#maze runner and hunger games hit different

[clonerightsagenda]

How's Uglies holding up to modern rereading for you? I loved it as a kid, but nowadays I see it as an early entry in the YA dystopia boom that other books took formula notes from and refined down the line, making it feel a fair bit clumsier by comparison. Very fond memories, though, and I appreciate seeing the toxic yuri on my dash now that I'm old enough to appreciate it, lol.

It's holding up pretty well for me! I'll be honest - while I read The Hunger Games and Unwind, I never read Divergent or The Maze Runner, so I'm not entirely versed in the YA dystopia boom. I'm aware of the cultural construction of it though - world's specialest teen girl is the only one who can topple the government and lead a revolution. I'm not even sure how many of the actual series align with that stereotype (imo The Hunger Games is deliberately interrogating it) but anyway, some thoughts re: Uglies' position vis a vis dystopia stereotypes and just in general:

The love triangle is annoying, no arguments there, but it also ends more messily than I think the stereotype typically conveys. She 'chooses' one of them and then he dies as a direct result of her behavior, and she's not with-with the other at the end of the main series (and in the sequel series they've gone their separate ways).

Also, Tally is frequently a pretty unlikable person, which is a bold choice! She is not motivated by any pure intentions at the beginning - she's betraying a friend for her own gain - and throughout the series we see her wrecking that friendship over and over because, as Shay accuses her, she thinks she's the center of the universe. Shay hits every big milestone before Tally - Smoky, Pretty, Special - and it almost feels like prodding the limits of a close third POV, reminding us that there's isn't one single world's specialist teen girl. In the stereotypical version, Shay would be the scrappy rebel hero. Tally always needs pushes, and she's always screwing it up.

While it's obviously written for younger readers, the writing is effective. Like I said, Scott challenges himself to write the same POV three times with different levels of brain damage and pulls it off. He integrates made up slang in a way that doesn't feel too distracting (I really enjoy the way the princess sections in Pretties are written). In classic Scott fashion he brings back key ideas and phrases to hit you hard when it counts (informed consent, a special circumstance), and of course the whole final word of each book forming a circle is a fun little bonus. I'm glad this was written before the modern codifying of YA when it would be in first person.

The moral is obvious yeah but it's MG/YA and also props to Scott for predicting influencers in Extras. You also get the protagonist semi-aligning themselves with the antagonists' ideology at the end which is interesting, even if it again fits into a Western environmentalist assumption that humans can't live in peace with nature.

And finally, despite not being sporty at all, I still want a hoverboard.

[lullydoesstuff]

- TOP DYSTOPIAN BOOKS -

Well, since I want to use this blog for personal stuff too and not just for requests or stuff concerning my MANY Demon Slayer AUs, here we are talking about some of my favourite books ever.

I love dystopian ones so these three will be very hard-core, I love the Hunger Games, I love Maze Runner, I love 1984 but these three just hit different.

Let's not lose time and let's begin!

3 - Tender is the Flesh (Augustina Bazterrica)

I decided to start with a book that has arrived in my country just this year, I didn't know about it before and I'm so glad I red it, even if it really disturbed me... do you know what the Promised Neverland is? Well, take it but make it Supersayan. And this is the less disturbing one here.

Plot: Marcos works in the meat industry, he always did but recently a virus started spreading, and animals couldn't be edible anymore so what does the government do? They start searching for vegan replacements? NO! They legalize cannibalism. Marcos has a troubled life, his father has gone mad since this "transition" from animal meat to human meat and his wife left him after they lost their son. He works in the meat industry but he swears to himself that he's not like the others, because he doesn't eat meat.

I know what you're thinking, "but this is a book to bring people close to veganism, it's the whole point"... no, congratulations, you didn't understand ANYTHING. This book is way more complex, this because it's about the line that divides humanization/objectification, and this will be a recurring theme in this post.

This book is full of gore (what did you expect?), graphic descriptions, violence, sexual violence so I don't know if I recommend this book to everyone, it's very short but be aware of this if you decide to read it. In any case, the plot is very interesting and it's very well written.

2 - The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)

I'm sure many of you have seen the TV series, I've seen it too and it's one of the few cases I say that the series is better than the book, maybe because the series has a more modern setting and so I can actually be terrified by it.

Plot: the world has been almost destroyed by wars and this caused the birth to decrease to 0, and what happens in America? After a coup a new government is instituted... a totalitarian theocracy where religious confessions that aren't Christianity are banned, let's fucking go, this new country's name is Gilead. In this new world women have an only job: being literal baby machines given to rich families to have children.

This is so damn disturbing because, the insemination thing is wild, the man reads a Bible verse from Genesis, and then he just... does it. It's gross, go check for yourselves, human butchering was nothing compared to this.

We follow June, an Handmaid and we just see how things work in this new... amazing... world... I guess.

1 - Unwind (Neal Shusterman)

This deserves the first place, I've never stopped reading a book I loved because it disturbed me too much. I wanted to support the author, he's very good, so I bought all the other books from the Unwind distology... but I finished the first one and never red the second one, please tell me in the comments if it isn't as disturbing as the first one so I can give it a chance or not.

Plot: in the USA a second civil war is fought, but that's not a war where you shoot people from aontoher country to conquer it, or to oppose the government (well... kinda), it's about reproductive rights, many discussions, many things but in the end people decree that you can't abort in any case (*Lully already screaming and tearing off her hair*) BUT you can... well... Unwind your child if you don't want them anymore. But just when he's from 13 to 18.

What does unwind mean? Basically you give your unwanted child to some clinics that literally vivisection them (yes, the person is awake during the process BY LAW) and give thier organs to people that need transplants.

Now you can easily understand why this is the number 1 in this list, it's the destructive combo between "Tender is The Flash" and "the Handmaid's Tale".

We'll follow the story of Risa, Connor and Levi (and this last one oh my God, I wanted to punch his family so bad), escaping their fate of being unwind.

And yes, that scene comes, yes, you will see a vivisection, and yes... you will feel physically sick and need to throw up after, you'll probably have nightmares and life crisis. Also because... the unwind isn't exactly one of the "good guys".

Ah, dear pro-life people that care about a bunch of unborn cells and can't distinguish a human embryo from a dolphin embryo... Read this book, then change your mind about other people's body and take choices just for yours, because it seems we're going back and not aiming foward as we should.

[bri-the-fando-meister]

Hey there! I'm Bri, I am in too many fandoms to count.

Here is my ask list, for those wanting to know about my ask system.

-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>

Categories.

Smut, smut will be labeled with a 🔷. I will do smut (granted I am comfortable in writing it. If I am not wanting to do the ask, I'll send a message explaining why, and we can work to finding a way around it.)

Fluff, fluff will be labeled with a ☁️. I will be able to do all fluff.

Angst, angst will be labelled with a 🖤. I will do angst (as long as it isn't to harsh or sad.)

Whump, whump will be labelled with a ⛓️. I will do whump (As long as it is something I can write well, and that I am comfortable writing about it.)

-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>

Fandoms.

Chicago Med. I can write Chicago Med, but be warned, I have only watched up to the end of season 3, so I might not know some characters, relationships, and things like that. I also have a good medical understanding, so medical accuracy should in theory, be up there.

The Maze Runner. I absolutely love the maze runner, read all books, watched all movies. Things should be accurate. Though, I prefer things being based by the books.

Divergent. I am in love with divergent, read all books, watched all movies. Things will be quite accurate, I have an awesome understanding. I prefer writing based off of the books for this one.

The Fault In Our Stars. Same old, read the book, watched the movie. All should be damn accurate.

The Hunger Games. Yep, read all books, and you guessed it, watched all the movies. Accuracy should be good. I prefer writing book version. (haven't seen TBOSBAS movie yet, but have read book)

-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>

Perspectives.

I can write for many perspectives, though I rather these types.

Y/N L/N. Yes, I like the fanfics where you can insert yourself into the story, I love it, don't judge.

OC's. I can make original characters for different fandoms, and you can imagine yourself as the oc.

Normal book. You aren't an actual character, you read it like a book without a narrator.

-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>

When doing an ask, please lay it out like this.

(Categories) (Fandom) (Perspective)

(Storyline)

-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>

Example:

Whump/Chicago Med/ Y/N L/N

Basically, the reader is coming into consciousness after getting hit by a car, Dr. Choi is there to keep them awake, otherwise they might not wake ever again.

-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>

Thankyou for reading, have fun with the asks, and get ready for some good reading.

[milenadelgadolaborde]

Hunger games 1: Reaction and Thoughts

[BEWARE THE SPOILERS!!!!]

Alright book munchers, buckle the fuck up bc we’re about to reread the hunger games, here we go. Some context for starters, I read the series for the first time when I was like 9ish/10 and I remember it being one of the very best dystopias I had read at the time (and honestly still one of the best in that genre, up there with the Uglies series (which I have yet to finish) and the maze runner). I remember it being so complex and how every little detail built up to this horrifying picture of this oppressive society right?

Now that the new book and movie has come out, I thought it would be cool to reread the series before reading that book (mostly so I can remember more than just the biggest plot points of the series). I’m interested in seeing how the books hit different as an adult, especially one who has more of an understanding and experience with things like discrimination and oppression, and other similar ‘systems’ that I understand better now.

Very very much looking forward to it so let’s get munchin

——-

Book 1: the hunger games

Published in 2008 (we got the HG in the same year that Obama became president? I don’t remember everything from when I was younger but I do remember that year was pretty wild for early 2000s standards)(Was it just me?)

*****So so many spoilers for the hunger games ahead, it’s been more than a decade but even so, if you haven’t read it yet and don’t want spoilers avoid below bc we’re gonna get into the thick of it

Part 1: the tributes

(Apparently instead of chapter titles there are just 3 parts - whatever happened to chapter titles man?)

Chapter 1:

First line: “When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.” Pretty unassuming but kinda gives a certain vibe that matches the series (?)

Second line: “My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress.”

My soul is already braced for pain 😂

—

It’s strange, bc it’s been a minute since I’ve read something in first pov // I’m so used to 3rd person past tense

——-

“Even though it was years ago, I think he still remembers how I tried to drown him in a bucket”

Jeez Kat

“The Seam” = ominous

——

“Electrified or not, the fence has been successful at keeping the flesh-eaters out of District 12.”

Girl what? The what? I don’t remember this😳 is this the post apocalyptic part of the world? Honestly between zombie creatures and the hunger games I think I’d take my chances with the zombies. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if this was like a ‘oh the gov says there’s zombies out there’ but really they’re lying to keep the people inside kind of thing

——

““District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in safety,” I mutter.”

See this is what I’m talking about. The Symbolism and Ethical/ Moral /Philosophical questions of this series are Top Notch.

Muncher question: Would you choose to starve in safety of eat well in danger?

—-

“The mayor’s daughter, Madge, opens the door.” Even the mayors daughter has to put her name in? Brutal man

““No, it’s no one’s fault. Just the way it is,” says Gale.” Well, I wouldn’t say it’s no ones fault- I’d say it’s the capitol’s fault

—-

I have to ask myself- why the children? I get that it’s in order to show the brutality of this system but you would think that nothing would incite rebellion more than targeting the children- Aaahhhh my heart strings are already being pulled!

(I wonder how big every district is)

——-

“His (Gale) rages seem pointless to me, although I never say so.”

I think from the very beginning there’s this air of hopelessness that colors all of Kay’s monologue up until the reaping // I also think this quote is interesting with the future love triangle context

I do remember vaguely this thing of Gale always setting her off and Peeta being the one that calms her (?)

——-

The section at the reaping where the history of Panem is explained and why they take the tributes ,

B R U T A L

Then Prim is chosen- Oof, Big Oof

——-

Ch2:

“The odds had been entirely in her favor. But it hadn’t mattered.”

“So instead of acknowledging applause, I stand there unmoving while they take part in the boldest form of dissent they can manage. Silence. Which says we do not agree. We do not condone. All of this is wrong.”

——-

“Haymitch plummets off the stage and knocks himself unconscious.”

I don’t remember Haymitch being this much of a mess but omg can you blame him? This poor man has to watch the kids he trains every year be murdered brutally and is sent back again and again every year - probably reliving his own time in the games too

My face as I read the entire book: 😬😬😬

—-

“Family devotion only goes so far for most people on reaping day.”

Also F Peeta’s brothers man // I mean I 100% get it but P’s the protag so allow me to be pissed on his behalf 😂

—-

Also I’m actually interested in reading this Treaty of Treason thing- does anybody else also experience wanting to get so deep into the lore and paperwork of a world? Like I remember with HP wanting to actually read Hogwarts textbooks and stuff

——-

And definitely Fuck P’s mother (if that’s who hit him)

——-

Ch3:

So Madge gives her a pin - is it the mocking jay pin? Ok it is -Does something bad happen to madge? Now when anyone does anything nice for the protags I just expect them to die horribly later

——

“But I hate Effie Trinket’s comment so much I make a point of eating the rest of my meal with my fingers. Then I wipe my hands on the tablecloth.”

Yeah! There’s our rebel!!!! F etiquette!

——-

Ch4:

“So I decide, from this moment on, to have as little as possible to do with the baker’s son.”

That’s gonna be a little hard babe, considering the plot

—

Having a bunch of children fight to the death in a brutal fight to live is one thing, but having them dress up like it’s a fashion show beforehand is sickening y’all

I don’t remember being this disturbed by the ages when I was younger bc I was under twelve and also this age range seems to be the set age for heroes in stories but now that I’m 22, like I’m closer to being a decade older than the oldest of these kids than not - and I still consider myself Super Young //

Like I remember feeling bad for the protags but now I’m like “Who let these babies fight?”

——

“Suddenly he (Peeta) lashes out at the glass in Haymitch’s hand.”

Oh go off King

This man is so unassuming at first but so cunning *chefs kiss*

——

Ch5:

“What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears at the press of a button?”

——-

“Our horses pull our chariot right up to President Snow’s mansion”

It is so easy to absolutely loathe this guy - I’m genuinely curious about the new book which is apparently about him and his backstory

——-

Katniss: Peeta is being nice to me? He must be planning on how to murder me. There’s no other reason he would do that

Peeta: 😍

——-

Ch6:

The Avox thing is so fucking disturbing man

——-

Ch7:

P and K both underrating themselves only to have the other highlight their greatest skills for Haymitch is so adorable- I love them

—-

Not Rue - I’m already crying 😭

—-

Katniss shooting the Apple in the pigs mouth = iconic

——

Ch8:

Ch9:

Peeta with the *le gasp* plot twists in the interviews with Ceasar = also iconic

——-

Part 2: the games

Ch10:

Ch11:

Ch12:

Ch13:

Ch14:

Ch15:

I love Katniss and Rue as a duo even though it hurts my heart ☠️

Fuck! I’m already crying

Ch16:

Ch17:

Ch18:

The song? The song guys. Kill me now

I’m so sad - so extremely sad

“Then I realize . . . he was my first kill.”

Katniss not even realizing that the boy she killed in defense of Rue is the first time she’s taken a life until later 😭 the cruelty of it all

——

Plot twist: the rule change *le gasp*

—-

Part 3: the victor

Ch19

Ch 20

Ch21

Ch22

The whole scene between P and K getting more intimate fulfills the part of me that ships them but the whole scene has a disturbing background feeling bc the entire time they’re both also aware they are on screen and have to play it up in order to get food. Like I want them to get together but ☹️

——-

“I know I’ll never marry, never risk bringing a child into the world.”

Yeah what’s stopping the districts from just not having kids? Like ppl irl are not having as many kids just because prices are going up and also some other risks but nothing like the hunger games - I would just not have kids // what would the capital do then? They’re completely dependent on work from the districts

——-

Ch24:

Ch25:

Cato’s death scene is the worst of the disturbingness- the mutants, the way it’s drawn out - it’s a no from me

Ch26:

When Katniss lifts her bow against Peeta on instinct and drops in? The berries: a little Romeo and Juliet moment? Forcing the capitol to give up even a little bit of ground? Iconic

——-

“My mouth waters at the smell, but I place it carefully on the floor, not trusting anything so clean and pretty.”

Now them dealing with the ptsd and ramifications of it all - heartwrenching

—-

““Oh, they did a full body polish on you,” says Flavius enviously. “Not a flaw left on your skin.””

The absolute disgustingness of it all, of a capitol city that had endless food, resources, and ways to keep people young and flawless, not just allowing, but actively demanding the depravity of children being sent to the hunger games to die in increasingly brutal ways while their families watch, starving

I have no words

———

““But the Gamemakers wanted to alter you surgically.”

Like she’s a doll?!?! Oh hell to the no

She’s a teenager!!!! I’m frothing at the mouth y’all

——

“When I left the arena, when the trumpets played, I was supposed to be safe.”

The Dread.

——

Ch27:

Peeta finding out that Katniss was definitely hamming it up for the cameras- Ouch

——

alright guys, I’m ready for book 2!

[enbysiriusblack]

hey could you do the ship thingy for marauders era, golden trio era and next gen era please?

so I'm a cis girl, probably straight but you can ship me with anyone like it doesn't bother me or anything :)

I'm 1,60 m and I'm not sure about this feet thing but I'm guessing it's like 5'3? I have blonde hair, almost breast length but a bit shorter I guess and I have very white skin

I wear glasses (I have an extremely bad sight like I can barely see without them) and I have brown-greenish eyes tho they kinda look different in every light

I rarely wear makeup, only to special events and even then it's not much

I'm not even sure whether I'm introvert or extrovert, it kinda depends but I'm definetly socially awkward and really bad at meeting new people, around my friends I talk a lot though

speaking of talking I talk very fast and tho I live in germany I love talking english, much to the annoyance of everyone around me

I'm definetly a nerd and obsessed with hp (and also other fandoms like hunger games, maze runner, darkest minds, etc) but also with like history and languages

my music taste can't really be described, I basically listen to a lot of music from the 70s to the early 2010s (and I listen to music while doing almost everything) but I don't like german music and most of the country and rap stuff

I love thrillers/sci-fi/fantasy movies but I'm way too scared to watch horror movies

I suck at sports and whenever I actually do sports my face looks like a tomato (I also suck at singing but I do it anyway)

I love reading but I'm always reading at least two books at once and I get really confused

while we're at it, I'm very clumsy, I tend to run into or fall over things

I love travelling and I want to go to so many places!!

I also want to stand up for things that are important to me and help change something

and like wow I wrote so much sorry xd

I ship you with...

marauders era:

James Potter

I feel like your description was very similar to how I imagined lily and regulus (which is james' type so). He's a lot taller so you get to do the tip toe, bend down thing when you kiss. You'd be 'blind without glasses' buddies. He'd introduce you to a load of new people and basically absorb you into his friend group. I feel like you'd both ramble about your interests a lot while actually listening to each other about them. You'd have to watch a lot of quidditch matches and practices.. but at least you don't have to actually do it!! and you can just read the whole time. He's rich so can take you travelling and I have this hc that he travels to South india a lot. Yeah, dating him you'd probably be going to A LOT of protests and trying to make a difference in the world

golden era:

Luna Lovegood

I feel like you'd spend a lot of alone or quite peaceful and quiet time with her. Probably would hang out in the forest a lot, you reading and her feeding the creatures. Youd teach each other about weird fascinating things. Probably would try and catch you every time you fall over, but would always be a second too late. I feel like you'd do some low-key travelling, wandering around Europe or something, trying new foods.

next gen:

Lily Luna Potter

she would definitely be a music snob but would approve of your music choices. You'd both probably talk a lot to each other, probably overlapping each others speech but somehow still listening. I could see you as like childhood friends and you would make up your own language and you'd carry on speaking it to each other as you grew up, not telling anyone else what you were saying. She'd probably try to get you to watch horrors with her, if you agreed I feel like she'd try to distract you when something scary was happening by like hitting someone with popcorn or throwing them up on the air and catching it in her mouth. ROAD. TRIPS.

[ukulelecal]

meet me under the cut lol

thank you for tagging me @loverofmines !! i tag @loveroflrh @5-seconds-of-mendes @outerspaceisbetterthannothing if yall want to!!

1. Name/nickname: genny!!

2. Gender: female

3. Star sign: libra 

4. Height: 5′2

5. Time: 2:37 pm

6. Birthday: october 10th

7. Favorite bands: 5sos, 1d, cigarettes after sex

8. Favorite solo artists: sam fender, harry styles, yungblud, hozier

9. Song stuck in my head: vincint’s cover of creep, it is sosososo good please listen

10. Last movie: i just realized i haven’t watched a movie in a hot minute lmao it was either monsters university or soul

11. Last show: ratched

12. When did I make this blog: january 2018

13. What I post: 5sos stuff with the occasional fic lol

14. Last thing I googled: how to find how long i’ve had my tumblr lmao

15. Other blogs: just this one

16. Do I get asks: sometimes and they give me immeasurable amounts of serotonin (if they’re nice that is)

17. Why I chose this url: i saw calum with a ukulele and went insane

18. Following: 352

19. Followers: 3k

20. Average hours of sleep: i don’t have an average lmao its either way too much or not enough

21. Lucky number: 24

22. Instruments: violin, a bit of ukulele and kalimba, trying to learn bass

23. What am I wearing rn: a ripcurl tshirt and athletic shorts

24. Dream trip: france is like The Destination for me but i want to go everywhere!!!

25. Favorite foods: pasta, burritos, my grandma’s kolaczki (or any dessert she makes tbh lol)

26. Nationality: american

27. Favorite song: changes depending on my mood lmao but rn saltless by german error message hits different

28. Last book I read: i reread the selection series by kiera class lmao it was a trip

29. Top 3 fictional characters: oh god uhhh newt from the maze runner will always be the love of my life as well as peeta from the hunger games. never getting out of that phase tbh. i also really love jessie from toy story lol she’s the best

30. Favorite color: purple!! but like periwinkle purple

[cheshiresense]

Oooh! Um... How about Kisuke/Yoruichi/Ichigo? Shadowrun AU (Fantasy AU if you don't know Shadowrun)

Lol I have no idea what Shadowrun is, did a quick google and it’s something like magic + cyberpunk + vaguely futuristic post-apocalyptic setting + virtual reality?? Omg it’s too complicated to write just from reading the wiki lmao, I’ll just give you a cyberpunk fantasy AU.

Edit: This got away from me a bit whoops.

1. Kisuke is your average humble toymaker in the Slums who may or may not supply the underground Robin Hood-esque rebel faction Visored with not-so-average weapons and prosthetics and various repairs and upgrades. The Visored are pretty much wanted in every kingdom in existence, partly because half of them used to be nobles themselves and were part of the minority who hated the way they treated their citizens, mostly because they keep fucking with the other nobles, but no one except said nobles actually wants them to stop because everybody who isn’t nobility pretty much hates those who are. Mostly, it’s the three neighbouring kingdoms - Seireitei, Silbern, and Las Noches - sitting cozy up in their walled off flourishing cities up high, constantly at war with each other but with plenty to eat and plenty of money to fund their large-scale chess games, and paying almost zero attention to the poor and homeless outside their walls. That doesn’t stop them from forcibly conscripting the lower class as cannon fodder or using the Slums as their personal dumping grounds or imprisoning or executing anyone they decide is breaking one law or another. Kisuke’s stayed under the radar so far, so nobody knows he’s the man even more wanted than the Visored, if only for his prodigal skills with cybertech. He’s the one who built their equipment and vehicles, who repaired Hiyori’s spine after she’d been left unable to walk from an ambush and produced a new arm for Hachi after it was cut off in a skirmish, both of which work just as well as the original parts. Most of the nobles either want to kill him or “hire” him. But a toymaker in the Slums who cobbles together tiny cats and dragons and chickens and pixies out of scrap metal for children to play with isn’t anything to look twice at.

2. Here is a secret only a handful of people know - Shihouin Yoruichi was born a cripple. She couldn’t walk, at all, and even the best prosthetics money could buy from the various cybertech companies were clunky and awkward and only allowed her to limp a certain distance. Her family, one of the great noble houses of Seireitei that specialized in seduction and assassination, hid her away out of shame, right up until a rebellious teenaged Yoruichi had had enough and snuck out one night on nothing but her wobbly fake legs and a crutch. She’d spent enough time on her own for the majority of her childhood to know just about every passageway and secret door that snaked through the length and width of Seireitei. She didn’t stop until she appeared in the Slums, and she fainted from exhaustion and hunger only a few days later, but she never looked back. Kisuke found her, took her in, and then made her legs on a whim, upgrading them every time he figured out something new and better that he could add to them. In exchange, Yoruichi used her newfound mobility to retrieve better materials for Kisuke, robbing delivery trucks en route to Seireitei’s cybertech companies or outright stealing from her own family’s weapons storage. Anything they could buy, Kisuke could reverse-engineer and make better. Ten years after she left her old life behind, her legs are a work of art, connected to her nerves to give her complete control over them but granting her superhuman speed and jumping ability, and she’d practiced enough with them over the years that her mind had no problems keeping up with both.  The prosthetics are lightweight but strong enough to withstand the swing of a blade or the impact of a bullet, and she would give a lot to see her family’s faces if they ever realize just who has been ransacking their vaults.

3. Most people carry some kind of weapon these days, but the best - for those who can afford them, or can call Kisuke a friend - can take the form of a companion when not in combat. Shinji’s is in the shape of a sphinx, all sleek lines and feline flexibility, but one that shifts into a sword in a silent whir of pulsing blue lines and polished metal at his command. Mashiro’s is a pixie, not unlike the toys commonly seen in Kisuke’s part of the Slums, except hers includes translucent wings threaded with pale green wiring. It’s perpetually perched on her shoulder, but in a fight, the pixie fuses with her hands and legs, the wings melting and sliding over her skin like liquid mercury to form gloves and boots that increase the power of her kicks and punches.

Yoruichi’s is a black cat but nobody actually knows what kind of weapon it can turn into. More often than not, Yoruichi sends it off as a spy because the thing is so realistic nobody can actually tell it’s not a real animal unless they get close enough to see the delicate wiring in its yellow eyes.

Nobody’s ever seen Kisuke’s either, weapon or otherwise, until a spy from a cybertech company snoops too closely around his shop. Then the other occupants get front-row seats to the bright red threads that extend from his hands - hands that light up with the many, many upgrades inside, a complicated maze of crimson circuits swirling beneath his flesh - and attach themselves to their target like strings on a puppet. At least he takes it out back before he literally rips the spy apart.

4. Once upon a time, before Yoruichi was even born, there were five noble houses instead of four. But the fall of the Shiba Clan is never talked about, and most don’t even remember the details anymore, only that most were put to the sword and the rest were scattered. One of the runners in Kisuke’s employ - the many who scrounge through the Slums’s trash heaps for parts Kisuke might find useful - is a boy on the cusp of twenty who looks uncannily like the last Shiba clan head before the family’s collapse. He goes by Ichigo and doesn’t seem aware of his lineage, and if he notices the way Shinji almost always makes an appearance when he comes in with his haul, and his payment always ends up including several extra portions of food and some high-grade medical supplies and even a new change of clothes now and then, he never says anything. After they find out he has two little sisters to feed, a handful of toys get bundled in as well, free of charge.

Kisuke wouldn’t know a Shiba from a Shihouin, and Yoruichi’s family never bothered teaching her all the things an heir or even just an average noble-born child would’ve needed to know, so neither of them treats Ichigo differently because of his blood or background. They do treat him differently because none of Kisuke’s runners have lasted as long as Ichigo. Sooner or later, they disappear, arrested by guards or killed in a back alley scuffle. Ichigo slinks into the shop at fifteen and still comes around every week like clockwork five years later. He always shows up with a decent haul too, and once, Yoruichi follows him, just to see where he’s getting his loot because surely most of the trash pits in the area have been picked clean over the years? There’s always more added to them, but not at the rate Ichigo is scrounging materials. So Yoruichi follows him one day when he leaves and that’s how they find out about his sisters and the makeshift hole in the wall they live in, shabby-looking on the outside but clean and cozy on the inside and insulated well from the cold. That’s also how they find out about all the enhancements Ichigo has, because Yoruichi makes the mistake of underestimating him and almost gets beheaded when he disappears and almost shivs her from behind with a hand-turned-blade, teeth bared like an animal as his eyes burn with golden circuitry.

(The Shiba Clan had been widely feared, once upon a time, for their genius in the more explosive weaponry and their talent with artificial intelligence and robotics and other biological cybertech enhancements. It was why they’d been so swiftly sentenced to death when they’d come down on the side of the poorfolk. Even one Shiba would’ve been equivalent to having a small army in one’s arsenal.)

Ichigo moved faster, jumped higher, hit harder, than anything Yoruichi had ever come up against. The crack of his heel coming down against the ground shattered rock and cement everywhere, and the only thing that saved her life that day was her dodging ability and a quickly shouted explanation for why she’d followed him in the first place. Ichigo wasn’t unreasonable, even if he wasn’t entirely human. His enhancements explained how he could move further through the Slums for loot and still put down roots in the area. It took some coaxing and several dozen more months of coming and going from the shop, but eventually, he’d also admitted that he didn’t know where his enhancements had come from, he couldn’t remember anything from before waking up the Slums with two regular human toddlers who called him brother depending on him. The only thing imprinted in his memory were the directives: 1) Take Care of Your Sisters, and 2) Survive.

But he was the most powerful thing around for miles, and Kisuke was fascinated because the work done on Ichigo was only vaguely like his own, and far more advanced than anything the nobility churned out these days. Yoruichi didn’t care as much, but she liked having a new sparring partner, not to mention Ichigo was very easy on the eyes, and a few more years on him meant Yoruichi could appreciate the sight without feeling like she was preying on a child.

Ichigo kept coming back, and eventually Kisuke managed to wheedle Ichigo into getting a checkup and upgrades, especially when he started outgrowing a few of his joint ports. Yoruichi watched the two of them make moon eyes at each other, listened to Kisuke ramble about something Ichigo told him the day before, noted the way Ichigo’s eyes sometimes strayed to Kisuke when the man wandered outside without a shirt and his pants on backwards after too many hours in his lab, and she was almost tempted to lock them in a closet together.

(She doesn’t notice the way Kisuke smiles indulgently at her when she comes home from a trip into Seireitei with an icebox of fresh strawberries from the Kuchikis infamous gardens because they’re Ichigo’s favourite, nor does she see Ichigo blink and cock his head in new understanding sometimes when he observes the way she drapes herself over Kisuke, comfortable and relaxed, but never does it with anyone else.)

In the world they live in though, trust is more important than love. Yoruichi has trusted Kisuke since she met him, and Kisuke’s trusted her since she was down two legs and still flung herself between him and a thief with a knife who thought the shop easy pickings. And the day Ichigo brings his sisters over and lets them run around out of his sight is the day they know he trusts them. It’s only natural to offer him and his little family a room of their own at the shop.

5. The day Yoruichi comes back with news of the Silbern Kingdom’s royal family and Las Noches’ royal family both being overthrown by several of their own noble families - the Ishidas and the Kurosakis, and the Coyotes, the Tu Odelschwancks, the Cifers, and the Jaegerjaquezs respectively - is the same day Shinji comes to them and tells them about the revolution movement that’s been in the works for a while now, about the remains of the Shiba Clan currently helping the Ishidas and Kurosakis take over Silbern, and about Ichigo’s own past - memory wiped for his own good because rumours of a Shiba child successfully integrated with his clan’s still experimental but groundbreaking technology had leaked, and if they’d gotten their hands on him, they would’ve turned him into their weapon. Better to hide him in the Slums, along with his two sisters who wouldn’t be of any use in a war for several more years, until they need him again, which they do now, because as soon as Silbern and Las Noches are theirs, they’ll be moving on to Seireitei post haste, and a two-pronged attack while the Gotei is still scrambling to defend themselves would hit them hardest, because for all that the kingdoms have been at war with each other for years, it had never been so direct, nor had their goals ever moved beyond poaching each other’s technologies. But for the revolution movement to succeed, they need Ichigo on their side, and it wouldn’t hurt for Kisuke and Yoruichi to join them too, technically Kisuke’s been their weapons-backer for years, and Yoruichi’s been their ear to the ground in Seireitei for just as long, and they’ll need all hands on deck. The kids can be left with Tessai.

Ichigo storms out. Yoruichi demands to know why they were never told before. And Kisuke surveys a tense-looking Shinji (who explains that it was supposed to be for their safety too - because Yoruichi was their only successful spy in Seireitei, and very, very few could match Kisuke’s genius, and it was just better to keep them out of the way) from beneath his hat before smiling blandly and promptly catching the man with a flick of his hand and five threads, unceremoniously tossing him out the window before he and Yoruichi both go to find Ichigo. It doesn’t take a genius to guess he’d returned to the hole-in-the-wall home he’d made for his sisters, and they join him after Ichigo acknowledges them with a jerk of his shoulders. They don’t speak right away, Ichigo sitting in stony silence, Yoruichi curled on one side of him still seething, Kisuke on his other, absently flexing one red-tinted hand in that way he only does when he’s contemplating murder.

They’ll help, all three of them. They don’t even need to discuss that. It’s high time for the upper-class to get their lives shaken up, the Slums are a disgrace, and if they have the chance to change that, they’ll take it, even if it means working beside people who have been using them for their own ends without giving them so much as a heads-up. Or in Ichigo’s case, will be using him since it’s pretty apparent he might not be the Gotei’s weapon but he is still very much the Shibas’ weapon, reserved for emergencies.

“Regimes come and go every day,” Kisuke remarks first, right hand fanning open, then closing, then opening again, crimson circuits shimmering along the vein lines of his palm.

“What a shame,” Yoruichi agrees with a grin that’s two-parts teeth and all-parts spite.

“…Three of us against three kingdoms that’ve just taken a beating?” Ichigo muses, but his eyes flare gold, and he’s smiling too. “Sounds like fun.”

[prismatoons]

I love angst so much but if I see one second of the hunger games, the maze runner or divergent my anxiety goes absolutely ballistic.

I guess I just can’t watch movies or shows that involve government control or oppression. It hits different to me idk.

[circlecast]

Why All The Superhero Movies?

Pop culture has a way of telling people what they are missing. What the vibe of society is from decade to decade. And that is evident in today’s popularity of superhero movies. Television shows on popular streaming services have superhero television series. Superheroes are everywhere. Why well I think it shows The mindset and thoughts of society as a whole.

In the past, You saw way back in the 20s there were songs like we’re in the money, and then in the 30s you saw songs like brother can you spare a dime. In the 50s it was the ideal family and in The 60s everybody was tired of all the wars and so there was the antiwar movement and all the movies about antiwar and the songs about anti-war, they were popular.

80’s

The 80s were optimistic and hopeful. so that’s why there were so many science fiction movies. Movies about adventure. Even in the late 70s when Sci-fi really starting become popular. Star Wars came out and Star Trek made a resurgence. You had the adventure of the hero's journey and that showed a lot of what society was wanting. They were hungering and hankering for adventure.

There was also the teenage angst of growing up. Popular movies like 16 Candles, Pretty in Pink, and Weird Science were popular at that time also because the number one moviegoers at that time were just that you teenage and tween kids.

They were movies tackling divorce like Kramer versus Kramer and Irreconcilable Differences a lot of society's problems were talked about in pop culture.

There were many other genres out there that were popular too. From self-discovery to the search for knowledge to thoughts of how scary the future could be.

90’s

Misadventures stories

American pie

The hangover

Gross point blank

Rommy and Michelle's Class Reunion

This showed that the teenage angst group was finally starting to stretch their wings. And were having their experience expressed in absurd tales.

2000

We had a dystopian societies show up like hunger games, insurgent, and maze runner. This really showed that society didn’t like the direction it was going. Things were going to start falling apart and one group was going to rule them all.

The superhero really started to take off. Yeah, we had Superman series of the 80s. we had a campy Tim Burton version of Batman. Yet the 2000s is when X-Men came out 2000 is when the superheroes really started to show up.

The start where we wished we had superpowers was the Harry Potter series. I believe it really expressed how we were not happy with our limitations. We weren’t happy about being common. We wanted to be special. With Harry Potter, you got to live vicariously through a boy who thought he was normal and turned out he was extra special and that he had something greater about him than everybody else.

We also had the X-Men start showing up along with Spider-Man.

Then in the 2010s. This is when people really started getting a lot of superheroes you had marvel television series you had DC television series, There are the DC cartoons that do better than DC movies. You have Batman, Batman, and then Batman.

The wave of Marvel movies that have been huge hits. Even the ones that some people say bombed made lots of money. Really shows the true angst of society.

So why does everyone seem to like these hero movies?

The big reason is that people wish they could escape their humdrum lives. All they do is get up, go to work, come home, and Go to bed only to repeat this process till Friday. They then have one day they can relax and then the stress of Monday starts to loom over them, and the process starts all over. this is the same for women as it is for men. Hearing that process would you want to wish for more?

Our schools don't help this either. They are too busy teaching kids that they are victims of a system they have no control over and that the kids may not be born in the right body. Therefore it isn't a wonder so many anxiety-filled kids are coming into society wishing that they had more options. They don't know what they are sexually and the world hates them.

So yeah they want a superhero to be around to save them from this world.

What Society doesn't know

What society doesn't know is that there is a superhero in each person. Now they may not be able to fly or be a speedster, but they have the ability to find fulfillment in what they do. This is because society wants little worker bees that don't question anything and just do what they say. Sounds great on paper but it fails miserably in the practical.

This is because each person is an individual and the majority of people who are born are straight. This is where dads really need to step up to the plate. Be there for their sons and daughters and protect them from those who are actually grooming their children to be used in horrible ways.

Dad's You are the original hero. You just have to change how you operate and start listening to your kids. Stop with the lectures., and I get it it is hard to stop. You want to make sure they understand that they screwed up, yet already knew that. That is why they are coming to you. They need a hero who will listen to the problem and let them work it out. They will be far more confident in their actions the next time if you do. The time you can jump into action is when there is a real danger.

You can also show your kids how they can be super on their own. Show them that being their own person is the scariest and most exhilarating part of being a human being. To not care that you are different. That you actually have standards and that nobody can shove you off of that hill. That takes confidence and the ability to give yourself grace. If you can do that you are miles ahead of anybody in their class because they are all scared to step out on their own because what if they get shunned by their classmates? Hmm, what would happen?

If you don't have kids that is OK you still have your own superpower. You are able to live your life on your terms. You don't have to follow what your mom and dad wanted you to be. You always wanted to paint and you still have an easel and paints stored away in the back of the storage unit. Why did you give it up? because someone said that you cant make money as an artist? You are right if you look at making money as many artists do. Where you are hungry for good judgment and afraid of bad. That fear will hold you back every time. What would you paint out if you didn't care if anybody liked your work or not? How would you paint if you painted only for yourself? Can you make money? Yeah, You have to first take care and process the thoughts that you have about the old ways, then change them.

See about having Bryan Coach you

The Brotherhood of Men

Newest podcast episode to change your Mindset

[dana-woodhams]

Inspiration Presentation

Finding an inspiration to fuel your project, this has to be something to sustain your project for 8 weeks.

Two inspiration ideas are; politics and family.

An example of a politics inspired collection would be the ‘GARETH PUGH AW 2017 COLLECTION’. ‘his envisioning of a dystopia that felt disturbingly near-at-hand, Pugh demonstrated a genuine understanding of this moment’s political stakes.’ I feel this was a really nice way to demonstrate but also educate an audience/ collection of people on the ideas and beliefs of this issue, and communicating that subtly through clothing is deniably something. From this collection I’ve learnt that having a deeper message imbedded in your collection is a good way to connect to a wider audience of people but also educate people on different matters.

An example of a family inspired collection would be Bugs Garson’s MFA Collection called ‘The letters my grandmother wrote’, this collection is quite a moving piece, she drew inspiration fro letters sent between her grandparents. To make this collection she used the letters, photographs/ visual inspiration, this allowed her to create a visual narrative. Learning from how she made her collection I drew out that it is a good idea to have a narrative that really hits home/ you connect to on another level, this way it makes it easier to develop ideas and grow the narrative more.

Choosing a narrative

Possible outcomes for this final project are; STYLING, MAGAZINES, LOOKBOOKS, TREND FORECASTING, BRANDING, GARMENTS, ACCESSORIES, FASHION TEXTILES , INTERIOR TEXTILES, FILM. They must be supported by strong research, experimentation and development of ideas.

Brief

After this Lecture I realised that I could look at a film, I think choosing to be inspired by a film would be a good way to progress my project, as I'm looking into costume design next year I feel this would be a good idea to move me onto looking at costume deign, but also I feel like it would get me ready for next year. For this project I’ve decided to to look at a dystopian setting as I have grown up around many films and books surrounding this theme, like Maze Runner, Hunger Games and many more.

[sparklyeevee]

Since it's fall, reminder to anyone who may be writing their first college-level papers in the next month or so that you write the introduction after the body text. Body text, then conclusion, then introduction, then bibliography. You can't explain what you're about to say until you actually know what you said.

Also if your instructor is serious about "don't use 'I' in a formal paper", use "this essay will..." (literature and the humanities) or "this paper will..." (history and the sciences) "discuss/describe/explore/attempt to answer/attempt to explain". Prefer the first three for literature, as especially persnickety lit professors may be aware that "essay" and "attempt" are synonyms, and "this essay will attempt" is therefore redundant. If you have discussed the meaning of the word "essay" in class and your professor has a sense of humor, "this paper will essay to" is viable, but don't use it more than once with the same instructor.

The first time you reference a digital source, paste a link (the DOI if it's a scholarly source and has one) to it into your bibliography section, along with a brief description of what it's a citation for, the author's name and year of publication, or both. I.e. "Smith, 1987. Parents fear social consequences for children who stutter." This is for your own ease of use when doing in-text citations and the bibliography, and will not be included in the version you submit, so it needn't be formal or make sense to anyone but you.

If you don't already have a clear idea of what you're going to write, or if you tend to lose your thread, start with either a series of bolded headings with the points you know you want to hit (these can be removed later if your style guide does not allow for them) or an informal paragraph describing your argument or ideas the way you might describe them out loud. (The latter can sometimes be edited into a passable introductory paragraph).

Example of bolded headings form for a paper about the relationship between stuttering and disruptive behavior disorders:

Introduction (including definitions)

old misconceptions and misattributions

modern stereotypes

stuttering and gender

changes over time

Genetic Relationships of Stuttering, ADHD, ODD, and Conduct Disorder

social difficulties

high anxiety/normal self-esteem

selective mutism as volitional and oppositional

fucking Rima et al

Conclusion

The 2nd through 5th and 7th through 10th bullet points above were eventually given the single headings "Background" and "Discussion" respectively. Each bullet point represents anywhere between half a paragraph and two paragraphs of writing.

Example of the paragraph format for an essay on models of resistance in dystopian YA:

Dystopian YA tends to distrust organized resistance and prefer lone heroes. Organized resistance is usually corrupt (Hunger Games) or has been subverted (Matched, The Testing). Divergent is a bit better: no less than two corrupt resistances, but at least the final victory is a team effort and Tris's personal victory doesn't immediately solve everything (drippy water sculpture metaphor). Unwind also has both legitimate and illegitimate resistances, and a clearer sense of what it's doing with them (the reader never thinks the Clappers are the good guys). Unrealistically ubiquitous surveillance - the Resistance is always off in the woods somewhere (Hunger Games dodged this one then turned around and walked into it). All government officials are loyal (except in Hunger Games, and sometimes like one high level woman or male prison guard). Where is the rest of the world? Where is California? Resistance mentors and status quo mentors. Too much emphasis on assassination. Direct action is always treated as suspect and never works, except sometimes rescue of prisoners or hostages. Besties are always traitors (misogyny). Most dystopias have a higher standard of living than the modern day US. (Need to figure out how Maze Runner fits in here). Common use of memory alteration feels significant here. Main point: these books fail to provide models of resistance that feel usable or applicable, and many discourage things that work in real life. PoC are less bad (mostly). Fucking source on why this is a real problem. Dystopias for adults aren't better they just have different problems. What's academic for "if you blame teenage girls for this I will come to your house and kill you in real life"?

Don't worry if yours isn't that long. My dystopian YA paper is in progress and will likely be thesis-length when completed.

1/3 of the way in to your paper, you will worry you can't cover everything without going way over page count. 2/3 of the way in you will worry you're gonna be massively under page count. Both anxieties are normal and incorrect, but the second one is less incorrect. Your first draft will be a little underlength - leave time to expand it.

The real reason to get into the habit of not trying to write papers the night before is that otherwise you'll eventually disappoint yourself and your professor in a class you love by handing in a just-okay paper that could have been awesome if you'd had an extra day.

If you have thoughts or ideas while reading things that are for, or might be usable for, your paper, write them down so you can use them. If doing it in a word doc is too stressful because it's Official, do it in an email to yourself, or make a tag for it and post it to Tumblr. Don't use Facebook - too hard to find your old posts.

[kihong-source-blog]

As the Maze Runner film trilogy concludes with The Death Cure, its lead actors brace themselves for life outside the Maze

When The Straits Times asks O'Brien, Lee and Brodie-Sangster who was the most pungent among the gladers, they start throwing looks at one another and pointing fingers. The three actors were in South Korea's Conrad Seoul hotel recently to promote the film.

Korean-American actor Lee, 31, admits: "It gets pretty stinky out there."

American actor O'Brien, 26, deadpans: "There's been times when people worried about my mental health because of the state of my hygiene on this film. Let's leave it at that."

The first Maze Runner movie came on the back of the success of The Hunger Games movies (2012 onwards) and Divergent (2014), the start of another series.

Inevitably, it was seen as being part of the young adult dystopia genre.

O'Brien says, though: "With that whole wave of young adult dystopian films that came out, when they caught on for a little while, a lot of things got lumped into that category. And we've never thought of our films as that, that's not even a genre to me."

As Lee puts it: "It's rooted in sci-fi, but it's so much more than that. It's action, it's adventure, it's about relationships too. I really think the character work in these films is amazing as well as being exciting and emotional."

What should be satisfying for fans is seeing how the threads which ran through the earlier instalments come together in The Death Cure as friendships are bolstered, enemies cross paths and betrayals are reckoned with.

O'Brien says of his character Thomas: "Everything you see him go through in the first two films really wears on his shoulders. He's like a weathered leader at this point.

"In the first two films, he so strongly believes that what he's doing is right and (here he realises), maybe he wasn't entirely right. Everyone has his point, everyone's a little right, a little wrong."

The actors themselves were excited when they first got the script for the finale, even though they had some idea of what to expect, given that the series is based on American writer James Dashner's The Maze Runner (2009), The Scorch Trials (2010) and The Death Cure (2011).

O'Brien declares: "It was the strongest starting place we had so far in the trilogy. Really wrapped up everything nicely and I thought it was handled nicely. I could see it being potentially the best of the three films and that was what we set out to do."

The rule for sequels tends to be bigger, faster, more and Lee says The Death Cure is "the most action-packed of all the movies".

Indeed, it starts with a cracker of a sequence with twists, turns and thrills as Thomas and gang attempt to rescue Minho from a train commandeered by WCKD.

Unfortunately, a stunt for the film went wrong just days into shooting in March 2016. O'Brien was reportedly hit by a vehicle and suffered a concussion, facial fracture and lacerations. It took almost a year before filming resumed in February last year.

Questions about the accident are strictly off-limits at the press junket and the actor himself steers clear of the topic.

He spoke to Vulture - New York magazine's culture and entertainment site - at length in September and said: "I had lost a lot of function, just in my daily routine. I wasn't even at a point where I felt I could handle social situations, let alone showing up and being responsible for work every day."

The toll was psychological as well as physical and it took time for him to get through the "overwhelming" recovery process.

At the press event, O'Brien seems to have fully recovered and there are no noticeable scars on his face.

He jokes around with his co-stars and embraces the experience of being in Seoul for the first time.

He says: "First night here, we had Korean barbecue for dinner; first morning here, we had Korean barbecue for breakfast. And drank at both. It's been great."

The first movie earned US$348 million (S$458 million) worldwide while The Scorch Trials took in US$312 million.

If the stars felt any pressure in delivering another hit, they are certainly not showing it.

With their easy-on-the-eye looks and dressed in different colour combinations of windbreaker and T-shirt for the press conference, the trio look like they could be an inclusive boyband as they earnestly take questions.

Indeed, they are greeted like rock stars at the red carpet premiere held at Seoul's IFC Mall last month. The temperature outside was well below zero, but indoors, it was sizzling as fans screamed and cheered when the trio appeared.

Lee says: "The first movie just came out of the gate so fast and did so well that (we) definitely felt it on the second one.

"You always want to build on something that was a huge success. We just hope that with this last instalment of the franchise, the fans really come out and support us as well."

The Maze Runner in 2014 marked his feature film debut and he has gone on to projects such as ongoing television comedy Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

O'Brien was already getting attention before that for supernatural comedy-drama Teen Wolf (2011 to 2017) and has since starred in movies such as action-thriller American Assassin (2017).

English actor Brodie-Sangster, 27, first found fame as a child actor in the romantic comedy Love Actually (2003), as a boy who falls for his American classmate.

On dealing with celebrityhood, he says: "It's a weird one. Don't pay attention to it too much? Don't take yourself too seriously. I still find it so odd sometimes."

As the Maze Runner film trilogy draws to a close - though there are still two prequel books - the actors are already making plans for what comes next.

O'Brien, for instance, has expressed interest in directing.

Brodie-Sangster says: "There's been lots of really great aspects to making the movies and yes, it is sad it's all come to an end now.

"But we're all ready to move on and take what we've learnt and adapt and grow and move forward."

source

[tylerhoechlin]

Back From the Brink

Dylan O’Brien was groomed to be Hollywood’s next young leading man. Then a tragic accident made him question everything.

Dylan O’Brien knows you want to know what happened to him.

Some people search his face for scars. Others ask the 26-year-old actor questions about the accident in 2016 that nearly cut short his career and could have ended his life. For more than a year, he was able to dodge that scrutiny and recover in private. Now, with a new movie coming out and a press tour required to promote it, things are different.

“I was anticipating this for a long time,” he says over lunch at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles. “It used to really anger me, even just the thought of it. I just knew that eventually, I would have to be asked about this.”

He confesses these angry thoughts about as affably as any person could, as though he’s upset to even get upset. That doe-eyed decency has proved key to O’Brien’s screen appeal: In his breakthrough role as the lead of the Maze Runner franchise, he’s introduced in media res, thrust into a coliseum of YA terrors before we even learn who his character is. As he shakes and shivers and tries, alongside the audience, to make sense of his otherworldly predicament, you can’t help but root for him.

Not every actor can inspire that feeling in a viewer, but in O’Brien’s case, it’s so innate that the director of his new film, the action vehicle American Assassin, cast him simply after looking at his head shot. “I remember in that first discussion with my producers, names were being thrown around, and the one name I didn’t know yet was Dylan’s,” says Michael Cuesta. “I Googled him, I saw his picture, and I just said instinctively, ‘He’s right.’ There was an innocence and a vulnerability to him, and I hadn’t even seen his work yet. It’s an instinct you just have to trust.”

Cuesta wasn’t the only one besotted. At a time when Hollywood likes to import most of its young leading men from overseas — like Spider-Man’s Tom Holland, Star Wars breakout John Boyega, and an entire family of Hemsworths — The Maze Runner established O’Brien as a rare homegrown movie star. His profile grew ever larger while he shot the sequels to The Maze Runner and neared the end of his time on the MTV series Teen Wolf, and as work began on the third and final Maze Runner film, O’Brien started to look ahead to the future.

And then, just days into shooting that sequel, O’Brien was seriously injured in a stunt gone wrong. Pulled from one vehicle, he was reportedly struck by another, leaving him with a concussion, facial fracture, and brain trauma among his injuries. Production shut down for several weeks, then indefinitely. O’Brien withdrew from public view during his recovery as rumors flew that he might not return to the film. Half a year went by as O’Brien tried to heal and, at the lowest point in his life, mulled whether he wanted to continue his career at all. “I really was in a dark place there for a while and it wasn’t an easy journey back,” says O’Brien. “There was a time there where I didn’t know if I would ever do it again … and that thought scared me, too.”

Now, though, he is ready to talk about it.

“In a lot of ways, those six months went by like that,” he says, snapping his fingers. “And then, in a lot of ways, I can still remember that six months as if it was five years of my life.”

…………………………

Ask most young actresses when they wanted to become a movie star, and it won’t even be a question: They’ve been planning for it their whole lives. Kristen Stewart has been acting since she was a preteen, and at 14, Emma Stone put together a PowerPoint presentation to convince her parents to move to Los Angeles so she could go on auditions. But young American men seem come to acting differently — or indifferently. Channing Tatum was a model and dancer who happened into commercials before becoming a movie star. Chris Pratt happily toiled in obscurity as a Bubba Gump waiter in Hawaii when he was convinced by a customer to act in her film.

O’Brien’s foray into the industry was similarly unplanned. His parents had the expertise — O’Brien’s mother taught an acting class, while his father moved the family to California when O’Brien was 12 so he could pursue work as a camera operator — but in high school, he played drums in a jazz band instead of signing up for drama class. Like many of his classmates, though, O’Brien had a habit of posting videos to YouTube. They’re still there today: Check out his user page at “moviekidd826” and you can watch all 14 of his short comic sketches. Some of them are fairly simple, like his too-enthusiastic lip sync to the Spice Girls song “Wannabe,” and one of the uploaded clips is a teen staple, the video he made to ask a girl to prom.

Still, the shorts are clever and surprisingly narrative-driven, and O’Brien is a deft comic performer in all of them. He wouldn’t have thought of what he was doing as acting — he was just being himself, after all. But it’s exactly that unvarnished quality that made him so appealing, and as the videos began to circulate, he was signed by a woman who is still his manager today. Soon enough, he was being sent out to audition for projects like Valentine’s Day and Wizards of Waverly Place.

He hadn’t grown up knowing that he wanted to be an actor, but give O’Brien some credit: Once he figured that out, he committed hard. “My first semester of college, I’m going to sociology and English and psychology and all I cared about was getting home and preparing for whatever audition I had,” he says. “I’d be on IMDb looking at projects in development that I’d be right for and I’d send them to my manager and be like, ‘What’s going on with this?’” His ambition often outstripped his experience. “I was obsessed with having one of those auditions finally work out, and I was very impatient,” he recalls, laughing. “My manager would be like, ‘You have to understand, this could take years.’ And I was like, ‘No, no, no, I’m going to get one of these.’”

Only a few months after his high-school graduation, that’s exactly what happened. O’Brien was cast on Teen Wolf, a fledgling MTV series based on the campy 1980s movie. This version skewed darker and filled its cast with hunks, with the howls meant to come from the audience each time a sexy werewolf stripped off his shirt. It was a notable hit for MTV, and though O’Brien was cast as the human best friend — not as the protagonist, Scott, or as any of the eye-candy beasts on the show — the role was a good fit for his boy-next-door charm. He wasn’t just Scott’s friend. He felt like yours, too.

“That show really became my school in a lot of ways,” says O’Brien. “I never took a second on set for granted. Even on my first day on the pilot, when my work finished for the day but then they were going to this other location to shoot another scene, I just went with them.” As a cable show, Teen Wolf filmed only five months out of the year, so O’Brien had plenty of time to hop on to other projects: He took Zooey Deschanel’s virginity in a New Girl flashback and popped up on the big screen in films like the teen romance The First Time and the Vince Vaughn–Owen Wilson comedy The Internship. “I would want to get on as many sets as I could,” he said. “And I was still very much ambitious about being in movies, too.”

In 2013, the year after The Hunger Games hit big, O’Brien was cast as the lead in another book-to-film YA franchise, The Maze Runner. The rare $100 million hit toplined by a young actor under 25, it propelled O’Brien onto studio short lists and led to more work in bigger movies, including Peter Berg’s Deepwater Horizon and a Maze Runner sequel, The Scorch Trials. 20th Century Fox picked up an action comedy with O’Brien attached, a sign of his growing clout, and as Cuesta looked for someone to play black-ops recruit Mitch Rapp in American Assassin, based on a popular book series by the late Vince Flynn, he alighted on O’Brien.

“He looks like a boy next door, like my son’s older friends,” says Cuesta. “Like a young man who has one foot in that postadolescent place and is about to cross over into adulthood and take that rite of passage.”

In March 2016, just as O’Brien headed to Vancouver to film Maze Runner: The Death Cure, he committed to star in American Assassin, which would represent his biggest break so far from youth-driven fare. He planned to film that after wrapping The Death Cure, squeeze in some time to shoot Teen Wolf’s farewell season, and move on to the movies that studios had been setting up for him.

“To see him blossom in his career and see what he was taking on, it was amazing to watch,” says O’Brien’s father, Patrick. “And then to see that broken … it was hard.”

…………………………

O’Brien would rather not relive the particulars of his accident. “There’s really been one or two people who have tried to dig and find out what happened and I cut it off,” he says. “And I’m comfortable with where I draw the line.”

What’s known is that after that stunt on the set of The Death Cure went awry and production shut down on March 18, 2016, the studio planned to resume filming May 9, hoping to still make the film’s set February 2017 release date. Weeks later, though, it was clear that O’Brien’s injuries were so serious that filming could not begin again.

“I had lost a lot of function, just in my daily routine,” says O’Brien. “I wasn’t even at a point where I felt like I could handle social situations, let alone showing up and being responsible for work every day. Long hours on set, delivering a performance and carrying a movie … it just makes your palms sweat.”

O’Brien calls his recovery process “overwhelming,” though the biggest toll the accident took on him was psychological. Even if he could find his way back to the sense of stability he had before the accident, and even if those scars could heal, would he still want to return to the high-flying movie career he’d worked so hard to set up? After it all went away, he couldn’t even be sure he was the same person anymore.

“And then there was a part of me, too, that was feeling pressured and stressed out by the mere fact that I had all of these people still emailing me, checking in,” he says. “I would get so fucking mad. Like if ever I heard from a producer [who was] seeing when I’d be able to get back on set, I’d fucking go nuts. It would really, really piss me off.”

But as O’Brien recovered in private, rumors flew that his injuries were much more extensive than was reported, and the people behind the projects O’Brien had set up were forced to weigh their options. Cuesta didn’t want to recast American Assassin, but he also didn’t know what state his star was in. During his recovery, O’Brien had not communicated with the production in four months.

“I didn’t want to let it go, and I also had this really interesting, deeper connection to this character over the course of those four months because of what I was going through,” says O’Brien. American Assassin begins with a freak tragedy, as Rapp’s fiancée is gunned down by terrorists during a beach vacation and dies in his arms. Lost in a rabbit hole of grief, Rapp spends the next few months weaponizing his anger and decides to hunt down her killers himself. “I felt like I could portray that and wanted to be the one to do that justice — it was almost like an honor for me at that point,” O’Brien says. “But at the same time, I was still in such a fragile personal state that I had this other force telling me, like, ‘No fucking way’ that I can do it. ‘This is too soon, too soon. Tell them to leave me alone, I need more time.’”

Unfortunately, the film didn’t have much time to spare. If American Assassin didn’t go into production before a certain date, the film rights would revert back to Flynn’s estate, and if O’Brien still wanted to play Rapp, he’d have to spend two months getting into physical shape for the role. It was a daunting regimen of learning fight choreography and adding muscle to his frame that would take a lot of work for any actor, let alone one who was still reeling from his physical nadir. “I knew it wouldn’t be getting back on the horse in a light way,” says O’Brien.

And so, at the end of July, he recommitted to American Assassin. It was a signal to the industry that he wanted to work again, even if, privately, he still wondered if he’d be able to make it through. On the one hand, the time O’Brien spent in the gym with action coordinator Roger Yuan gave him something that he could focus on during those long days. But even as he grew physically stronger, O’Brien was still struggling with heavy emotional and psychological episodes during his recovery.

“Sometimes I’d literally show up at the gym having a panic attack, and my trainer would be like, ‘All right, let’s just go get breakfast,’” says O’Brien, who came to treat Yuan almost like a therapist. “I can’t give enough credit to him … he was really there for me, and not just like a trainer where it’s like, ‘Well, come on, man, I gotta pump you up.’ He cared more about my mind and the state that I was in.”

Near the end of their training, O’Brien was in the best physical shape he’d ever been, an unlikely development given the events of the last few months. But despite all that training to become Mitch Rapp, O’Brien’s anxiety only grew as the start date drew near. The day he was supposed to fly to London to prepare to film the movie, O’Brien had what he describes as an emotional breakdown in the airport. With his father and girlfriend Britt Robertson by his side, he questioned whether he could continue.

“I didn’t even think they’d let me on the plane, to be honest,” he says. “I must have looked high or something.” O’Brien’s father, who had planned to spend the first few weeks in London getting his son acclimated, proved to be the rock he needed in that moment. “I don’t think I would have been able to step onto the plane without him,” says O’Brien.

“That was a tough year for us,” says his father Patrick. “It was hard to see him like that … he’s such a special kid.” Patrick had never set foot on one of Dylan’s sets before — “I thought it was important to let it be his life and not be mine” — but on the first day Dylan shot American Assassin, he knew he had to be there. “It was mind-blowing,” says Patrick. “I was watching him from the monitors, and he was busting out 50 push-ups in between takes.”

It was all for a wordless sequence where we catch up with Mitch months after his fiancée’s death, watching him train and harden himself in his dark apartment. As O’Brien walloped on a punching bag and bust out dozens of pull-ups, the intensity was like nothing Patrick had seen from his son before: “Obviously, I’m getting concerned. I’m watching the monitors and I’m seeing the stress he’s putting on his body and his face and all the places that have been of some concern of late.”

When Cuesta called “cut,” Patrick walked past the first assistant director and up to Dylan. “I was almost nose to nose with him, and I’m not sure he saw me right away. He was in it, as much as you can be in it. And I said, ‘Dylan?’ He looked at me and kind of focused. And I said, ‘Are you okay?’ And he said, ‘I’m good.’”

“If he didn’t have the accident,” says Cuesta, “would he have connected that well with Mitch? I don’t know, but it definitely brought truth to it.”

O’Brien acknowledges that, too. “I’d just been through a lot that summer and the fact that you spend all this time not even knowing if you can do that again …” He pauses, and swallows. “Even right now, it’s just kind of hard to talk about.”

It helps, he says, that Patrick came aboard for the rest of the shoot as a camera operator, staying by his side when he needed him most. With his father there, he could be fearless. “I would just think about where I was at psychologically in June and July, how insurmountable the task seemed to me,” says O’Brien. “And then just to be there on the last day knowing that I did it, with my dad there at my side, it was just a really, really great feeling.”

“He’s in a good place now,” says Patrick. “And nothing makes a parent happier.”

…………………………

O’Brien doesn’t sugarcoat his recovery. Sitting in front of me at lunch, he looks every inch the movie star he was before: hair tousled, eyes bright, his face covered only by stubble. He is candid about what it took to get to this point, though, and even after filming American Assassin, the question remained: Was he ready to finish Maze Runner: The Death Cure, putting to bed the series that had given him so much and taken plenty, too?

“Nothing inside of you wants to go back to that,” O’Brien admits. “It took a lot of deep searching past those gut instincts that I was having just because of the trauma that I experienced to realize that I did want to finish it.”

Did he consider asking the studio to move on without him? “I wouldn’t have been ultimately happy with that, I don’t think. In the moment, it would have been a temporary relief because I would have run from it, but it would have always stuck with me a little bit … I knew it was going to be really hard, harder than Assassin probably, but [I thought] if I got through that, I can get through this, and I think I’ll come out of the other side being really happy that I did it. And I did.”

He resumed filming The Death Cure in March, which is now set for release in January 2018. His father followed him to South Africa, where the movie was shot, and was made a co-producer on the film; O’Brien now counts it among his best experiences on a project. He even found time to return to the final season of Teen Wolf, which had written around his absence while he recovered. The series finale of that show will air on September 24, and soon enough, every obligation O’Brien had set before his accident will be behind him.

“Coming out of the other side of all this is basically a whole new chapter, and I think I will be going about it differently,” he says. “I’m excited to have more balance going forward. Like, I’m not somebody I don’t think who’s going to do three or four movies a year and feel like I have to constantly pump them out. I think there’s something to be said about pacing yourself.”

In the meantime, he’s bought his first house, which gives him a little stability in an uncertain industry. He recently threw a party there to celebrate his 26th birthday — “It turned into more of a rager than I intended it to be,” he laughs — and an hour into it, O’Brien and his friends were already jumping off the roof into his pool. It’s a future that he could not have imagined just a year and a half ago.

“I’m excited to see what comes my way, see what I’m interested in next, and just see what happens,” says O’Brien. After Teen Wolf and The Maze Runner conclude, it’s wide-open space. “It’s the first time that I’ll be operating in my career without those two roles, really.”

He thinks about it and smiles. “It’s good, though, to not have that safety net.”

[source: Vulture]

[seenashwrite]

Hey! So I'm finally writing a fic, and it's gonna be pretty long (from how it's been going XD). SO I was wondering when it's time to make it a 2 part series, and when I should stop part one. Because I honestly do not know what's a really good cliffhanger and what's just bad. Thanks for reading!!!!!!!

I have no idea when you wrote this, sweets, and Imma answer even though I caution I’m still stumbling into recovery from that case of the zombies I contracted. 

So. Ooof. Cliffhangers. Well.  I mean, they don’t…… the whole….. y’know, the BOOOOOM!! and/or GAAAASP!! type of thing….. I just..... yeah, I can’t be completely diplomatic about this topic. For ol’ Nash, here, I gotta say:

99% of cliffhangers suck it big time.

So, okay, PICTURE IT: we’re winding down to the end of a given chunk of the story [or the TV show’s season finale, or the movie, whatevs] and I’ve successfully imagined myself in the scenario, that protagonist O.C. character or reader insert is speaking to me, I’m tracking with the plot, I’m sold baby, I AM ALL THE WAY FREAKIN’ IN, ergo in that scene…..

….I’m on the second floor of an abandoned house, I’m a little impatient, maybe a touch nervous or annoyed, and every time I fidget, rock back on my heels, the weathered floorboards under the threadbare carpet creak, and now on top of everything I’d swear I just heard the click of the doorknob echo down the hallway, only I know Sam’s way out in the backyard and Dean should still be out front grabbing more shells from the car, so I gasp and shudder and my eyes go wide as I’m frozen to the spot, watching that knob on the door not but a hop-skip away from me turn, aaaaaaand CUT TO BLACK.

Hmmmm.

See, the problem cutting off with something like that - y'know, inferring there’s gonna be some legit cliff plummeting jazz - is I’m not gonna buy it. I’m just not. Because (a) you ain’t gonna kill me/my character, and (b) you ain’t killing Sam and/or Dean.

Unless you ARE, in which case? Don’t even go within the realm of cliffhanger, stick with pure drama genre, and keep it to a one-and-done vs. series, otherwise it comes off as…. I don’t even know the word…. Flippant? Gimmicky?  

Specifically what I mean, and I’ll use the visual medium as example: the garbage of ending a given season - or “series”, depending on your locale - of a show [that we’re all well aware is renewed] or a movie [that we’re all well aware is part of a triology/“universe”, and/or is based off of a book series/comics] with a faux death, it’s just—–

Pardon me for a sec.

[Reaches into the always-stocked water balloon basket that lives in a corner of the front porch of The NashHole©℗™, just behind the swing; picks up a real nice fatty; launches in direction of window; lands with a beautiful splat]

Apologies, I’m having a helluva time waving down the interns to refill my iced tea, and Cas, my non-dead angel buddy who’s sitting beside me, wants another unicorn frappucino, because he’s not dead, no one ever believed he was dead, of course he wasn’t dead, and we’ve been out here swaying in the breeze, adding to the ever-growing list of ways that S12 could’ve ended without cheap deaths [cough Crowley], without poorly implied deaths [cough Mary], and without completely transparently faux deaths [cough Cas], and just have been, y'know, *better*.

Cliffhangers-that-ain’t are frustrating, and it immediately cuts me down to 50/50 in terms of if I’ll continue on watching, or - for the present topic - reading. This is a MAJOR reason why - in fanfic land - I don’t care for most episode/season re-writes [I’ve perused lots of them; only 2 or 3 have made The Nail].  Why? Most rehash what I/we already know, just painting over it with the brush of the author’s watercolor personal desires, no spin or creative angle taken. It’s that whole thing of them trying to craft suspense where there is none. I know where this road leads. I walked that road with the author when I saw the ep, and not just me, about 2+ million of us. Or more, I don’t keep up with ratings.

[Psssst….. anyone curious as to how to do this “right”, RE: being inventive & not simply re-hashing — please do see the offerings at “How It Should’ve Ended”; more recent ones that tickled me have been WW and Jurassic World and Rogue One and X-Men: Apocalypse]

So, that’s Nash Cliffhanger Advisement #1: I’ve no doubt it can be done well, even though I can’t think of an occasion where I’ve seen it & not been at least partially eye-rolly about it. I’m also having no doubt that:

(A) If you do wanna give it a whirl, probs shouldn’t be done on every part because that’ll get old; and

(B) A sure thing would be to keep it to a single story if you’re looking to shock, don’t drag it out - I’d rather have a 10K one-shot that delivers on drama than a bunch of filler added to it for the sake of trying [and potentially failing] to make it suspenseful by expanding it into a series.  #Fic Wreck 

Speaking of those, mild confession time. There exists a folder, filled with tales that wrecked me, ones I caught on my dash or were sent to me or I was tagged in, that have >100 notes, some in the near-thousands count, which were so bad I hurt myself laughing. I proceeded to cut-and-paste the most heinous parts into a document, all so that when I have those times when I’m beating myself up over nit-picky sh*t in my stories & need a break, I go to Fic Wrecks©℗™, and I laugh, and I remind myself Hey, Nash, pump the brakes, people are pretty f*cking forgiving, apparently. 

This might make me a bitch. I also have a doc full of reader feedback on my stuff, both good and bad, which I read when I need a reminder of what works, what hasn’t, and that more often than not, a tidy chunk of people dig what I write. This might make me a mechabitch. I’m sleeping alright.

I bring this up to lead into Nash Cliffhanger Advisement #2 : Check out other stuff.

I know, this is in direct contrast to my writer’s block advice, part of which was to *not* read.  In this case, there’s not block; for me,this is more to the editing end of things. I’m not concerned with an accidental “lift” or “light bulb” that piggybacks off of someone else’s plot/spin/thing because at this point, I’m assuming it’s all fleshed out, you know where the story’s going, any twists/mysteries have been accounted for, etc.

Revisit fanfic that you’ve read that had more than one part, preferably ones whose plots you still remember fairly well so that you can scroll right to the bottom of part 1, read the last couple paragraphs, then hit the first bit of part 2, scroll to bottom, and so on.  

Do you tag your own stuff, like with #fic rec, perhaps?  If not, lots of peeps do - this seems to be a suuuuuper common tag, at least, that I’ve seen.  Go cruise some blogs you like, see if that pops any small multi-parters for you to check out.  

Or, think on book series. Looking back, having read the whole shebang, do you ever think “Jeez, why did the author cut it off there, then pick it up here?” And then another view to take, how’s that have been made into movies? Then ask yourself “Why did the movie-makers choose to cut it there and have the next movie pick up here?” 

I have no idea what you’ve read and then if you’ve gone on to watch their visual counterparts, but here’s a handful off the top of my head....

Narnia

Hunger Games

Lord of the Rings/Hobbit

50 Shades

Harry Potter

Twilight

Divergent

Maze Runner

Basically, in your mind, could they have done it better or did they nail it?

And speaking of nailing it, going back to the written word, thumb through the series/multi-parters on The Nail - remember, 99% of the time I’m not reading series on there in their entirety due to time restraints, so I can’t attest to them having pitch-perfect cap-offs to each of their chapters, but if they made the list?  Well, y'all know how anal-retentive I am - the author’s doing more than a few things above-average, so I’d hedge my bets that they’ve got a good grasp on ending chapters with engagement & enticement.    

And that’s where I personally aim when it comes to my chapters, whether it’s the novel-like Top of the World or my mini-series that have made the rounds here. I want the audience to (1) be engaged to the point that the end of that part kinda snuck up on ‘em, and (2) be enticed to carry on reading when the next part is posted. 

I looked back at the aforementioned works, at how I was capping off, and seems I tend to end in the midst of someone/a group pondering over something, or planning something, then I tend to [not always! but tend to] kick off the next part NOT in the midst of that exact same something. As in - different characters, or it’s the next day, or a new setting. I’d give examples but…. spoilers & such, y’know. [wink]  

Hope that helps. My iced tea has arrived. Til we meet again…. 

[typeaadventures]

I was tagged by @lilymaidofgallifrey

1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?

I mean, if we’re talking literal shelves, everything just got put on this one when I moved back home two years ago. But of all the books on there, the oldest is a ratty paper back of Stormy, Misty’s Foal which is quintessential girl-horse-book phase that I actually had to travel all the way to Mississippi to steal back from a friend who borrowed it for about eight years. 

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?

I am currently reading both Frank Herbert’s Dune (which is crazy weird) and beta reading for a fellow writer. Last book I read was Neil Gaiman’s The Sleeper and The Spindle which I highly recommended to anyone who likes graphic novels/fairy tales because the art is GORGEOUS. On my list after I finish these two is probably Dianna Wynne Jones House of Many Ways (although I might have to reread Howl’s Moving Castle first for proprieties sake ;) )

Oh wait! but I’m supposed to read Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt next for @bymylights because she loved the book so much. 

3. Which book does everyone like and you hated?

I mean, Catcher in the Rye was the bane of my existence in high school but I think most people dislike that now. Actually, a lot of classics are that way for me. Hated Wuthering Heights and all things Ernest Hemingway. Also the big YA series (Hunger Games, Divergent, even Percy Jackson, but mostly cause I was older when it came out) don’t hold my interest in the way that most people adore them.

4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?

I mean, I’ve been saying I was gonna read the Jungle Book for months now, but I’ve been putting it off for months now. I really hope I do get to it though. I’m hesitant though because I really didn’t like Man Who Would Be King.  

5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?”

I was not aware this was a thing. I will never run out of books to read, I think, so I’m not really worried. 

6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?

Usually I’ll leave it til the end. Sometimes if I don’t really care about the book, I’ll skip. I used to be much more prescriptive about not skipping but I’m kinda over it now. 

7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?

I love acknowledgements. The first few are usually really interesting and personal before they go all Oscar speech and just start acknowledging everyone. But they give you little glimpses about the author, like dedications. 

8. Which book character would you switch places with?

Eowyn, Lord of the Rings. No hesitations. No regrets. Let me be Eowyn, please I beg you. 

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?

Sooooooo many. I have a memory associated with where I read pretty much any book, but to keep the list short, probably Magician’s Nephew. It will always remind me of my mother, incandescent lights in a dingy trailer in my grandparents backyard. 

10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.

I have a copy of Terry Brooks Magic Kingdom For Sale which I got at Shakespeare and Company in Paris. My sister really loves Terry Brooks books, I kind of got it on a whim as my souvenir from Paris. I have a book of Breton fairy tales in German for the same reason. Basically I bought books everywhere during my year on exchange and those are my favourite bookes. 

11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?

I did a book exchange last year and gave my sister’s friend a copy of Robin Mckinley’s The Hero and the Crown and wrote her a whole letter on the inside cover telling her why I loved the book. Apparently said friend loved the letter and the book and that was really heart warming, because I found the protagonist of that story so inspiring and I was happy it only inspired another young woman. 

12. Which book has been with you to the most places?

Ooooooh, I don’t know. I don’t often take books with me more than once? Probably my copies of Lord of the Rings since if I’m not reading anything in particular I’ll bring them with me in case I get bored or need emotional support. But now that I have an eReader I tend to bring that instead. 

13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?

No. The books I hated in high school I still hate vehemently. 

14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?

A dried rose. That was pretty cool, though. 

15. Used or brand new?

Both have their own benefits and aesthetics. I think hard cover (if I EVER buy hard cover) I prefer new, but mostly I like used books for two reasons. 1) They’re much, much cheaper and 2) I prefer the older illustrated covers. If it’s a book that has a movie or even just most modern books and their life-like people (I’m thinking a lot of the Throne of Glass series here). . . I don’t like that. I find it off putting. I want crudely drawn, water-colour or just flat matte colours with geometric designs. You don’t tend to see many of those these days. 

16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?

Gotta admit, never actually read any Stephen King. Probably should. 

17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?

See, often I’ll like movies better because I didn’t read the book, like the first Percy Jackson (not the second dumpster fire) or the first Maze Runner (again, not the second). 

OH! The Princess Bride, duh. The book is hilarious in it’s own right, but the book is a parody/satire of romance, whereas the movie is a true adventure romance. So I love them both for different reasons, but I grew up watching the movie and it just hits every note perfectly and I love it. 

18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?

Ugh, the Eragon movie was a nightmare. I didn’t like the sequels anyway, but the first book was really good and the movie just ruined everything except Brom. Poor Jeremy Irons didn’t stand a chance, though. 

19. Have you ever read a book that’s made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?

Oh my gosh, Sunshine by Robin McKinley and literally every Redwall book. I dunno how Brian Jacques makes animal food sound soooooo good but it’s basically food porn. 

20. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?

Ooooooh, I don’t think I’ve found that person. I try to take all advice and genuinely look into books recommended to me, but I’m so busy I’m picky about what I actually dig into. 

I’m gonna tag some of my fellow betas, cause I’d love to know what you guys have been reading: @jltillary, @jennalasby, @imtheperkiness, @tcstu, @brynprocrastinates. Also gonna tag @thecaffeinebookwarrior, @raiswanson, @bymylights, @ravineofwillows, and @dwobbit-under-the-mountain if you guys feel like it :)

[nok-abadjuan]

Nokia Jade Crooks.

01 / BASICS

Full Name: Nokia Jade Crooks

Nickname(s): Nok, Kia, Kiki

Sex/Gender: Female

Birthday: September 27, 1998

Age: 18

Astrological sign: Aquarius

Occupation: Tattoo Artist

Spoken Languages: English

Sexual orientation: Bisexual

Birthplace: Tampa, Florida

Relationship status: In A Relationship

02/ PHYSICAL TRAITS

Race: White American, Black American

Ethnicity: Greek, Irish, African-American

Hair color/style: Black, curly naturally. Straightens it or wears it in curls or weaves.

Eye color: Dark Brown

Accent (if any): Southern Miami Accent, barely there

Height: 5″10

Weight: 150

Tattoos: Sleeve (flowers), wrist and hand (female)

Piercings: Ears, belly button

Unique attributes: High cheekbones, compared to Lauren London a lot

Defining gestures/movements: Pouts a lot

Posture: Regular

03 / PERSONALITY TRAITS

Pet peeves: Fake people, being lied to, being used, people who don’t cover their coughs or sneezes, people who don’t respect others opinions, weak ass niggas, copycats, passive aggressive people, people who can’t own up to anything, scaredy cats, when people tell you to do something as you're doing it, being betrayed

Hobbies/interests: Art, painting, drawing, walking around the mall, exploring places and things, hanging out, eating, watching youtube and going to the movies

Special skills/abilities: Very artistic but doesn’t really show it off, can do a split and back flip

Likes: Making friends, going out, laughing and being silly, cuddling, pumpkin spice lattes, baking desserts or pinning new ones from Pinterest, looking at herself in the mirror, looking at pretty women with nice bodies, going to sex store and buying sex toys to be goofy with and use, pranking, surprising people, reading conspiracy theories online, wikipedia is life, helping poor people

Dislikes: Being told what to do, being judged without being given a chance, sensing someone’s dislike for her or talking about her, people who talk about those less fortunate, being let down, fighting, arguing, not being given a chance, the dark, scary things like ghosts and monsters, scary movies,

Insecurities: Her weight, her shape, her hair, her past drug use and addictions, being easily controlled and persuaded to make others happy

Quirks/eccentricities: Dots her i’s with a heart, draws random doodles on any piece of paper in front of her, strongly dislikes the sound of chewing and hums a quiet song while eating, writes with left hand, but does everything else right-handed, loves to hug or touch on people

Strengths: Creative, love of learning, very wise and loving, really kind and sweet, cares about others, makes a great friend very loyal, forgives easily

Weaknesses: Gets in her feelings easily, very sensitive, gets her feelings hurt easily, easily irritated

Speaking style: Has kind of southern drawl, curses and says nasty things to be silly or funny, can be sometime ghetto in speech

Temperament: Bad temper, irritable, sensitive, emotional

04 / FAMILY & HOME

Family: Her father Gael and her mother Tammy do not get along. They hooked up the summer after senior year of high school when he broke up with his girlfriend and Tammy got pregnant. He went away for college with his girlfriend and eventually married her. He was barely in Nokia’s life and his wife now ex wife, forced him to stay out of Nokia’s life. She grew up with her white side of the family. Being the only dark one, she was picked on and set apart a lot. Her and her mother were kicked out her grandmother’s house and were homeless, lived in a woman’s shelter, then lived in a trailer with her mother’s boyfriend at 12, then they finally got their own 1 bedroom apartment. When she was 15/16 he took her mother to custody after his divorce and won custody over her because he had the money; being a surgeon. She moved to Miami to live with him and to live a better life, taking fun trips and having her own room.

How does (s)he feel about his/her family? She doesn’t like her maternal grandmother. She’s racist against blacks and thinks they’re dirty and did not forget to remind Nokia about herself and her father. She used to tell Tammy she was a slut for sleeping with a black man and having his baby. She called Nokia a porch monkey and little monkey. Called her a nigger whenever she was angry and drunk. Tammy and Nokia are close but they have their drifting moments. Nokia got her drug and alcohol habits from her mother. She used to buy her mother cigarettes and started stealing them to smoke with her friends. She started drinking alcohol because sometimes that was all there was in the house. They got high together a few times but Nokia got clean and her mother still struggles with her own addictions which she tries to hide but Nokia knows the truth. Nokia and Gael are now cooler than when she was younger and first moved in with him. She hated him because her grandmother filled her head with negative thoughts. She used to love when he came to see her or called her as a kid. She got older and realized he put his wife before her and hated him for it and the fact that she had to struggle growing up. They’re now in a better place because Nokia is learning how to forgive people and let things go.

How does his/her family feel about him/her? Her mother depends a lot on her. Since they kind of grew up together, being that she was young herself when she had her; they’re like sisters. Nokia’s father tries to do everything to keep her happy but shows his disappointment when she’s not happy with her. They both love her and she’s the only reason they’d ever come together but she never has asked them to, so they don’t see each other. They haven’t been in the same room in years.

Pets: None.

Where does (s)he live? Her father helped her get a small place but she’s breaking her lease because her boyfriend wants her to move in, so she’s living with him now in a really nice townhouse.

What is it like there? Enough rooms, beautiful from the outside, not much going on. Very calm atmosphere, quiet neighborhood.

Description of his/her home: Modern Townhouse.

Description of his/her bedroom: She sleeps in her boyfriend’s bedroom. Is moving in new furniture and they’re changing the decoration to be more neutral and sexy for the both of them.

05/ THIS OR THAT

Introvert or extrovert? Ambivert

Optimist or pessimist? Realist

Leader or follower? Depends on the situation

Confident or self-conscious? Self-Conscious

Cautious or careless? Careless

Religious or secular? Secular for the most part

Passionate or apathetic? Passionate

Book smarts or street smarts? Street Smarts

Compliments or insults? Compliments

Pajamas or lingerie? Pajamas

06 / FAVORITES

Favorite color: Black, Lavender, Lilac

Favorite clothing style/outfit: Tshirts, shorts, pants, sweatpants, dresses, heels, sneakers, flats. Has a girly but boyish style.

Favorite bands/songs/type of music: Yellowcard, Linkin Park, Paramore, Green Day, No Doubt, Gwen Stefani, Bob Marley, The Wailers, Peter Tosh, Shaggy, Destiny’s Child, Jodeci, TLC, Dru Hill, Xscape, B2K ,The Supremes, The Temptations, The Isley Brothers, Rihanna, Frank Ocean, Michael Jackson, Prince, Erykah Badu, Janelle Monae, Lauryn Hill, Chaka Khan, Ciara, Whitney Houston, Jazmin Sullivan

Favorite movies: Coming to America, Love Jones, Woo, Eve’s Bayou, Set it Off, The Grinch, Home Alone, This Christmas, The Preacher’s Wife, City of God, Cooley High, Juice, Losing Isaiah, Poetic Justice, The Wiz, Love & Basketball, The Last King of Scotland, The Princess and the Frog, Dreamgirls, Coming of age movies, cartoon movies, biopics etc.

Favorite TV shows: Atlanta, Insecure, Chappelle’s show, OITNB, Blackish, Power, The Proud Family, A Different World, The Boondocks, Girlfriends, One on One, In Living Color, Family Matters, Moesha, The Steve Harvey Show, Parkers, Talk shows, Court TV/Judge shows, crime shows, Half & Half, Survivor’s Remorse, Hey Arnold, Criminal Minds, RHOATL, Black Ink Crew, LHH, Fresh Prince

Favorite books: Monster, The Coldest Winter Ever, Kite Runner, Aesop Fables, The Wave, Desert Flower, Of Mice and Men, Number the Stars, Hunger Games, Life of Pi, The Giver, My Sister’s Keeper, The DUFF, The Lightning Thief, The Maze Runner, The Outsiders, Speak, Stargirl, The First Part Last, Tyrell, Good Girlz series, Kimani Tru books, Drama High series, Bluford High series

Favorite foods/drinks: Pasta, pizza with a lot of sauce, anything cheesy, fried chicken, buffalo wings with blue cheese, McDonald’s fries, slushies, homemade lemonade, gummy bears, skittles, zebra cakes, saltine crackers, apple juice, grape juice

Favorite sports/sports teams: None

Favorite actors/actresses: None

Favorite time of day: Night Time

Favorite weather/season: When it’s chilly outside or it rains and thunderstorms, warm breezy days

Favorite animal: None

07 / MISCELLANEOUS

Fears/Superstitions: Other people dogs scare her, scared of the dark, scary movies, ghosts, monsters, scary stories

Political views: None

Religion/philosophy of life: Believes in God but doesn’t go to church, wasn’t brought up in church, only knows basic biblical stories everyone else knows

Allergies: Spiders

Addictions: Used to have a drug and alcohol problem. Heavy drugs like cocaine, LSD, shrooms and weed

Best school subject: She was always good in math, gym class and art

Worst school subject: Hated science

School clubs/sports: None

How does (s)he get money? Tattoo Artist and her father gives her something like an allowance

How is (s)he with technology? Very good with technology and social media

08 / PAST & FUTURE

Fondest memory: Going to the kids choice awards with her dad when she was 12.

Dream vacation: Anywhere with water, beach, sand and beautiful tourists spots

Best thing that has ever happened to this character: Rose Kairi Knight

Worst thing that has ever happened to this character: Being addicted, trying to fit in, her upbringing, doing things for attention, being jumped and bullied, being physically abused, getting hit by a car

What does (s)he want to be when (s)he grows up? She never really had dreams or thought about that

Perfect date: Anywhere as long as the conversation is good and they can both laugh and make memories