆-

“Black Dog” (T, 55k) by leveragehunters

So long ago the details were lost to time, people began creating guardians of the dead. They were made from dogs, dogs who were buried in graveyards before anyone was laid to rest, their spirits arising as black dogs, bound protectors of the human dead.

Steve had always wondered what would happen after he died. He hadn't expected the answer to be 'wake up in the cemetery he'd been buried in', but here he was, some kind of ghost, and he could see the trees through his hands. It wasn't so bad, and he wasn't alone—a sleek black dog, golden eyes glowing bright, was happily waiting to greet him.

Decades later, on what was supposed to be a quiet, peaceful, definitely-not-life-changing walk through the woods, Bucky stumbled across an abandoned cemetery and into the impossible.

(It's a ghost story and a love story and a story about dogs.)

+ Modern AU. Repeated from writer spotlight list because it’s just that damn good. Ghost Steve and Bucky who loves him

-☆-

*More ghost stories in the Christmas list

#stucky #stucky fic #crinklefries #neversaydie #starbunny #yamyamyam #leveragehunters #fic rec #Top 5 Favs

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thebloodofdragons · 6 years ago

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JONERYS FANFICTION RECOMMENDATION MASTERPOST PART II (PART I)

I felt like the PART I post was way too long so here’s more! Again, these fics have different types of ratings so beware. And again, a huge thank you to these amazing writers! I will be doing a part III with fics we’re getting now during season 8 and ones we’ll get after the show ends (bc I know we’ll get many!)

Season 8 predictions/missing scenes:

Future AU (ruling westeros + usually w kids):

Multi-Category fics:

#REPOSTING CAUSE I MESSED UP THE FIRST TIME #PRO TIP: NEVER EDIT A POST LIKE THIS ON YOUR PHONE #i have no idea why it took off the links #jonerys #jonerys fics #fanfiction rec #ugh i was already in bed @ tumblr let me live #anyway it took me over 3 days to do this #(bc work obviously)#but its worth it!#:)#fic rec masterpost

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plantfeed · 5 years ago

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ok turns out i am 100% that dumbass bitch who still aint posted my intro on main....... so for reference..... hello! im nora ( she / her ). im a 24 year old creative writing graduate currently residing in sheffield, south yorkshire. when i’m not hunched over a keyboard writing, i enjoy independent cinema, chinese food, and big nights out that i’ll remember only in fleeting snapshots. i currently work as a barmaid and a tutor for a filmmaking project.

without further ado, here is my interpretation on the skeleton ‘ophelia’, a development of a character who’s been brewing at the back of my mind for absolutely AGES now so thank u for giving me the push to actually flesh her out.

ive included a full biography, but please feel free 2 skip to bullet points if TLDR because it is LOOONG..... and im so happy 2 be here.... new home.... chefs kiss.... yes lov u all

IN CHARACTER.

skeleton: ophelia name: theresa rigby. (goes by diminutives tess, tessa, tea or thea. the only time she’s theresa is when she’s in trouble.) age: 21, born july 10 (cancer) faceclaim: diana silvers. gender: cis-female. pronouns: she/her degree: comparative literature & ancient history (joint honours)

INTRO.

trigger warnings.

loss of a parent. missing person / disappearance. drugs and alcohol reliance. death.

BIOGRAPHY.

i. narragansett, rhode island.

1999, an Austrian sunrise, it is the year of the Water Monkey. A water baby, first screams under the surface, the catch of it gargled in your throat. A birth mark the size and shape of a door handle pressed into your pelvis like a lover’s badge. Born like a clenched fist. Annie always wished you’d be more like an open palm. You still carry that tension with you, an unreadable kind of silence when you slink around the edge of a room or perch on an arm rest like a bird about to startle and fly off. Nobody knows a thing about you and you like it that way. Conceived in the winter, some of that coldness still lingers in you.

The only perfect girl is a dead girl. That’s what you learned, last-born runt of the litter growing up in the bedroom of a girl who would be forever cold, young and pretty. In the beginning, they thought you were a blessing — Bet’s soul reincarnate, the same pale face they’d seen as they’d signed her into the pick ‘n’ mix family. You were given her clothes, her room, even her middle name, stripped and rebranded like a toy doll bought after the last one’s head was chewed off by the dog. Four boys, a dead sister, and you who — with your birdlike features and unrelenting eyes — was merely a walking ghost. Tennis skirts, nail varnish, a shag rug, a rotten corsage; these were the staple reminders that you were living in a shrine, the room never quite your own lest you disturb the lingering presence of Bet. Soon, you began to see it as not a room but rather a prison cell caging you in the imprint of a sister you never met.

Your mothers met at an undergraduate socialist meeting when the fall semester fell into winter, Kath in a mustard coloured beret, Annie in a blood-orange duffle coat, a philosophy major and an art historian respectively. Your childhood was a montage of potato printing eels onto the walls of a Rhode Island boarding house next to the sea. Five children — some adopted, some surrogate — a permanent rotation of rooms and always a handful of lodgers to foot the bill. Travelling salesmen, students on gap years and tinkers in search of odd-jobs became a flipbook of faces etched into your memories like fleeting figures in the wings of a theatre; you sketch them into the body of your work. They become the characters to haunt the pages of your notebooks, stashed beneath floorboards lest they fall into too-hungry flour-caked fingers, scones baking in the oven two floors below. A house that seemed to physically inhale every time a new body entered it, tall and thin, too small to house all that weight. The gaps beneath the floorboards are the only spaces that feel like your own, untouched by a girl who’s shadow you were born in. In your diary, you scribble her name until it tears through the pages thinking that if you wish hard enough, you’ll make yourself her. It’s never enough.

At twelve, you lose Annie to a boating accident. You lose a piece of yourself with her and stop wearing yellow. Grief makes a better writer out of you though it sounds selfish to admit it. Kath remarries the following spring, a man named Peter. He is ordinary in all the ways Annie was magical and when he sits in your mother’s chair you feel yourself slip out of your skin and into the body of a raven cawing in the woods, scratching at the dustmites. You try to teach yourself how to be a girl, though you’ve always felt more like a wild thing crouched in the attic window of the lighthouse, screaming at the crash of the waves. You wanted to love the sea as closely as it owned you. In the sea you were rewritten into a tide, into a shell, into the swell of a rockpool around the body of a crab. You wanted to be like the ocean —a tangible, changeling thing —making paper boats and setting them out to sea, wishing you could shrink yourself into one, sail away. For a while, you toy with the idea of starving yourself into something the size and shape of an eel; of growing gills in the night and darting into the ebbing current. They’d think you crazy if you told them.

ii. concord, massachusetts.

You butt heads with Kath on a daily basis. She tells you you resent her for moving on with her life when you seem unable to move on with yours. That maybe a clean break would be best for all the family. A fresh start. A change of scene. You lock yourself in the bathroom and cry for an hour until your mouth feels raw, like running a cheesegrater down the inside of your throat. The following September, they send you to boarding school, two suitcases and an armful of Annie’s jumpers. Kath has decided they don’t compliment her skin tone, and she’s not twenty-five or studying philosophy any more. New England becomes the best decision for you that your family have ever made. You thrive on the independence of living in a dormitory on a corridor of Alison’s and Margaret’s and Ruth’s. From the names on their doors, you paint them into people in your head, red-haired Ruth who collects birth stones and can count to twenty in Mandarin. They turn out to be nothing like the versions of them you’ve spun. You love them anyway, their rough-softness, the scuffed knee thrill of growing up half-wild. There’s a brightness in their girlhood that you try to capture in your words.

Though you never quite find yourself settling into a group, Dr. Franklin becomes the anchor to which you tether yourself to, a little girl leeching onto her Literature professor for a sense of stability in a tempestuous world. The others might think it sad, but she sees something in you — an inner restlessness, a need to analyse and observe and contain everything within poetry and prose — that reminds her of herself at your age. You begin one-to-one sessions after the school day has closed, whisper about Proust and O’Hara over frothed lattes in a campus-run coffee shop, ink blots on the pages of dog-eared copies she’s gifted to you on an indefinite loan. Sometimes, you think you love her. You run your fingers over the buttons of her typewriter, close your eyes, and imagine yourself pulling on her skin like a new coat.

The woods become your saviour. In Narragansett you never knew woods, only harboursides, seafood restaurants, the smell of the ocean breeze and a lighthouse calling you home. You learn to love the smell of the earth after rain. The feeling of soil between your toes. The sense of belonging you feel trailing through the woods in stark white nightgown, twigs catching on the mud-stained hem. Massachusetts becomes a place of revision. You remake yourself as a fawn, elegance in your limbs and hunger in your heart. You learn how to write yourself into being. There’s a violence in your grace — simultaneously glass and the hammer that shatters it — and despite the ethereal way you move it’s the leonine stature of a tigress, claws bared, teeth sharpened into fangs, but a smile like butter wouldn’t melt. Lady Macbeth was always your favourite of Shakespeare’s heroines. There’s something dark in her that resonates with you, the way when a pimple appears you have to squeeze it until it bleeds. You tell yourself that everybody has a morbid fascination.

Each night you take a torch, a book and a bottle of Merlot, and you wile away the hours reading in the woods. At home, sleep never came easy to you. You’d pace the floorboards counting sheep and wake having barely slept a blink. This, on the other hand, seems useful, though when you’re never asleep, you’re never quite awake, floating through the school day like a ghost, part removed, the dark circles pulling your eyes to a close. It’s a tiredness you carry in every aspect of your life, limbs heavier than usual, pen slower when it grazes the page. Soon you start taking tablets each night. Two white ones, no bigger than a baby’s fingernail. For the first time, you begin to dream.

When February rolls around you take your exams. Pass with the grace of a swan in everything except AP Calculus. You say you’ll try again next semester, but you don’t. You apply for Yale, Cambridge, Harvard, Columbia, Ashcroft. You wait. And wait. And wait until it feels like your skin has shed itself since the letters left your hands, before an envelope comes marked Theresa. No one ever calls you that name. Right from the start it’s been Tea, Tess, Thea, common names in your house as fickle as the tide that swallows it. Billy’s never been a William, and Sebastian sounds all wrong. You can scarcely remember what Brodie’s short for. Rejection after rejection until Ashcroft answers the call, a cawing in the dark of a wasteland you’ve not yet walked. You’ll read literature, follow in the footsteps of Ginsberg who you clumsily try to quote as you bid the girls goodbye, a bonfire and the smell of cinnamon whiskey.

iii. ashcroft university, edinburgh.

You’d read of a boy who went missing there. It happened in the woods. Seventy years and all they’d found was an emptied bottle of wine and one shoe. Newspapers claimed involvement in an elite society, perhaps a hazing gone wrong, and you imagine them burrowed in underground tunnels wearing wellington boots and tweed. This is what draws you to Ashcroft ; to Imperium. It’s not so much the mystery of it —you’ve never seen yourself as a Nancy Drew — but more the idea of living in a place where people can disappear. That’s always been an idle fantasy of yours. One day, you wonder if you’ll write yourself out of the world and into the pages of a book, nestled between a title and contents page.

From Concord to Boston, then a ten-hour flight ; for the first time in months, you sleep through the night. A line break cancels your train and you have to take a replacement bus service instead. By the time you reach the school, the open day is almost over. You feel it at the gates, like a tingle on the back of your neck, something crawling down your spine. It only grows as you close in on it. It feels like it knows your own heartbeat. You’ve never known a building to have so much soul. You imagine yourself walking the cobblestones on the quad each day, climbing the steps to a dormitory, sprawled on a library table, scribbling frantically, willing the clock hands backwards. It’s a life you want to lead.

In a matter of months, Ashcroft has become not only your home but your life. You are utterly consumed by it. You meet Lysander at a poetry reading. You recite Shelley. He recites Keats. He compliments you on the steadiness of your voice, clear as a bell. A voice for the stage. You tell him your father had a powerful voice. It’s a lie. You’ve never had a father, but it’s fun to imagine one slouched on the couch, wire-rimmed glasses on the end of his nose. He invites you to dinner the following week. Grilled sea bass and risotto. You don’t have the heart to tell him you’ve become a vegetarian, swallow each mouthful with your pride. You try out for the orchestra, though your hands shake a little too much and you hear more from the inside of your own head than the keys. You leave without waiting on an answer. It’s too contained for you, anyway. You need something more chaotic, like jazz. You wish for chaos, so Imperium opens it jaws and swallows you whole. They like you because of your voice, a voice that speaks scarcely more than a low whisper in life, but when written wins you a Bysshe-Shelley Prize. In poetry, you give that voice to the voiceless ; bring dead girls buried in the woods out of the ground and into being, like soil in your hands. A voice like that is a powerful thing to have in your ranks. It becomes every page in your diary, every catch of your skirt on a tree branch, every rap of your fingertips against the desktop, imperium, imperium, imperium.

You’ve never been able to do things by halves — you always let them consume you. One glass becomes a bottle. One paragraph becomes scrawling until sunrise. Obsession takes its form in Hamlet, strong in all the ways you appear weak. You like the smell of his breath when he tells you to stub out your cigarette. That’ll kill you one day, he says. I know, you reply, and your pretty lips curl upwards. One drunken night, you fall into his bed and imagine stitching yourself into his sheets so you can sleep with him every night. Tongues on your thighs like a voice in your throat. Touch me, touch me, touch me. Never been held like this before. Like you’re not glass, but something material and robust. You like the way his hands feel under your skin. Perhaps you’ll keep him there like a splinter. Tall for your age but thin as a rail, he makes you feel like more than an eel of a girl. You like the way he catches on your spindly elbows where others have snagged leaving trails of cotton. At first, it’s only physical, but you get greedy and want more. You’re not sure when a love of beauty became something more than skin deep. You’re not sure if you even loved him until he’d stopped loving you. In October, you find the body. The day all the clocks stop ticking. The day something inside of you snaps like the branch of an elm.

You become a cocoon, velvet ribbons in your hair and rope around your throat. Or maybe it’s lace, and you’re only imagining it that way. You drink wine, stumble blind-drunk through the woods, lose textbooks to nature and curse when you can’t find them the following morning. Most nights, you appear like a ghost in the wood, a linen nightdress with mud clinging to it’s hem and feet laden in soil. You’re not sure if it’s conscious at this point, or mindless sleepwalking. Everything you do feels like sleepwalking these days. Shadows move in the corners of your eyes at night and you turn to the tarot cards for answers. They tell you only of that which you already know. Death. The Hanged Man. High Priestess. You think of Octavia, of Lysander, and of you pulled like a ragdoll between them, with the intuition that comes from living by the sea but without the evidence to execute it. The pills have stopped working. You wake in sweats, guilt swelling in the pit of your stomach. In a therapist’s waiting room, you watch as a girl scratches the skin off her own arm.

Soon news of your occultist proclivities becomes gossip on everyone’s tongue. Witch becomes a synonym for your name, and one you’ll happily wear like a noose until you’ve stolen Lysander from the drop. Finding the truth becomes the only thing keeping you sane, runes scrawled on the walls of a dormitory where pages of novels are tacked up like wallpaper. And still, you can’t shake the fact that she hasn’t come to you when the others who scarcely believe in such phantomed are rattled by her ghost on a nightly basis. Competing and girlhood go hand in hand, but the longer it gets, the more it feels like she knows your desperation to absolve Lysander isn’t entirely selfless. Perhaps she saw you lingering in doorways, waiting in the wings for him to change his mind and tell you it was you all along. Or maybe the sight of her corpse is making you search for answers in places they don’t exist. You’re hanging on my a single thread, one glimpse away from fleeing to the woods to plant yourself into the earth.

The snow is crisp on the November ground when you learn to love melancholy like a dance you were taught as a child. You think it adds depth to being a writer. How can a person write about pain if they live in a state of blissful oblivion? You tell yourself that all of the best writers were depressed; Plath, Fitzgerald, Dickinson, Rice. If you say their names each morning, followed by your own, perhaps you’ll become one of them.

BULLET POINT SUMMARY.

here is a bullet point summary of theresa, as i understand my writing can get a little dense.

Mother always said that people who grow up near water are different to other people. That there’s something more primal in their bones. A kind of knowing.

In Theresa, the knowing is a kind of silence. She’s always struggled with verbal communication, and it’s rare that she can ever let herself go in a conversation. She’s the one on the outskirts of the group, only speaking up to deliver a poignant metaphor, before fading off again. On a good day she’ll ramble, perhaps, on morbid longings and fascinations, but it’s like she’s always skipping around words she can’t quite pinpoint.

Writing’s different. When she’s writing, she feels like all the dead souls of Emily Bronte and Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath are all rising up from their graves to possess her. It is, perhaps, a rather egotistical thought -- but it makes her feel less alone. Like writing isn’t so much a solitary pursuit as it is a reigniting of what’s been lost, a way of listening to the dead. She’s militant in the way she writes, has been for as long as she can remember -- every night when the clock strikes twelve. Even if she’s rolling on mandy in an abandoned warehouse or dropping acid in a shipyard with her toes in the sand, she’ll start scribbling at twilight, for as long as she can. Back home, there weren’t too many bars that allowed underage kids, and the ones that did would nail your phone to the wall like you’re living in the eighties, so they made their own fun getting high in places long since infested with rats on baggies bought cheap in the back of the dry-cleaners shop.

Theresa’s always felt more able to relate to dead people than to living ones. That might sound depressing, but she doesn’t think so. Death has never been far from her. She grew up in the room of a foster sister who had died the previous winter. She lost her mother to a boating accident at twelve years old. She lost Octavia last year, found her body in the woods, and was thankful that she -- and not someone else -- had seen her crumpled like a fawn. Because even though it clings to her and burrows under her skin, she knows how to drown it out now. In words. In wine. In pills crushed against the veneer of a sink and snorted through a twenty-dollar bill. She’s getting good at losing herself completely. Theresa herself feels like a girl half-dead, like something ghostly, trapped between two planes. Which is why it hurts so much that she still hasn’t seen Octavia’s ghost. She’s supposed to be the special one. The one who’s vision isn’t clouded by idle dogmatism. The one who believes in all that fate, juju, third eye stuff that the others seem to scoff at. It feels like a personal attack. Like somehow, in keeping hidden, she’s blaming Theresa for her death.

Theresa is the month of November. There’s something mysterious about it, something cold. It’s on the cusp of the end of the year, but it doesn’t quite reach it. I feel like that’s what Theresa’s like. Always reaching for the apples that are just out of her grasp, or perhaps, reaching for apples which aren’t even there.

She knows grief like an old friend, but somehow, she still doesn’t trust it. When she was twelve years old she lost one of her mothers. Annie was always the brighter of her parents, and Tessa never really believed that someone so full of life could just disappear. Her soul had to be somewhere. When Kath remarried, Theresa never forgave her. Between grief and anger, their relationship became fractious, and Kath decided to send her to boarding school. She went to a New England college where she learned art, history, literature, english, athletics, the sciences and the classics. Boarding school was probably the best decision for Theresa that Kath had ever made. She became fascinated with the girls around her, so feral and wild in their girlhood. She fell in love with another girl more than once. She fell in love with the freedom of New England, of being in the woods, of a gaggle of girls with bottles of wine sat around a campfire, scared half to death that the matron would find them.

But death’s never far from her. She’s been searching for Annie in the linebreaks between poems, in the chaos of clutter under her bed, under lace and linen in her underwear drawer, but somehow she can never quite find her and never give up. Finding Annie was perhaps the reason she came to Ashcroft at all. She intended to go to Columbia, read Literature, and clumsily follow in the footsteps of Ginsberg. But Annie had spoken of Edinburgh with such a childlike awe.

Lysander was the first of the society she met, at a poetry reading in the autumn of her first semester. He brought her into the club because he saw something in her, an otherworldliness, a still but powerful voice. Her eyes saw more than they let on, always glinting at something more. She thinks her closeness with Lysander is the reason she still hasn’t seen Octavia’s ghost, and now Hamlet’s out of the picture she’s starting to think she might love Lysander. Or maybe she just needs to be loved by someone, and absolving him of blame is the key.

She was never really sure how she felt about Octavia. One moment they were friends, the next they were rivals. It was something like love and hate combined, but perhaps that’s just the curse of being a woman. A fierce sense of competition in everything you do, even if it’s just competing for air.

She likes old French music, European cinema, art that doesn’t come in her mother tongue. She’s always thought English pointless. The French say things so much better.

Her favourite TV show is Twin Peaks. She likes the absurdist truth in it, the style, the colour, the oddness. She likes the mystery of it all. She loved the woods in New England and it reminds her of that. A kind of home away from home. Tea brings a pocked dictaphone out with her, for she’s so often absent-minded that she misses half the day. That way, she can replay conversations, the sound of a bird in flight, the particular inflection in the voice of someone she loves. She’s obsessive when it comes to lovers. She doesn’t want to be loved -- she wants to be respected, understood, devoured. She thinks love is a kind of mutual lying.

She finds truth in the unusual. In tarot cards and horoscopes, in the position of the planets through a thrifted telescope. She’s a night owl, never in bed before 3 or 4 in the morning. She visits the woods each night to write until her fingers ache. Sometimes with wine, sometimes with mushrooms, sometimes with a tab against the flat of her tongue, imagining herself to be Alice in Wonderland. She feels like she’s getting close to the truth, but maybe she’s just closer to losing her mind.

LETTER TO OCTAVIA.

My dearest O,

I wish I could find an adequate way to write you an epitaph. You saw a poet where everyone else saw a foolish dreamer and yet you’re the only one I can’t put into words. But in truth, there is no word large enough to contain you. You were the ellipsis I was always looking to conclude, and it’s so like you to steal even that from me. Some days, I think I could love you.

Please know that death cannot touch girls like us. That you’re more than just skin, teeth and bone. Death itself has you only on a short-term loan. As Thomas puts so eloquently, Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Thank you for filling me with life. I’ll see you in the next one.

Tea.

anything else?

mock blog.

wanted plots.

someone who theresa knows purely from seeing them at the library. recently, she hasn’t been visiting as often. she’s less in the world and more in her head. her schoolwork is suffering. someone who feels this absence like a missing tooth.

unlikely bc ashcroft is in scotland but if they’re from rhode island maybe distant relatives.... ophelia / theresa is adopted so could work regardless of heritage. her family lived in narragansett, but she went to boarding school in vermont. could have met if ur character is new england based??? maybe

give me fellow wanky pretentious art-lovers and poets and historians who will go to museums and galleries with her and listen to the velvet underground on vinyl

people she gets mortally fucked off her tits with at parties bcos this baby is not alright. she drinks at least one glass of wine every night. sometimes a bottle. she’s always a little bit high or a little bit weary with a comedown. she can’t seem to keep her feet on the ground.

theresa was pretty numb after finding the body, as you would be. she stayed in her room listening to enya for three days straight and just eating cereal straight out the box. then thalia broke up with her and that fuckin shook her too, and now she just thinks she’s unlovable. she’s always been pretty bad at sleeping but now she just wanders about in her white nightdress looking for a door with light spilling beneath it so that maybe she can find someone who’ll hold her for the night and make her feel like she’s still alive

she’s currently hooking up with a lot of people. a lot of very detached sex, so if she has any sort of close connection with your character this might not work. could be good for angst or awkwardness though, or she cld get like.... super attached after a one night stand and complicate the shit out of everything. theresa’s kind of obsessive when it comes to her affections, she loves with her whole heart or not at all

people she used to date or unrequitedly likes, but to them it’s just a physical thing, give me all the thirsty angst plots, and maybe some softness too, i need some religion in this girls life jesus

honestly everything just give me all the plots

#stands on the rooftop and screams like a banshee as i fling this into the woods #spectreintro #very late and personally i think that's incredibly sexy of me x

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starberry-cupcake · 5 years ago

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mommakittysworld replied to your photoset “Rachel Chavkin receiving the Tony Award for Best Director of a Musical...”

I wouldn't watch a film that was directed or produced by a woman just because I dont think I'd be interested in it. I like horror. The more disturbing, the better. I just dont think most women have the right personality to create a good horror film. I hate comedy, and especially romance. My tastes aren't very feminine.

Ok so, I received this reply on my post about Rachel’s speech on the Tonys. I’m going to block this person outright and I won’t engage in any type of conversation with them. However, I want to post this reply with two intentions:

1) I appreciate when blogs I follow show these kinds of behavior toward their content so that I can block them and not have to cross paths with them in the future. I highly advice you not to engage in conversation with them, not even to dissent, but if you find their answer as insulting as I did, you might want to block them.

2) I am going to take this opportunity to talk about a very favorite subject of mine: women in horror. Here is a list of several women who have created content in the realms of horror in the past or who are doing it today, from various standpoints, with various origins and for very different tastes, as well as a selection of examples of their work (there’s so much more they’ve done!). Tread with caution because horror is not devoid of triggers. Whatever I haven’t seen or read in this list is at least included in my to-watch/read lists. This person might not appreciate them, but I know someone out there will.

Ann Radcliffe (writer)

The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)

Mary Shelley (writer)

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (writer)

The Yellow Wallpaper (1890)

Daphne Du Maurier (writer)

Jamaica Inn (1936), Rebecca (1938), My Cousin Rachel (1951), The Birds and Other Stories (1963)

Shirley Jackson (writer)

The Haunting of Hill House (1959), We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962), The Lottery and other Stories (1949)

Joyce Carol Oates (writer)

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (1966), Zombie (1995)

Alejandra Pizarnik (writer and poet)

The Bloody Countess (originally called: La condesa sangrienta) (1971)

Anne Rice (writer)

Vampire Chronicles (1976–present)

Debra Hill (writer and producer)

Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), Halloween II (1981)

Angela Carter (writer)

The Bloody Chamber (1979), The Company of Wolves (1984)

Susan Hill (writer)

The Woman In Black (1983), The Mist in the Mirror (1992)

Kathryn Bigelow (director)

Near Dark (1987)

Narumi Kakinouchi (mangaka)

Vampire Princess Miyu (originally called: 吸血姫美夕) (1988-2002)

Mary Lambert (director)

Pet Sematary (1989)

Marina Sargenti (writer and director)

Mirror Mirror (1990)

Fran Rubel Kuzui (director)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

Jennifer Lynch (writer and director)

Boxing Helena (1993)

Laurell K. Hamilton (writer)

Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter (1993-present)

Tananarive Due (writer)

The Between (1995), My Soul to Keep (1997), The Good House (2003), Trial Day (2003), Aftermoon (2004), Ghost Summer: Stories (2015)

Octavia E. Butler (writer)

Bloodchild and Other Stories (1995), Fledgling (2005), also has a lot of sci-fi themed books

Kei Fujiwara (writer and director)

Organ (originally called: オルガン) (1996)

Kelly Link (writer)

The Specialist’s Hat (1999)

Mary Harron (writer and director)

American Psycho (2000)

Guinevere Turner (writer)

American Psycho (2000)

Karen Walton (writer)

Ginger Snaps (2000)

Linda Addison (poet)

Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey Ashes (2001)

Ann Hui (director)

Visible Secret (originally called: 幽灵人间) (2001)

Marina de Van (writer and director)

In My Skin (2002)

Elizabeth Kostova (writer)

The Historian (2005)

Helen Oyeyemi (writer)

White is for Witching (2009)

Karyn Kusama (director)

Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Diablo Cody (writer)

Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Gemma Files (writer)

A Book of Tongues (2010), A Rope of Thorns (2011), A Tree of Bones (2012)

Tiffany D. Jackson (writer and director)

So I Married A Vampire (2010), The Field Trip (2011)

Seanan McGuire (writer)

Feed (2010), Deadline (2011), Blackout (2012, Feedback (2016)

Asa Nonami (writer)

Body (originally called: 躯) (2012)

Jen Soska & Sylvia Soska (writers and directors)

American Mary (2012)

Lauren Beukes (writer)

The Shining Girls (2013), Broken Monsters (2014)

Melissa Hunter (writer, director and actress)

Adult Wednesday (2013-2015)

Axelle Carolyn (writer and director)

Soulmate (2013)

Jennifer McMahon (writer)

The Winter People (2013)

Marisha Pessl (writer)

Night Film (2013)

Jennifer Kent (writer and director)

The Babadook (2014)

Kelly Sue DeConnick (writer), Emma Ríos (writer and illustrator) & Jordie Bellaire (colorist)

Pretty Deadly (2014-2016)

Ana Lily Amirpour (writer and director)

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

Julia Penner (writer)

Stage Fright (2014)

Leigh Janiak (writer and director)

Honeymoon (2014)

Krysty Wilson-Cairns (writer)

Penny Dreadful (comic books and tv series) (2014-2016)

Diane Ruggiero-Wright (writer)

iZombie (2015-present)

Agnieszka Smoczyńska (writer and director)

The Lure (2015)

Anna Biller (writer and director)

The Love Witch (2016)

Julia Ducournau (director and writer)

Raw (2016)

Sarah Adina Smith (director and editor)

Mother’s Day segment in Holidays (2016)

Mariana Enríquez (writer)

Things We Lost In The Fire (originally called: Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego) (2016)

Mariana Travacio (writer)

Flowerbed (originally called: Cantero) (2016)

Issa Lopez (writer and director)

Tigers Are Not Afraid (originally called: Vuelven) (2017)

Jac Jemc (writer)

The Grip of It (2017)

Carmen Maria Machado (writer)

Her Body and Other Parties (2017)

Emma Tammi (director)

The Wind (2018)

Teresa Sutherland (writer)

The Wind (2018)

Nicole Snyder (writer)

The Perfection (2018)

Stacie Passon (director and writer)

We Have Always Lived in the Castle (film) (2018)

If anyone wants to add some more to this list, you’re welcome to do so. I absolutely also recommend, if you’re interested in the subject, following @horrorladies ♥

#long post #but absolutely worth it #women in horror #reply

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thelastblueheart · 6 years ago

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I love you like rlb

THIS IS NOT MINE!!! This was originally posted by tolieawake but has since been deleted. I was able to get my hands on it and have shared it since it is a fandom classic. Please credit them as the writer!

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I love you like rlb has become a well-known, accepted and valuable component of American vernacular. The meaning of the letters ‘rlb’ is unknown, but is uniformly considered to be a statement of a great romantic love, commitment and sacrifice.

In which Tony goes insane trying to figure out why that phrase affects the Cap so much, Bucky teases the press, and Steve and Bucky love each other like rlb.

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I love you like rlb The first time he saw it, Steve stopped dead in his tracks and stared. Tony, who was walking and talking and gesticulating wildly all at the same time (the way that Tony does), didn't notice at first. When he did, he frowned, spun on his heel and headed back to where Steve was standing. “You okay, Cap?” he asked, tugging his sunglasses just far enough down his nose that he could peer at Steve over them. “Fine,” Steve mumbled, but he couldn't quite tear his eyes away. He was staring at the large glass window of the shop beside him or, rather, he was staring through the window at the brightly coloured t-shirt hanging on the mannequin. It was a vivid shade of blue, with yellow swirls crossing it, and white text proudly displayed across the chest. I love you like rlb it proclaimed proudly. “What?” Tony asked, “you never seen that saying before?” Steve swallowed, but didn't answer. Behind the mannequin was a rack of t-shirts, in various colours and patterns, all proclaiming the same thing – I love you like rlb. “I -” Steve started, before stopping to clear his throat. “Do you know what it means?” he asked. “Uh, it's just a saying, Cap,” Tony replied. “You know, like LOL or Got Milk? Roses are red. A prominent part of our popular culture that people use without really thinking about it.” He shrugged. “I don't think anyone knows where it comes from, or what the 'rlb' means – but everyone just takes it to mean, you know, like a declaration of love or something. Lots of love. Lots and lots of love.” He frowned. “I gave Pepper an I love you like rlb bracelet once. Real fancy, solid gold, she wears it occasionally.” He paused his rapid-fire rambling long enough to stare at Steve. “You sure you okay, Cap? 'Cos you look like you seen a ghost or something.” Tony paused. “You haven't seen a ghost, have you?” “No, no, it's just...” Steve let his voice trail off, hands tilted out to the side as he shrugged helplessly. How could he possibly explain it. “I don't know if it's related,” he said, “but some of the guys used to say that, during the war.” “Huh,” Tony said. He turned to look in the window at the t-shirts. “I mean, I know the saying's been around for a long time. One of those things that no-one is quite sure where it started or who said it first.” “Dernier,” Steve muttered. “What?” Shaking his head, Steve took a step away from the display, visibly pulling himself together. “Nothing,” he said. Shoving his hands into his pockets (to stop the shaking he wouldn't admit to), he turned and headed back down the street. “Don't we have somewhere to be?” he asked. - “JARVIS,” Steve said, standing in the middle of his floor of Avengers Tower (because Tony was ridiculous like that about giving them all things), “can you do some research for me, please?” “Certainly, Captain Rogers,” JARVIS replied smoothly. “What would you like me to research?” “I... I saw something today,” Steve said, “while I was out with Tony. He said that it was just a common saying, but...” letting his voice trail off he sighed, scrubbing one hand through his hair. “Sorry, I'm not explaining this right.” “Perhaps you could start with the saying?” JARVIS suggested. “Right, yes, of course.” Taking a deep breath, Steve forced the words – words he'd thought he'd never hear again, through his lips. “I love you like rlb,” he said. His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. There was a stinging in the backs of his eyes, but he resolutely ignored it. “That is a common saying,” JARVIS informed him with a thoughtful hum. “What is it that you would like to know about it?” “Does anyone know where it comes from?” Steve asked. “Tony said no, but, well, I thought maybe it's just not well-known? Or, does anyone know when it started? What it means?” “One moment, please,” JARVIS requested, before making another humming sound. Steve knew it was the sound JARVIS made to let him know he was thinking – or rather, running searches and collating information. Stumbling backwards, Steve let himself fall down onto his couch, grabbing the nearest cushion and almost ripping it apart as he held it tightly, hands clenching in the fabric. “While there does not appear to be any documented origin for the saying,” JARVIS said calmly, his smoothly modulated voice helping to calm Steve, “it is generally attributed as a saying which emerged among American troops during World War II. Returning soldiers brought the saying back to American soil with them. This origin in the War leant a certain romantic slant to the saying, which has persisted to this day. “Interestingly, french troops also carried the saying home to France after the war, which suggests that it was well-known enough that it transferred between Allied troops. Or was known to the resistance. It is also used fairly extensively in all Allied countries, but most prominently in America. “In 1951, it made its first appearance on merchandising – as a small engraving on pendants, which were sold by the Goldman Jewelry company. Stark Industries was involved in the design of the pendants.” Steve sucked a sharp breath in. “Since then,” JARVIS continued, “the phrase has appeared on various items of merchandise continually through the years; although the merchandise itself has changed, the phrase has never fallen out of use. It has been accepted as part of the current American and French vernacular, and appears in numerous romantic comedies, romance novels, and cards, as well as on items of clothing, jewelry, plaques and also tattoos. “The meaning of the letters 'rlb' is unknown, but is uniformly considered to be a statement of a great romantic love, commitment and sacrifice.” Pushing his fist against his mouth, Steve bit at his knuckles, trying to choke down the sob rising in his throat. “In the 1980s,” JARVIS continued, “the phrase was picked up by a number of gay rights campaigners and has since been used proudly by the community. However, evidence suggests that even before that time, and certainly since, it has been used as a phrase to express love between partners, without reference to their sexual orientation. “As there has never been a documented point of origin for the phrase, companies have been able to create merchandise freely, and therefore, at this current time, there is a proliferation of merchandising available. “Despite its unknown origins, and the lack of clarity around its exact meaning, I love you like rlb has become a well-known, accepted and valuable component of American vernacular. I am sorry that I am unable to provide you with the exact meaning of the letters rlb or of a more precise origin.” Sucking in a deep breath, Steve leant back against the couch, blinking rapidly. “It's okay,” he said, ignoring the way his voice cracked once more. “Thanks, JARVIS.” “You are welcome, Captain. If I may, you appear to be experiencing some distress. Would you like me to alert Mr Stark? Or perhaps one of the other inhabitants of the Tower? Miss Potts is currently upstairs and has finished work for the day.” “No,” Steve said, shaking his head. “No, I'm fine. I'll be fine. I just -” Getting up, he stumbled towards his bedroom, shaking lightly and half-tripping over his feet. JARVIS made a concerned sound before falling silent. - The next day, Steve pulled out some jeans, a baseball cap, hoodie and sunglasses, and braved the craziness of 21st century shopping in order to buy a few things. The watch with the engraving on the back went on his wrist. The sweatpants and t-shirt were shoved into a bag, to become his sleeping clothes. The fake dog-tags – well, he got them to add one with a simple string of numbers on it (32557) – and then slung them around his neck, letting them fall down beside his own, real, dog-tags. It wasn't much, wasn't nearly enough, but somehow, it made him feel better. - The fight with the Winter Soldier was nothing like anything Steve had encountered so far in this new century. The Soldier fought hard and fast and with an edge to his movements, despite the precision and grace and obvious training, that made Steve think of back alleys in Brooklyn. His team were yelling on the comm, Hawkeye hissing because neither Steve nor the Soldier would stand still long enough for him to safely take a shot. Iron Man was circling overhead, the Hulk standing nearby and looking ready to smash given half a chance. Widow was racing towards their position, ready to enter the fray. Thor cheered them both on as brave warriors. Then the Soldier grabbed at Steve, and somehow, during the fight, his helmet had been knocked off and the top of his uniform torn just enough that the Soldier's fingers closed over the chain around his neck, tugging and twisting. Steve ducked and rolled to prevent strangulation, even as he snapped his arm out, desperate to grab his dog-tags back. The Soldier froze, gaze fixated on the tags dangling from his hand, eyes widening and punching the breath from Steve's lungs even as his brain scrabbled to find a reason for his reaction. “Cap?” Hawkeye called. “I have a shot.” “Wait,” Steve said. He glanced down at the tags, noticing that the Soldier had grabbed his fake ones, and his eyes were fixed on that phrase. The saying. I love you like rlb Slowly, the Soldier raised his eyes to Steve's. “What?” he asked. His voice was muffled beneath his mask, and Steve found himself stepping forward, reaching out to gently remove the mask. His heart was pounding in his chest and he lost his breath as soon as the mask came away. There were tears in his eyes (he ignored them), and his heart was pounding (faster than he ever remembered it being since the serum). “Bucky,” he whispered. Slowly Bucky (because those were Bucky's eyes, even as they struggled against confusion and the blank stare of the Soldier) formed the words. “I love you like rlb,” he said. - “I'm just saying,” Tony said, “it's a little strange. First, Cap freaks out about the saying when he sees it on some t-shirts, and now the Winter Soldier – the Winter Soldier! - uses it to somehow break the insane amounts of brainwashing he was under.” Clint shrugged. “They say it originated in the war somewhere,” he said. “Maybe Cap was there when it first started.” “And the Soldier?” Tony asked. “We were.” The team turned to see Steve step into the room. His hair was still wet from his shower, and his eyes were suspiciously red and bright. There was a cautious hope in his eyes that made them realise just how withdrawn he'd been. Steve nodded towards the observation window they were all arrayed in front of. On the other side, the Winter Soldier sat at a table, staring down at the dog-tags still clutched in his fist. His hair hung over his face, so they couldn't see it clearly, but he'd been suspiciously quiet and compliant since he had been taken into custody. “We?” Bruce asked, eyes darting over Steve, assessing him. Steve gave him a tight smile. “We,” he repeated. He nodded towards the Soldier. “His name is James Buchanan Barnes. He's my best friend. He -” Steve cut himself off, taking a breath and swallowing. Then he shrugged. “We were there the first time Dernier said it – I don't think he meant for us to hear, but we did.” His gaze turned un-focused, looking off somewhere they couldn't see. - “Are you insane?” Dum Dum hissed, staring at Dernier through the rain. He scowled. “You know what you're risking.” Dernier shrugged, glancing over his own shoulder at where Gabe was sitting under the flap of their tent. “I know,” he agreed. “And I wouldn't risk it for just anything, but I love him like rlb.” “Rlb?” Bucky asked, stepping up beside Steve and frowning through the rain. “What are they talking about?” Steve shrugged, shaking his head. “I'm not sure,” he said, brow furrowed. - Shoving his meager supplies into a pack, Steve slung it up onto his shoulder, turning to face his men. “I don't expect you to follow me,” he said, “but I do ask that you don't try to stop me.” “What's going on?” Falsworth asked, stepping into the tent and glancing around at them. “What do you think?” Morita asked, “we got another rlb situation.” Steve blinked. “What?” he asked, before shaking his head. “Never mind. The rendezvous is in two hours, north-east from here. Get to the pick-up point and -” “No offense, Cap,” Falsworth interrupted, “but we're not going to the rendezvous.” “No chance,” Dum Dum agreed. “You're going after Barnes. So are we.” Steve shook his head. “I can't ask you to -” “You're not asking, we're offering,” Gabe said, pushing himself to his feet. Around them, the others nodded. - They trooped into base camp six days later, covered in mud, tired, hungry, but with Barnes by their sides (well, by Steve's side). Phillips took one look at them, before shaking his head. “Rlb?” he asked. “Rlb,” Falsworth agreed with a nod. - “You got a girl back home?” Steve paused, glancing over at the small huddle of soldiers, grouped around a fire and sharing stories. “Yeah,” one of the others replied. He pulled a worn photo out of his pocket, holding it out to show the others. “This here is my gal,” he replied. “Prettiest gal around.” “Nice sweetheart,” another soldier commented. He shook his head. “Nah, not just a sweetheart,” he said. “This is the gal I'm gonna marry, I love her like rlb.” The others nodded, smiling understandingly. - “Hey Steve,” Bucky murmured, shifting so that his face was smushed against Steve's neck, where they lay in their tent. “Mmm,” Steve agreed. A wicked smile curved Bucky's lips against Steve's skin. “I love you like rlb,” he said. Rolling his eyes – and his body – Steve turned so that he could look at Bucky. “Really, Buck?” he asked. Bucky just grinned back at him. “What?” he asked. “Haven't you figured out what it stands for yet?” “'Course I have,” Steve replied. “They're not as subtle as they think.” Bucky huffed a laugh. “But you coulda just said 'I love you',” Steve continued. “Coulda,” Bucky agreed. “But I like this better. You know, I heard some soldiers use it earlier today, like it's something special, something more than just 'I love you'. I like that.” “You would,” Steve agreed. Reaching out, he traced his hand over Bucky's forehead, his nose, his cheek. Bucky turned his head, pressing a kiss against Steve's palm. “I love you like rlb, Buck,” Steve said. - “And this is the common floor,” Tony proclaimed, spreading his arms wide and spinning around as he indicated the area they had just stepped into. Behind him, Bucky (because he was all Bucky now, no more Winter Soldier), stared around and gave a low whistle. “Would you look at that,” he said, turning to grin at Steve. “You've been hanging with the rich kids.” Smiling (he hadn't stopped smiling since Bucky had first hugged him, pulling Steve close in the tiny cell they had him in, pressing his lips to Steve's neck and mouthing those words against his skin I love you like rlb), Steve gave a small shrug. “Just one rich kid,” he said. “But a very rich one.” “That's right,” Tony agreed. “So, if you need anything, just let me know. If I don't have it already, I'm pretty sure I can get it for you.” “Got any I love you like rlb t-shirts?” Bucky asked, casting a sly grin at Steve. Tony gaped at him. “What?” he asked, before stopping and shaking his head. “No, don't tell me, I don't want to know,” he said (even though he did really want to know). “JARVIS, please order Barnes some t-shirts.” “Certainly, Sir,” JARVIS agreed easily. - Bucky tended to wear his I love you like rlb t-shirts around the Tower – whenever he wasn't in uniform, he could be found lounging around in one of the shirts. Steve would always give him a soft smile when he saw the shirts, and Tony was fairly sure that was at least half the reason they had basically become Barnes' signature wardrobe. So it wasn't that surprising when he wore one to his first press interview. At least, it wasn't surprising to the Avengers (even if it was driving Tony crazy that Barnes refused to tell him just why he liked the shirts so much), even if it did surprise the press. “Sergeant Barnes,” a reporter asked. “I notice you're wearing a t-shirt with the popular phrase I love you like rlb emblazoned across it. I was just wondering, was this a particular choice? Does it have any significant meaning for you?” Bucky blinked, staring back at the reporter, before turning to look at Steve. “They don't know?” he asked, sounding slightly incredulous (but with that underlying hint of humour that suggested he knew exactly what he was doing and that his incredulity was all part of some crazy plan he had – Tony still couldn't quite believe the things that guy could talk Cap into when his voice took on that edge). “Bucky,” Steve sighed, with a roll of his eyes, but he made no move to stop him. Turning back to the reporters, Bucky smiled sweetly at them. “Sure it means something to me,” he said. “I mean, I was surprised that anyone even remembered this crazy saying.” He gave a small shrug. “I think it was Gabe as first used it,” he said. “Dernier,” Steve softly corrected him. “Right,” Bucky agreed with a laugh, “Dernier.” “Are you telling us,” the reporter asked, eyes wide, “that you know of the first instance of this iconic phrase being used?” “Sure,” Bucky said. “At least, I know it was the guys as first started using it. Not sure if I heard the very first time they said it – it wasn't something they used to say in front of Steve or I, at first.” “Why not?” Bucky laughed again. “Because it was about us,” he replied with a grin. “They didn't want us to know they'd caught on.” Another shrug. “Thought they were being so clever, so subtle.” He shook his head with a fond smile. “Dernier said it about Gabe.” “Jacques Dernier and Gabe Jones,” a reporter asked, “who, years after the war, confirmed that they had been in a romantic relationship since the war?” “And during,” Bucky agreed easily. “And yeah, Dernier said he loved Gabe 'like rlb'. They used it all the time – well, not necessarily the whole 'I love you like rlb', but 'rlb'. Like it was some super secret code they'd made up. Steve's about to do something stupid 'cos I got cut off from the guys again, it's an 'rlb situation'. Explaining to Phillips why we were late to a rendezvous, 'sorry General, but rlb, you know?'” Next to them, Tony was gaping – he was a genius, okay, so he'd figured it out. “And the rlb,” the first reporter asked, leaning forward, “what does that stand for?” Bucky laughed. “Rogers loves Barnes, of course,” he said. - There was a violent and prolific reaction to Bucky's statement. Tony claimed they'd broken the Internet (Steve was fairly sure that was impossible, but he let Tony think he'd convinced them of it), and for a while, none of the reporters were interested in anything else. But, when it came down to it, things were no different. Bucky wore his t-shirts around the Tower, and would lie next to Steve at night, mouthing the words into his skin. Somehow, the fact that this, of everything they'd done and said, of all the history that had been written about them, that this was the thing that lasted and thrived the most – it made Bucky grin. “I always said we had a love like one of those epic romances,” he told Steve fondly. Steve snorted. “You did not,” he replied, “you said I was a punk and that you'd better stick by me 'cos otherwise I'd get myself killed.” Bucky shrugged. “That, too,” he agreed easily. Then he grinned, bright and brilliant, the kind of grin that chased away the lingering shadows of his pain and guilt for a moment. “Still, we're like, the definition of romantic love in this century,” he said. “That's gotta count for something.” “I don't know about that,” Steve replied, “but I do know I love you.” “Like rlb?” Bucky asked. “Sure,” Steve agreed with a laugh, “I love you like rlb. Now sit still, Jerk, I'm trying to draw you.”

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evansrussianlitblog · 5 years ago

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Ten Interesting Russian Novels

1. City of Thieves

“During the Nazis’ brutal siege of Leningrad, Lev Beniov is arrested for looting and thrown into the same cell as a handsome deserter named Kolya. Instead of being executed, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving their own lives by complying with an outrageous directive: secure a dozen eggs for a powerful Soviet colonel to use in his daughter’s wedding cake. In a city cut off from all supplies and suffering unbelievable deprivation, Lev and Kolya embark on a hunt through the dire lawlessness of Leningrad and behind enemy lines to find the impossible. By turns insightful and funny, thrilling and terrifying, City of Thieves is a gripping, cinematic World War II adventure and an intimate coming-of-age story with an utterly contemporary feel for how boys become men.” (goodreads.com)

2. The Brothers Karamazov

“The Brothers Karamasov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental” Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his three sons―the impulsive and sensual Dmitri; the coldly rational Ivan; and the healthy, red-cheeked young novice Alyosha. Through the gripping events of their story, Dostoevsky portrays the whole of Russian life, is social and spiritual striving, in what was both the golden age and a tragic turning point in Russian culture. This award-winning translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky remains true to the verbal inventiveness of Dostoevsky’s prose, preserving the multiple voices, the humor, and the surprising modernity of the original. It is an achievement worthy of Dostoevsky’s last and greatest novel.” (Amazon.com)

3. Notes from Underground

“Dostoevsky’s most revolutionary novel, Notes from Underground marks the dividing line between nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction, and between the visions of self each century embodied. One of the most remarkable characters in literature, the unnamed narrator is a former official who has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence. In full retreat from society, he scrawls a passionate, obsessive, self-contradictory narrative that serves as a devastating attack on social utopianism and an assertion of man’s essentially irrational nature. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, whose Dostoevsky translations have become the standard, give us a brilliantly faithful edition of this classic novel, conveying all the tragedy and tormented comedy of the original.” (Amazon.com)

4. Zuleikha

“Soviet Russia, 1930. Zuleikha, the “pitiful hen,” lives with her brutal husband Murtaza and her mother-in-law in a small Tartar village. When Murtaza is executed by communist soldiers, she is sent into exile to a remote region on the Angara River in Siberia. Hundreds die of hunger and exhaustion on the journey and over the first difficult winter, yet exile is the making of Zuleikha. As she gets to know her fellow survivors ― among them an eccentric German doctor, a painter, and the conscience-stricken Commander Ignatov, her husband’s killer ―Zuleikha begins to build a new life far removed from the one she left behind. Guzel Yakhina’s outstanding debut ― inspired by her grandmother's childhood memories of being exiled to the Gulag ―has been translated into twenty-one languages, capturing the hearts of readers all over the world.” (Amazon.com)

5. One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich

“In the madness of World War II, a dutiful Russian soldier is wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to ten years in a Siberian labor camp. So begins this masterpiece of modern Russian fiction, a harrowing account of a man who has conceded to all things evil with dignity and strength. First published in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is considered one of the most significant works ever to emerge from Soviet Russia. Illuminating a dark chapter in Russian history, it is at once a graphic picture of work camp life and a moving tribute to man’s will to prevail over relentless dehumanization.” (Amazon.com)

6. Night Watch

“Set in contemporary Moscow, where shape shifters, vampires, and street-sorcerers linger in the shadows, Night Watch is the first book of the hyper-imaginative fantasy pentalogy from best-selling Russian author Sergei Lukyanenko. This epic saga chronicles the eternal war of the “Others,” an ancient race of humans with supernatural powers who must swear allegiance to either the Dark or the Light. The agents of the Dark – the Night Watch – oversee nocturnal activity, while the agents of the Light keep watch over the day. For a thousand years both sides have maintained a precarious balance of power, but an ancient prophecy has decreed that a supreme Other will one day emerge, threatening to tip the scales. Now, that day has arrived. When a mid-level Night Watch agent named Anton stumbles upon a cursed young woman – an uninitiated Other with magnificent potential – both sides prepare for a battle that could lay waste to the entire city, possible the world. With language that throbs like darkly humorous hard-rock lyrics about blood and power, freedom and responsibility, Night Watch is a chilling, cutting-edge thriller, a pulse-pounding ride of fusion fiction that will leave you breathless for the next instalment.” (goodreads.com)

7. The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar

“Drawing from decades of work, travel, and research in Russia, Robert Alexander re-creates the tragic, perennially fascinating story of the final days of Nicholas and Alexandra Romanov as seen through the eyes of their young kitchen boy, Leonka. Now an ancient Russian immigrant, Leonka claims to be the last living witness to the Romanovs’ brutal murders and sets down the dark secrets of his past with the imperial family. Does he hold the key to the many questions surrounding the family’s murder? Historically vivid and compelling, The Kitchen Boy is also a touching portrait of a loving family that was in many ways similar, yet so different, from any other.” (Amazon.com)

8. The Russian Concubine

“In a city full of thieves and Communists, danger and death, spirited young Lydia Ivanova has lived a hard life. Always looking over her shoulder, the sixteen-year-old must steal to feed herself and her mother, Valentina, who numbered among the Russian elite until Bolsheviks murdered most of them, including her husband. As exiles, Lydia and Valentina have learned to survive in a foreign land. Often, Lydia steals away to meet with the handsome young freedom fighter Chang An Lo. But they face danger: Chiang Kai Shek's troops are headed toward Junchow to kill Reds like Chang, who has in his possession the jewels of a tsarina, meant as a gift for the despot's wife. The young pair's all-consuming love can only bring shame and peril upon them, from both sides. Those in power will do anything to quell it. But Lydia and Chang are powerless to end it.” (Amazon.com)

9. A Dead Man’s Memoir: A Theatrical Novel

“Best known for The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov is one of twentieth-century Russia's most prominent novelists. A Dead Man's Memoir is a semi- autobiographical story about a writer who fails to sell his novel, then fails to commit suicide. When the writer's play is taken up for production in a theater, literary success beckons, but he is not prepared to reckon with the grotesquely inflated egos of the actors, directors, and theater managers.” (Amazon.com)

10. The Master of Petersburg

“In the fall of 1869 Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, lately a resident of Germany, is summoned back to St. Petersburg by the sudden death of his stepson, Pavel. Half crazed with grief, stricken by epileptic seizures, and erotically obsessed with his stepson's landlady, Dostoevsky is nevertheless intent on unraveling the enigma of Pavel's life. Was the boy a suicide or a murder victim? Did he love his stepfather or despise him? Was he a disciple of the revolutionary Nechaev, who even now is somewhere in St. Petersburg pursuing a dream of apocalyptic violence? As he follows his stepson's ghost—and becomes enmeshed in the same demonic conspiracies that claimed the boy—Dostoevsky emerges as a figure of unfathomable contradictions: naive and calculating, compassionate and cruel, pious and unspeakably perverse.” (Amazon.com)

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blindhavoc · 6 years ago

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writer aesthetic.

I. JOHN KEATS: the lavender in sunsets, flowers in the rain, sunlight slipping through clouds, lazy summer afternoons, the heavy scent of musk, flickering candlelight reflecting off the gold titles of books, fireflies on a cool summer night, being wrapped in fresh bedsheets, the ache of wanting what you can never have, dripping sunlight like gold, loving someone so exquisite, soft lips and soft whispers, fingers through hair, names of lovers carved in trees, broken glass, the insistence of being perpetually dreamy

II. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD: mahogany wood, crisp winter skies with cold bright stars, the solitude of an early autumn morning wrapped in fog, empty bottles on stacks and stacks of books haphazardly placed in a messy room, pale bruised arms reaching out into the darkness, cigarette smoke just barely hiding the scent of alcohol, a wall of books all poetry and old and weathered, a bad thunderstorm occurring at the end of a beautiful day, the way tragedy strikes in your heart but ends up stopping your breathing for a moment, your favorite sweater, parties spilling into four a.m. with the stars above spinning and dancing, the contrast of blood against snow, a purple split lip oozing blood, black eyes fading to blue to pale skin, the butterflies of falling in love for the first time, the statues falling apart over time in cemeteries, the romanticization of self-destruction

III. FRANZ KAFKA: the weight of dread that sits heavily in your stomach when thinking about the future, decrepit houses cloaked in mystery from children telling stories of people who died there, the way not even light can escape a black hole, the rich smell of old books, delicate veins in the wrist, ghosts filling lungs, shattered bones, raindrops on the tongue, rusting metal, nostalgia that aches, the way hope feels like a plastic bag over your head

IV. H.P. LOVECRAFT: the anxiety felt when staring into an unknown cave, pouring rain and mud, a child’s fear of the dark, thinking so many questions about your existence as you stare at the vast expanse of never ending ocean, the silence of three a.m., danse macabre by camille saint-saens playing on a record in an empty house, the possibility of aliens and the weird feeling it gives you that you can’t explain, unexplainable phenomena, strange lights in the sky in the dead of night, ouija boards and urban legends

V. JACK KEROUAC: the brisk pine air of being on a mountain, travels without a destination, those nights where you’re missing three hours of memory, screaming to a lifeless desert about how you’re so alive, coffee shops late at night, car rides at night spent speeding and laughing in the dark, naps spent in the sun, novels highlighted and underlined with notes and epiphanies in the margins, the way uncertainty sits on the shoulders, ignoring flaws and loving life, wind through hair, depression as fog in the brain, impossible ideals, a quiet sunrise, walks alone, when you think about trying to discover all the secrets to the universe, dazzling people, open lands stretching out into infinity, falling in love with being alive

VI. EDGAR ALLAN POE: the ocean’s horizon inseparable from fog, hollow bones, a preserved heart held in hands, twinkling stars above an old graveyard, the way everything turns to dust, silent black birds with eyes full of wisdom, self-inflicted flames, perfection depicted as a rotting corpse, death as bricks in the heart, lips barely brushing against each other, glassy glazed eyes, biting into a lemon, heart-shaped bruises, rotting flowers on a grave, dried blood and spilled liquor, the hush of dusk when it begins raining, the intimacy of a secret

tagged by: NO ONE i stole it tagging: uhhh @futsuma @onecaped @royariti @slatened @exorsism @devourheart @stillwar and anyone else... who wants to

#❛〔 it’s summertime and i hang on a vine. 〕› aesthetic.

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simplyserens · 6 years ago

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new upcoming artist nova castillo just released yet another album entitled ‘silver lining’ when asked about ‘silver lining’ she declined to comment. though this album seems to contrast immensely from her original breakout album ‘beginner’s luck’, ‘silver lining’ having a more stripped down acoustic feel, while still maintaining the indie pop flare nova is known for. we expect great things from her in the future.

01: green light - @theocannon, she wrote this the night after they made out that night in switzerland, the first lines are framed to make it seem like she’s upset with theo, or that she hates him, but the ending goes back on all of that, and actually mentions how much she thinks of him. ❝all those rumors, they have big teeth. oh, they bite you. thought you said that you would always be in love, but you're not in love no more. did it frighten you? how we kissed when we danced on the light up floor? ( on the light up floor ) but i hear sounds in my mind. brand new sounds in my mind, but honey i'll be seein' you, ever, i go. but honey I'll be seein' you down every road. i'm waiting for it, that green light, i want it .❞

02: sober - @theocannon, written after nova got drunk and kissed theo, also slightly about the night in switzerland, but mostly about the night she kissed him. she also lowkey mentions her regrets about everything. ❝king and queen of the weekend, ain't a pill that could touch our rush. but what will we do when we're sober? ... midnight, we’re fading. 'till daylight, we’re jaded, we know that it’s over in the morning, you'll be dancing with all the heartache, and the treason, the fantasies of leaving.❞

03: homemade dynamite - @theocannon & @norightwcy, the only real line about theo and apollo is ‘seeing me happy, showing someone else love.’ but the rest of it is about theo. but what else is new? mostly deals with the topic of their ‘explosive’ relationship. ❝so let's let things come out of the woodwork, i'll give you my best side, tell you all my best lies. seeing me happy, showing someone else love. hands under your t-shirt, know I think you're awesome, right? our rules, our dreams, we're blind. blowing shit up with homemade d-d-d-dynamite. our friends, our drinks, we get inspired, blowing shit up with homemade d-d-d-dynamite.❞

04: the lourve - @theocannon & @norightwcy, slightly wrote the last line about apollo , but all the lines that follow before are about theo, and how their ‘relationship’ obviously isn’t functional. also hints that it’s his fault she’s this caught up in him ❝drink up your movements, still i can't get enough, i overthink your punctuation use. not my fault, just a thing that my mind do. a rush at the beginning, i get caught up, just for a minute. but lover, you're the one to blame. all that you're doing, can you hear the violence? megaphone to my chest. broadcast the boom, boom, boom, boom. and make 'em all dance to it ... but we're the greatest, they'll hang us in the Louvre.❞

05: liability - finally a song that’s not really about anyone? it’s more personal to nova, unlike what she’s written before, and although the first lines slightly touch on her relationship with theo, the entire song encapsulates her just feeling the pressure of people finding it difficult to be friends with her. ❝baby really hurt me, crying in the taxi, he don't wanna know me. says he made the big mistake of dancing in my storm, says it was poison. so I guess I'll go home, into the arms of the girl that I love, the only love I haven't screwed up. she's so hard to please, but she's a forest fire. i do my best to meet her demands, play at romance, we slow dance in the living room. but all that a stranger would see, is one girl swaying alone, stroking her cheek. they say, "you're a little much for me, you're a liability, you're a little much for me" so they pull back, make other plans. i understand, i'm a liability, get you wild, make you leave, i'm a little much for everyone.❞

06: hard feelings/loveless - @theocannon, the first part of the song, “hard feelings” is a track describing the emotions that followed the 'split’ that she thinks happened between her and theo. and the ultimate recovery from heartbreak. / @norightwcy, the second part of the track, “loveless,” talks about her attempting to get over theo with apollo. ❝please, could you be tender? and I will sit close to you, let's give it a minute before we admit that we're through. guess this is the winter, our bodies are young and blue. i’m at Jungle City, it's late and this song is for you. 'cause i remember the rush, when forever was us, before all of the winds of regret and mistrust. now we sit in your car and our love is a ghost, well, I guess I should go. yeah, i guess i should go. hard feelings– these are what they call hard feelings of love. / bet you wanna rip my heart out. bet you wanna skip my calls now. well, guess what? i like that, 'cause I'm gonna mess your life up. gonna wanna tape my mouth shut, look out, lovers, we're L.O.V.E.L.E.S.S. generation, L.O.V.E.L.E.S.S. generation. all fuckin' with our lover's heads generation.❞

07: sober II ( melodrama ) - @theocannon & @norightwcy, about both times that she’s drunkenly kissed both theo and apollo, follows the events of the track that was a few songs previous, ‘sober’ being the party, and ‘melodrama’ being the morning after. ❝you asked if i was feeling it, i’m psycho high, know you won’t remember in the morning when i speak my mind, lights are on and he’s gone home, but who am i? oh, how fast the evening passes, cleaning up the champagne glasses. we told you this was melodrama. ... and the terror, and the horror, when we wonder why we bother. and the terror and the horror, god, I wonder why we bother. all the glamour and the trauma and the fuckin' melodrama.❞

08: writer in the dark - @theocannon, oh boy this song sorta laments that while nova will obviously always have feelings for theo, this is her way of saying that they’ll both have to move forward, even if he’s the only one that wants too. ❝break the news—you're walking out. to be a good man for someone else. sorry i was never good like you. stood on my chest and kept me down, hated hearing my name on the lips of a crowd. did my best to exist just for you, bet you rue the day you kissed a writer in the dark. bet you rue the day you kissed a writer in the dark. now she's gonna play and sing and lock you in her heart. bet you rue the day you kissed a writer in the dark.❞

09: supercut - @theocannon, this song is about her relationship with theo yet again, but nova focuses more on how she remembers it to be rather than how it truly is, and is slightly blinded by her hopefulness. ❝in my head, I play a supercut of us, all the magic we gave off, all the love we had and lost, and in my head the visions never stop, these ribbons wrap me up. but when I reach for you. there's just a supercut. in your car the radio up, we keep trying to talk about us. i’m someone you maybe might love, i'll be your quiet afternoon crush, be your violent overnight rush, make you crazy over my touch ... cause in my head, in my head, i do everything right. when you call i’ll forgive and not fight. all the moments i play in the dark, wild and fluorescent, come home to my heart.❞

10: liability ( reprise ) - @theocannon, loosely based on their ‘relationship’ in highschool, nova talks about how hard things were for them. also mentions despite everything, despite who nova thought theo was, when everything with carley happened, he still left. ❝i'm a liability, i'm a liability. much for me, you're a little much for me, no no no no....whatcha gonna do? all of the dreams that get harder, all of the things that I offer you, and all of the shit that we harbour. make all of the kids in the choirs sing woo-hoo. maybe all this is the party, maybe the tears and the highs we breathe, maybe all this is the party, maybe we just do it violently. but you're not what you thought you were. you leave.❞

11: perfect places - nova ends the song with a message from teenage years, that were mostly spent at high school parties with friends, that message being the mentalities and experiences involved with parties are not actually so perfect, even though they may feel euphoric. and that the late teenage years are, above anything, imperfect. ❝i hate the headlines. are you lost enough? have another drink get lost in us. ... every night, i live and die, meet somebody, take 'em home. let's kiss and then take off our clothes. it's just another graceless night, 'cause. all of the things we're taking. 'cause we are young and we're ashamed, send us to perfect places. all of our heroes fading. now I can't stand to be alone, let's go to perfect places, all the nights spent off our faces, trying to find these perfect places, what the fuck are perfect places anyway?❞

#♡━━ career { there is pain in every word you sing. }#this is really @ apollo & theo #mostly @ theo #don't come for me or nova skkskss #surprise! i couldn't wait because i'm impatient

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recentanimenews · 6 years ago

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Crunchyroll Features' Most-Anticipated Anime of Summer 2019!

2018 is almost over so it's time to forget the past and look forward to the new year (once we're all finished with Anime Awards). Many of Winters biggest shows are doubtless to be the huge continuing titles from Fall, but there are plenty of new anime to be excited about. Our editors have looked forward to the fresh new titles and each picked the 3 they're most looking forward to.

Peter Fobian

Most of the biggest shows from Fall are continuing in Winter, and the ones that are finishing up are being replaced by even BIGGER titles, so 2019 is starting off pretty crazy. Winter in particular looks great since one of my favorite manga and favorite anime are seeing new releases!

The Promised Neverland

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I’d read up to volume 3 of the manga before Shonen Jump made their entire back catalog available then caught up with the ~100 remaining chapters in a single sitting. The Promised Neverland is one of the best manga currently running in Weekly Shonen Jump that’s extremely hard to describe to people without spoilers. Smash Death Note and Coraline together and you start to get an idea of what this series is about. I’m really looking forward to seeing some of the most chilling moments from this series in motion.

Mob Psycho 100 II

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Mob Psycho 100 was one of my favorite 2016 anime on multiple levels. One’s storytelling and characters are excellent, but BONES really elevated the source material by making the surreal psychic combat of the series an animators playground of sophisticated and obscure animation techniques. The anime is so fun to watch, and I really get the sense that’s because it was fun for the animators to make. Match that with maybe the BEST anime PV I’ve seen in my entire life

Boogiepop Doesn’t Laugh

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I’ve been meaning to watch Boogiepop Phantom for as long as I can remember, and this series is finally going to make me do it. Supernatural mystery is totally my jam and Boogiepop has maybe one of the biggest reps in the genre, possibly even surpassing Hell Girl. The preview shows off some amazing visuals and has a seriously sinister aura I’m just in love with so… mess me up, Boogiepop.

Ricky Soberano

After such a whirlwind of a fall season, I’m ready to become a blanket burrito and kick off my New Year’s resolution: Watch anime that will make me feel 100% happy to think about looking forward to it and step outside of my usual shonen safety zone.

Mob Psycho 100 II

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I am super psyched for this new season! Yes to see how Mob’s powers have progressed and how they can look even more aesthetically mind bending but I actually just really want to see his progression as a loveable awkward human. I want to see him challenged on both the psychic and behavioral fronts.

The Rising of the Shield Hero

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It appears we have a dark horse. Having seen so many isekai’s in which the hero is essentially awesome all of the time almost from the beginning gets boring pretty quickly for me. However Shield Hero has the odds and the world against him from the very beginning and I’m sadistically here for it. I’m ready to see how the ‘Get shit done by any means necessary’ survivor attitude comes out, how he grows through the underdog struggle, and what this journey will do to his moral compass. Catch me on the flipside watching the anti-hero isekai unfold.

Saint Seiya: Saintia Sho

Truthfully, I haven’t watched any previous Saint Seiya anime so I’m coming in with the cleanest slate possible and I am hella hyped. This legendary piece of work is gloriously luminous with a gem color palette, follows the goddess, Athena’s personal maidens known as Saintia, and has a fight against one’s predetermined fate.

Nate Ming

One of my Fall favorites (Hinomaru Sumo) is still running this season, but what will fill the Honda-san and Sugimoto-shaped holes in my heart? Ahh, yes… horror never fails me--horror involving children, horror involving ghosts, and just plain ol' body horror. Winter 2019 ain't messin' around!

The Promised Neverland

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One of my favorite new manga is finally getting the anime treatment--I can't wait to see newcomers' reactions to the suspense, twists, and horror that The Promised Neverland never fails to deliver.

Boogiepop Doesn't Laugh

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Boogiepop Phantom was probably one of the best blind buys I made back during the VHS days, so I'm super hyped for more. The original was clever, thoughtful, and creepy--here's hoping for more of the same in the new series.

Dororo

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One of Tezuka's most violent and most badass stories is coming back in 2019, with the ronin Hyakkimaru hunting down 48 demons who stole his body parts (which he's replaced in the meantime with lots and lots of swords). Anybody ever play the PS2 game, Blood Will Tell?

Nicole Mejias

After this last season, I’m somewhat glad that for my tastes Winter seems a bit slim, but there are also so many shows continuing that I’m going to still need to find some time to catch up! That said, there are a few that are just must watch shows for me, including the return of my beloved Mob Psycho!

Mob Psycho 100 II

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This is my biggest anime for the upcoming season. I’m so excited to see more of Mob, Reigen, and the rest of the characters. While others might be looking forward to One Punch Man’s new season, I always preferred One’s more personable and down to earth writing for Mob and the gang. I can’t wait to see what they get up to in this season, and you bet I’m going to check out that special premiere in theaters next week!

The Promised Neverland

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I’ve been wanting to read the manga for this for some time now as I keep hearing from friends about how interesting and creepy it is. I love horror stories, but I just hadn’t had a chance to pick up the manga and see what all the fuss was about, so now I’m glad I can check it out this season! I don’t really know much about it, other than it supposedly gets very tense and creepy, so I’m on board for some good scary drama!

Dimension High School

I’m a big fan of Japanese live action comedy, animated comedy, and frankly just Japanese comedy, so this weird blend of live-action and CG anime featuring some huge voice talents, like Junichi Suwabe (Viktor Nikiforov, Abacchio), Shouta Aoi (Ai Mikaze, Himself in Pop Team Epic), and more, is right up my alley. The series follows 4 boys transported to an animated realm to… solve puzzles at the bidding of a giant Sphinx? The trailer won me over with a very self-aware “Where are my hands?!” joke, so I’m interested to see more of this one.

That's all for this list. Unsurprisingly, the latest Shonen Jump adaptation in The Promised Neverland and the continuation of anime's most beloved child, Mob, in Mob Psycho 100 are topping out everyone's lists! As always, we're looking forward to seeing our predictions pan out and getting pleasantly surprised by some of the new shows we weren't expecting to like.

What's your most anticipated anime of Winter 2019? Sticking with your continuing series or think a dark horse will surprise us all? Let us known in the comments below!

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Peter Fobian is an Associate Features Editor for Crunchyroll, author of Monthly Mangaka Spotlight, writer for Anime Academy, and contributor at Anime Feminist. You can follow him on Twitter @PeterFobian.

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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