#specifically the movies because i was a wee baby child and the only books I read ranged from dorkdiaries to geronimostilton | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bukojuiice · 3 years

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— genshin boys as your late night study buddy

ೃ ft. childe, diluc, kaeya, zhongli, xiao and albedo x gn! reader

ೃ 200-299 words per character! (they are your bfs in this! bc MAN do i desperately want one of the genshin boys to cram school works with and shower me with luv and affection.) ♡

ೃ tags: college au, modern au, and lots of fluff.

ೃ thank you so so much for 1k notes on my very first batch of genshin hcs! i appreciate all the luv it received and i can never thank all of you enough 🥺 i’ll be making a genshin masterlist soon to compile all of my current and future works so pls stay tuned for that!

ೃ if you want to be a part of my taglist, answer this form! ♡

ZHONGLI:

– Zhongli would be a very chill study partner. He will always keep his cool and focus, never letting his attention stray away from less trivial things. If he can focus, he’ll focus. There’s always this sense of comfort surrounding him that brightens up your mood and productivity. The both of you are sat in this long table, papers, books, and cute matching pencils are sprawled about. You lean your head on his shoulder, as he serenades you with his deep and butter voice, explaining all the formulas to you. Being able to study in peace and quiet with him is always a blissful experience. He never fails to brew you green tea (as it helps the brain function) even if that meant going down to the kitchen at 2 in the morning. He always brings a small humidifier and some essential oils with him that can help brighten up the study mood and that emits a wafting vanilla pinecone scent to keep you happy. (He’s just fancy like that.) When he doesn’t understand the concepts right away, he’d turn to you, his sharp amber eyes gazing at yours with nothing but innocent and love, and asks: “(Y/N)... what reference is this supposed to be? pepe the frog? kermit the frog? here come dat boi? aren’t they all just amphibians? what are the differences between them? I am very intrigued.”

CHILDE:

– Childe loves a challenge. An academic challenge. He loves the thrill of finishing school works the night before the deadline, he loves studying for a pop quiz twenty minutes before the bell rings, and most importantly, he loves to pretend he doesn’t know how to solve point a to point b if that means getting to spend time with you as you tutor him on how to do so. He’s at the top of the class, He’s popular and friendly, He’s the captain of the Archery Team, and one of the vice council members of the Fatui Club. But, no other title will ever come close to being your study buddy. You and Childe always chill on the bed whenever you study. Especially when the both of you have the sudden urge to just laze around. Well, it is the wee hours of the night, so just lounging around and trying to resist the urge of sleep is pretty understandable. Sometimes, the two of you would take power naps in between study sessions. This meant cuddle times! Childe will always cuddle with you, (he’s the big spoon and you are the smol spoon) and often times you would be immersed into your textbook while he’s scrolling through his phone and looking for some of the current and popular memes. He’d poke you on the cheek and show you what he’s found. It was quite annoying sometimes and you would reprimand him for it, but it never fails to make you laugh. You jokingly suggested one time that the two of you sneak in the library after closing hours, and your chaotic boyfriend turns to you with the biggest smirk plastered on his face. “Let’s do it baby. I know the law.”

DILUC:

–You and Diluc are the cutest pair of night owls. So, studying late at night is never a problem with him because with the help of each other, the both of you are unstoppable. An actual power couple. Batman and his love interest who? I only know (Y/N) and Diluc. Mondstadt University should be giving you the title of #NoSleepGang for the “Campus Cuties” awards because the two of you are able to ace every test still despite lack of sleep. You and Diluc are very very organized. The both of you own matching couple planners (that the both of you had gifted to each for Christmas) and have your entire study schedule planned out already. Since the two of you prefer to study at night, your dates are usually done during the day. Which meant never having to worry about the upcoming finals whilst you’re at a cute little café with him. The both of you have respective desks whenever you study together, but you never fail to gaze at your crimson-haired boyfriend with the cutest pout and biggest puppy eyes. He always gives in and next thing you know, your swivel chairs are practically glued next to each other and the both of you are cuddling in your seats. One thing that Diluc never fails to do is pamper you with comfort food or little gifts that you love after a long and tiring week of hell (aka exams) It’s such a sweet gesture and the blissful relationship that you have can’t get any better than this.

“I got you some boba and that necklace from Pandora that you’ve always wanted. I-I’m so proud of you (Y/N). You did great, my love.”

KAEYA:

- You are the Lawful Good to Kaeya’s Chaotic Evil. Kaeya is always tempted to ask for answers from your professors. He’s quite the teacher’s pet, but with good intentions. That’s just how he rolls. Every time he jokes about going to the faculty to help out and the answer sheets are just out in the open, waiting to be snatched, you always glare at at him and punch him softly on the arm, every time he tries to bring up the idea. To which he would always reply with, “I’m kidding. Just kidding my love.” You and Kaeya have amazing study hacks. He is always able to find a movie that is somewhat related to the topics that the both of you are currently studying about. For example, when the topic was an introduction to different branches of science, Kaeya chose Big Hero 6 as the “Educational Movie Of the Day.” He is always able to find something fun and informative for the both of you to watch. Well, Kaeya does find fun and interest in everything. Another effective strategy that both of you do is every time you or him get an answer right, you reward each other with either a kiss on the cheek or a bear hug. Both of these affectionate gestures give you butterflies in your stomach anyway, so it doesn’t matter which is which. With the ideas that Kaeya constantly makes up every single day of your study sessions, there’s a high chance that you’ll never fluke a test ever again.

“Oh. That’s pretty cool of you (Y/N). You got 30 correct answers! If we count everything, so I basically gave you 15 forehead kisses and 15 bear hugs. Congrats! I know we’re going to ace our finals!”

XIAO:

– Xiao is extremely intelligent and talented in a myriad of things. However, he lacks self-confidence. You’ve sworn to your boyfriend that you’d help him gain confidence in his academic abilities. Which is why you became study buddies in the first place. It served as dates with him too! Although he stubbornly refused at first, his reasons being that he can do things by himself and he doesn’t need any help. You continued to encourage him that this was going to help the both of you and it was a way for the two of you to bond, and Xiao hesistantly agreed right after. As the captain of the soccer team, “The Liyue Adepti”, The only free time that Xiao has was during the evening which is the reason for your scheduled late night studies with him. This brought so much more intimate and sweet moments with him though! It meant sleepovers with him, midnight snack runs, and casual early morning strolls in the park. It became sort of a routine. Your hand interlaced with his, the crisp morning air, the little chirpings birds, and the tranquil swaying of the trees brought so much comfort to the both of you. Xiao would be the type of student to not speak up unless he’s called. Even if he knows the answer. The both of you sit on some floor pillows whenever you would study. So, whilst you read aloud, Xiao always hugs you from behind, resting his head on your shoulder.

“I don’t deserve the patience and love you give me, (Y/N). I am eternally grateful for everything you’ve done for me. I hope you know, that I’ll always be here for you.”

ALBEDO:

- Being the university’s library assistant has it’s perks. Access to infinite knowledge, quiet solitude within the library walls, and being able to hang out with your boyfriend. It was truly a perfect deal. After classes, Albedo would be heading straight over to the library to do his work. You’d meet him there and wait until he gets his work done, and then the two of you head home together or have dinner. Albedo likes to plan things in advance. He’s quite busy, being a part of university’s alchemist group and as a library assistant, but, he will always study with you. He even brings Klee with him at times too! She’s always an energetic and cute addition, + she tattles on and on about how in love Albedo is with you and how he would never shut up about you at home. Albedo puts a lot of effort into creating review materials for the both of you. He makes very intricate drawings of modules, dioramas of certain science models, and has all the formulas memorized for him to list down. He’s a genius after all, and although you’ve constantly told him time and time again that he doesn’t have to make a review paper specifically catered to you, he still insists. He always gifts you one whenever it’s exam week (he adds extra detail to them during your finals) The cutest thing about these papers are scribbled about in all of the pages. The cutest doodles of the two of you with hearts and flowers drawn all over. Albedo + (Y/N) is even written in the last page, along with a heartfelt message:

“I put all my faith and belief in you, (Y/N). I know you can do this. I’m proud of everything you’ve reached so far, my beloved. and I know you’ll reach greater heights. Let’s continue to excel and thrive together. I can’t wait to spend the rest of this journey with you.”

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dornish-queen · 4 years

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Pedro Pascal on Fame and ‘The Mandalorian’: ‘Can We Cut the S— and Talk About the Child?’

By Adam B. Vary

Photographs by Beau Grealy

At some point during this particular visit, Pascal needed to go to the bathroom, and his parents let him go by himself. “I didn’t really know how to read yet,” Pascal says with the same Cheshire grin that dazzled “Game of Thrones” fans during his run as the wily (and doomed) Oberyn Martel. “I did not find my way back to ‘Superman.'”

Instead, Pascal wandered into a different theater (he thinks it was showing the 1979 domestic drama “Kramer vs. Kramer,” but, again, he was 4). In his shock and bewilderment at being lost, he curled up into an open seat and fell asleep. When he woke up, the movie was over, the theater was empty, and his parents were standing over him. To his surprise, they seemed rather calm, but another detail sticks out even more.

“I know that they finished their movie,” he says, bending over in laughter. “My sister was trying to get a rise out of me by telling me, ‘This happened and that happened and then Superman did this and then, you know, the earthquake and spinning around the planet.'” In the face of such relentless sibling mockery, Pascal did the only logical thing: “I said, ‘All that happened in my movie too.'”

He had no way of knowing it at the time, of course, but some 40 years later, Pascal would in fact get the chance to star in a movie alongside a DC Comics superhero — not to mention battle Stormtroopers and, er, face off against the most formidable warrior in Westeros. After his breakout on “Game of Thrones,” he became an instant get-me-that-guy sensation, mostly as headstrong, taciturn men of action — from chasing drug traffickers in Colombia for three seasons on Netflix’s “Narcos” to squaring off against Denzel Washington in “The Equalizer 2.”

This year, though, Pascal finds himself poised for the kind of marquee career he’s spent a lifetime dreaming about. On Oct. 30, he’ll return for Season 2 as the title star of “The Mandalorian,” Lucasfilm’s light-speed hit “Star Wars” series for Disney Plus that earned 15 Emmy nominations, including best drama, in its first season. And then on Dec. 25 — COVID-19 depending — he’ll play the slippery comic book villain Maxwell Lord opposite Gal Gadot, Chris Pine and Kristen Wiig in “Wonder Woman 1984.”

The roles are at once wildly divergent and the best showcase yet for Pascal’s elastic talents. In “The Mandalorian,” he must hide his face — and, in some episodes, his whole body — in a performance that pushes minimalism and restraint to an almost ascetic ideal. In “Wonder Woman 1984,” by stark contrast, he is delivering the kind of big, broad bad-guy character that populated the 1980s popcorn spectaculars of his youth.

“I continually am so surprised when everybody pegs him as such a serious guy,” says “Wonder Woman 1984” director Patty Jenkins. “I have to say, Pedro is one of the most appealing people I have known. He instantly becomes someone that everybody invites over and you want to have around and you want to talk to.”

Talk with Pascal for just five minutes — even when he’s stuck in his car because he ran out of time running errands before his flight to make it to the set of a Nicolas Cage movie in Budapest — and you get an immediate sense of what Jenkins is talking about. Before our interview really starts, Pascal points out, via Zoom, that my dog is licking his nether regions in the background. “Don’t stop him!” he says with an almost naughty reproach. “Let him live his life!”

Over our three such conversations, it’s also clear that Pascal’s great good humor and charm have been at once ballast for a number of striking hardships, and a bulwark that makes his hard-won success a challenge for him to fully accept.

Before Pascal knew anything about “The Mandalorian,” its showrunner and executive producer Jon Favreau knew he wanted Pascal to star in it.

“He feels very much like a classic movie star in his charm and his delivery,” says Favreau. “And he’s somebody who takes his craft very seriously.” Favreau felt Pascal had the presence and skill essential to deliver a character — named Din Djarin, but mostly called Mando — who spends virtually every second of his time on screen wearing a helmet, part of the sacrosanct creed of the Mandalorian order.

Convincing any actor to hide their face for the run of a series can be as precarious as escaping a Sarlacc pit. To win Pascal over in their initial meeting, Favreau brought him behind the “Mandalorian” curtain, into a conference room papered with storyboards covering the arc of the first season. “When he walked in, it must have felt a little surreal,” Favreau says. “You know, most of your experiences as an actor, people are kicking the tires to see if it’s a good fit. But in this case, everything was locked and loaded.”

Needless to say, it worked. “I hope this doesn’t sound like me fashioning myself like I’m, you know, so smart, but I agreed to do this [show] because the impression I had when I had my first meeting was that this is the next big s—,” Pascal says with a laugh.

Favreau’s determination to cast Pascal, however, put the actor in a tricky situation: Pascal’s own commitments to make “Wonder Woman 1984” in London and to perform in a Broadway run of “King Lear” with Glenda Jackson barreled right into the production schedule for “The Mandalorian.” Some scenes on the show, and in at least one case a full episode, would need to lean on the anonymity of the title character more than anyone had quite planned, with two stunt performers — Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder — playing Mando on set and Pascal dubbing in the dialogue months later.

Pascal was already being asked to smother one of his best tools as an actor, extraordinarily uncommon for anyone shouldering the newest iteration of a global live-action franchise. (Imagine Robert Downey Jr. only playing Iron Man while wearing a mask — you can’t!) Now he had to hand over control of Mando’s body to other performers too. Some actors would have walked away. Pascal didn’t.

“If there were more than just a couple of pages of a one-on-one scene, I did feel uneasy about not, in some instances, being able to totally author that,” he says. “But it was so easy in such a sort of practical and unexciting way for it to be up to them. When you’re dealing with a franchise as large as this, you are such a passenger to however they’re going to carve it out. It’s just so specific. It’s ‘Star Wars.'” (For Season 2, Pascal says he was on the set far more, though he still sat out many of Mando’s stunts.)

“The Mandalorian” was indeed the next big s—, helping to catapult the launch of Disney Plus to 26.5 million subscribers in its first six weeks. With the “Star Wars” movies frozen in carbonite until 2023 (at least), I noted offhand that he’s now effectively the face of one of the biggest pop-culture franchises in the world. Pascal could barely suppress rolling his eyes.

“I mean, come on, there isn’t a face!” he says with a laugh that feels maybe a little forced. “If you want to say, ‘You’re the silhouette’ — which is also a team effort — then, yeah.” He pauses. “Can we just cut the s— and talk about the Child?”

Yes, of course, the Child — or, as the rest of the galaxy calls it, Baby Yoda. Pascal first saw the incandescently cute creature during his download of “Mandalorian” storyboards in that initial meeting with Favreau. “Literally, my eyes following left to right, up and down, and, boom, Baby Yoda close to the end of the first episode,” he says. “That was when I was like, ‘Oh, yep, that’s a winner!'”

Baby Yoda is undeniably the breakout star of “The Mandalorian,” inspiring infinite memes and apocryphal basketball game sightings. But the show wouldn’t work if audiences weren’t invested in Mando’s evolving emotional connection to the wee scene stealer, something Favreau says Pascal understood from the jump. “He’s tracking the arc of that relationship,” says the showrunner. “His insight has made us rethink moments over the course of the show.” (As with all things “Star Wars,” questions about specifics are deflected in deference to the all-powerful Galactic Order of Spoilers.)

Even if Pascal couldn’t always be inside Mando’s body, he never left the character’s head, always aware of how this orphaned bounty hunter who caroms from planet to planet would look askance at anything that felt too good (or too adorable) to be true.

“The transience is something that I’m incredibly familiar with, you know?” Pascal says. “Understanding the opportunity for complexity under all of the armor was not hard for me.”

When Pascal was 4 months old, his parents had to leave him and his sister with their aunt, so they could go into hiding to avoid capture during Pinochet’s crackdown against his opposition. After six months, they finally managed to climb the walls of the Venezuelan embassy during a shift change and claim asylum; from there, the family relocated, first to Denmark, then to San Antonio, where Pascal’s father got a job as a physician.

Pascal was too young to remember any of this, and for a healthy stretch of his childhood, his complicated Chilean heritage sat in parallel to his life in the U.S. — separate tracks, equally important, never quite intersecting. By the time Pascal was 8, his family was able to take regular trips back to Chile to visit with his 34 first cousins. But he doesn’t remember really talking about any of his time there all that much with his American friends.

“I remember at one point not even realizing that my parents had accents until a friend was like, ‘Why does your mom talk like that?'” Pascal says. “And I remember thinking, like what?”

Besides, he loved his life in San Antonio. His father took him and his sister to Spurs basketball games during the week if their homework was done. He hoodwinked his mother into letting him see “Poltergeist” at the local multiplex. He watched just about anything on cable; the HBO special of Whoopi Goldberg’s one-woman Broadway show knocked him flat. He remembers seeing Henry Thomas in “E.T.” and Christian Bale in “Empire of the Sun” and wishing ardently, urgently, I want to live those stories too.

Then his father got a job in Orange County, Calif. After Pascal finished the fifth grade, they moved there. It was a shock. “There were two really, really rough years,” he says. “A lot of bullying.”

His mother found him a nascent performing arts high school in the area, and Pascal burrowed even further into his obsessions, devouring any play or movie he could get his hands on. His senior year, a friend of his mother’s gave Pascal her ticket to a long two-part play running in downtown Los Angeles that her bad back couldn’t withstand. He got out of school early to drive there by himself. It was the pre-Broadway run of “Angels in America.”

“And it changed me,” he says with almost religious awe. “It changed me.”

After studying acting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Pascal booked a succession of solid gigs, like MTV’s “Undressed” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” But the sudden death of his mother — who’d only just been permitted to move back to Chile a few years earlier — took the wind right from Pascal’s sails. He lost his agent, and his career stalled almost completely.

As a tribute to her, he decided to change his professional last name from Balmaceda, his father’s, to Pascal, his mother’s. “And also, because Americans had such a hard time pronouncing Balmaceda,” he says. “It was exhausting.”

Pascal even tried swapping out Pedro for Alexander (an homage to Ingmar Bergman’s “Fanny and Alexander,” one of the formative films of his youth). “I was willing to do absolutely anything to work more,” he says. “And that meant if people felt confused by who they were looking at in the casting room because his first name was Pedro, then I’ll change that. It didn’t work.”

It was a desperately lean time for Pascal. He booked an occasional “Law & Order” episode, but mostly he was pounding the pavement along with his other New York theater friends — like Oscar Isaac, who met Pascal doing an Off Broadway play. They became fast, lifelong friends, bonding over their shared passions and frustrations as actors.

“It’s gotten better, but at that point, it was so easy to be pigeonholed in very specific roles because we’re Latinos,” says Isaac. “It’s like, how many gang member roles am I going to be sent?” As with so many actors, the dream Pascal and Isaac shared to live the stories of their childhoods had been stripped down to its most basic utility. “The dream was to be able to pay rent,” says Isaac. “There wasn’t a strategy. We were just struggling. It was talking about how to do this thing that we both love but seems kind of insurmountable.”

As with so few actors, that dream was finally rekindled through sheer nerve and the luck of who you know, when another lifelong friend, actor Sarah Paulson, agreed to pass along Pascal’s audition for Oberyn Martell to her best friend Amanda Peet, who is married to “Game of Thrones” co-showrunner David Benioff.

“First of all, it was an iPhone selfie audition, which was unusual,” Benioff remembers over email. “And this wasn’t one of the new-fangled iPhones with the fancy cameras. It looked like s—; it was shot vertical; the whole thing was very amateurish. Except for the performance, which was intense and believable and just right.”

Before Pascal knew it, he found himself in Belfast, sitting inside the Great Hall of the Red Keep as one of the judges at Tyrion Lannister’s trial for the murder of King Joffrey. “I was between Charles Dance and Lena Headey, with a view of the entire f—ing set,” Pascal says, his eyes wide and astonished still at the memory. “I couldn’t believe I didn’t have an uncomfortable costume on. You know, I got to sit — and with this view.” He sighs. “It strangely aligned itself with the kind of thinking I was developing as a child that, at that point, I was convinced was not happening.”

And then it all started to happen.

In early 2018, while Pascal was in Hawaii preparing to make the Netflix thriller “Triple Frontier” — opposite his old friend Isaac — he got a call from the film’s producer Charles Roven, who told him Patty Jenkins wanted to meet with him in London to discuss a role in another film Roven was producing, “Wonder Woman 1984.”

“It was a f—ing offer,” Pascal says in an incredulous whisper. “I wasn’t really grasping that Patty wanted to talk to me about a part that I was going to play, not a part that I needed to get. I wasn’t able to totally accept that.”

Pascal had actually shot a TV pilot with Jenkins that wasn’t picked up, made right before his life-changing run on “Game of Thrones” aired. “I got to work with Patty for three days or something and then thought I’d never see her again,” he says. “I didn’t even know she remembered me from that.”

She did. “I worked with him, so I knew him,” she says. “I didn’t need him to prove anything for me. I just loved the idea of him, and I thought he would be kind of unexpected, because he doesn’t scream ‘villain.'”

In Jenkins’ vision, Max Lord — a longstanding DC Comics rogue who shares a particularly tangled history with Wonder Woman — is a slick, self-styled tycoon with a knack for manipulation and an undercurrent of genuine pathos. It was the kind of larger-than-life character Pascal had never been asked to tackle before, so he did something equally unorthodox: He transformed his script into a kind of pop-art scrapbook, filled with blown-up photocopies of Max Lord from the comic books that Pascal then manipulated through his lens on the character.

Even the few pages Pascal flashes to me over Zoom are quite revealing. One, featuring Max sporting a power suit and a smarmy grin, has several burned-out holes, including through the character’s eye. Another page features Max surrounded by text bubbles into which Pascal has written, over and over and over again in itty-bitty lettering, “You are a f—ing piece of s—.”

“I felt like I had wake myself up again in a big way,” he says. “This was just a practical way of, like, instead of going home tired and putting Netflix on, [I would] actually deal with this physical thing, doodle and think about it and run it.”

Jenkins is so bullish on Pascal’s performance that she thinks it could explode his career in the same way her 2003 film “Monster” forever changed how the industry saw Charlize Theron. “I would never cast him as just the stoic, quiet guy,” Jenkins says. “I almost think he’s unrecognizable from ‘Narcos’ to ‘Wonder Woman.’ Wouldn’t even know that was the same guy. But I think that may change.”

When people can see “Wonder Woman 1984” remains caught in the chaos the pandemic has wreaked on the industry; both Pascal and Jenkins are hopeful the Dec. 25 release date will stick, but neither is terribly sure it will. Perhaps it’s because of that uncertainty, perhaps it’s because he’s spent his life on the outside of a dream he’s now suddenly living, but Pascal does not share Jenkins’ optimism that his experience making “Wonder Woman 1984” will open doors to more opportunities like it.

“It will never happen again,” Pascal says, once more in that incredulous whisper. “It felt so special.”

After all he’s done in a few short years, why wouldn’t Pascal think more roles like this are on his horizon?

“I don’t know!” he finally says with a playful — and pointed — howl. “I’m protecting myself psychologically! It’s just all too good to be true! How dare I!”

#pedro pascal #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #variety magazine

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leepace71 · 4 years

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When Pedro Pascal was roughly 4 years old, he and his family went to see the 1978 hit movie “Superman,” starring Christopher Reeve. Pascal’s young parents had come to live in San Antonio after fleeing their native Chile during the rise of dictator Augusto Pinochet in the mid-1970s. Taking Pascal and his older sister to the movies — sometimes more than once a week — had become a kind of family ritual, a way to soak up as much American pop culture as possible.At some point during this particular visit, Pascal needed to go to the bathroom, and his parents let him go by himself. “I didn’t really know how to read yet,” Pascal says with the same Cheshire grin that dazzled “Game of Thrones” fans during his run as the wily (and doomed) Oberyn Martel. “I did not find my way back to ‘Superman.'”

Before Pascal knew anything about “The Mandalorian,” its showrunner and executive producer Jon Favreau knew he wanted Pascal to star in it.

“The transience is something that I’m incredibly familiar with, you know?” Pascal says. “Understanding the opportunity for complexity under all of the armor was not hard for me.”

“I remember at one point not even realizing that my parents had accents until a friend was like, ‘Why does your mom talk like that?'” Pascal says. “And I remember thinking, like what?”

“And it changed me,” he says with almost religious awe. “It changed me.”

And then it all started to happen.

“It will never happen again,” Pascal says, once more in that incredulous whisper. “It felt so special.”

After all he’s done in a few short years, why wouldn’t Pascal think more roles like this are on his horizon?

“I don’t know!” he finally says with a playful — and pointed — howl. “I’m protecting myself psychologically! It’s just all too good to be true! How dare I!”

#pedro pascal #variety #interview

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datleggy · 5 years

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a list of every anime i love/recommend, accumulated over the last 10+ years

1. NATSUME YUUJINCHOU

SUMMARY/REVIEW:

The main character is a teenage boy named Natsume, whose parents died when he was too young to remember them properly. He’s passed around random relatives homes, but because he can see yokai (spirits), he’s ostracized by classmates and his foster families (ALL HIS CHILDHOOD FLASHBACKS ARE SO FUCKING SAD) and eventually very distant relatives (an older couple who never had kids of their own and have so much goddamn love to give D:!!!) take Natsume in, and the story basically starts from there.

It’s a very heart-warming story following Natsume’s new life in this new town, accepting his ability to see yokai, forging new relationships in the form of friends and family, and even with the yokai themselves.

This is honestly probably my favorite anime/manga period, because it’s so sad but so cathartic and you watch as the main character grows and learns to trust those around him, and finally gets the unconditional love he’s always deserved, not to MENTION THE FACT THAT THEY DO A WHOLE EP WHERE NATSUME IS TURNED BACK INTO A LITTLE KID AND IT IS SOOOO GOOD OMG

Plus for those of you who enjoy whump, this show has a decent amount of it. Mainly emotional whump, but also some episodes where Natsume is injured or sick--as well as I believe one where his companion (the chubby cat on his shoulder who’s actually a pretty badass yokai) gets shot with an arrow and is down for the count.

10/10 would and have watched again.

2. KODOCHA NO OMOCHA

SUMMARY/REVIEW: The main character is a sixth grader named Sana. She’s a gifted actress on a t.v. show everyone likes and she’s silly and fun, very intuitive and surprisingly empathetic for a child.

Her main problem is in school, where Akito, who she deems the leader of her class’ wolf pack of rowdy rude boys, lets them terrorize not just the teacher, but all the girls in class, as well.

I don’t really want to give a lot away, so I’ll just state the obvious. This anime/manga is shoujo, which means that it does focus on a romantic relationship throughout the series. Mainly the one between Sana and Akito. Sana is absolutely oblivious about her own feelings, while Akito is a stubborn little shit.

I remember watching this at like, age 12 maybe? And I really enjoyed it because (although I do enjoy your typical silly doesn’t take itself too seriously slice of life shoujo) this particular anime, while super funny and light hearted at times, was also really dramatic and even kinda dark, which was surprising considering the characters ages and the general kid-friendly vibe (especially the opening for the anime).

3. DETECTIVE CONAN

SUMMARY/REVIEW: Our main character is initially Shinichi Kudo, teenage detective, who’s on a date with childhood sweetheart Ran (whose father also happens to a detective but like....not a good one lmao), when his nosy ass self decides to go and check out some shady business and gets “poisoned”.

The poison he’s given is intended to kill him, but what it actually does is turn him back into a child. And now, as Conan Edogawa, (who’s 7 but like....we just supposed to believe all these cops and detectives on the force are cool with a seven year old wee lil babe on these really gruesome ass crime scenes??? lmaoooo) we follow him on his adventures as he solves crimes and tries to solve the biggest mystery of all, his own!

I absolutely LOVE this anime/manga, even though I’ll be honest, there is SO MUCH FILLER, but I like the characters enough that I really don’t mind. The show is at least 900+ episodes in at this point, and there are a total of 26 movies so far, last time I checked.

Also, the show is a whump fangirls’ dream come true. The main character is thrown out of windows, balconies, shot at, and in one occasion actually shot, he’s had broken bones, sprains, almost been blown up or drowned/burned, been sick, and oh, his occasional transformations from child to teenager are incredibly painful.

This show is probably at fault for my love of whump, since it was one of my first animes at like, age 9. smh.

4. THE DEVIL IS A PART-TIMER!

REVIEW:

I’m not even going to summarize this one. The title does it for me. This is truly one of the funniest animes I’ve ever seen. Motherfuckin Satan works at a McDonalds part time and it is the BEST.

Technically I would count this show as a kind of harem, but only because there are like three main girl characters after the overlord Satan himself. I usually dislike harem type animes but the way this is done is sooooo good I couldn’t resist.

I would watch a million filler episodes of Satan trying to solve problems at his minimum wage job tbh. I love every single character, I love the plot, I love everything about this anime! In terms of comedy (with the occasional plot driven serious moments) this is IT bro.

5. BLACK BUTLER

SUMMARY/REVIEW:

The main character is Ciel Phantomhive (roughly 14 years old). His parents are killed, his house is burned to ashes, and he’s kidnapped (around age 9 or 10 I believe) and abused. During this abuse Ciel calls upon a demon to free him and help him get revenge on those who harmed the Phantomhive household, which is where Sebastian, one “hell of a good butler” comes in.

We then follow Ciel and Sebastian on their path of vengeance, and along the way we meet Ciel’s human servants, three very clumsy and seemingly bad at their given tasks characters (i love them all), and some of his extended relatives and connections.

My favorite thing about Black Butler is the art, both in the anime and manga. Everything is so detailed and pretty!

The characters are interesting, the plot is dark but they manage to make most of the series overall pretty light-hearted and funny in general. Though of course there are chapters/parts of the series that get really grim (which duh, the whole thing focuses on revenge so...)

I have to say, the arc I enjoyed the most has to be the movie, Black Butler: Book Of the Atlantic. It is beautifully drawn and sooooooo entertaining.

6. INUYASHA

SUMMARY/REVIEW:

Our main characters are Inuyasha, a half-demon, who’s been in a sort of spiritually binding coma for the last few decades, and fourteen year old Kagome, who falls into an old well in her family’s shrine and finds herself being transported into another time period.

Together, she and Inuyasha travel across the lands in the feudal era to find the scattered shards of the shikon jewel, a powerful jewel which grants anyone who possesses it ultimate power.

I was too young to stay up and watch Inuyasha on adult swim, so my mom would tape the show on a VCR for me to watch the next day after school--yes, I’m old old. lmaoooo I ADORE this show.

It’s so good! It’s got everything! A tortured lil half-demon with a sad past who’s stubborn and rude but got a good heart! A fierce and equally as stubborn main protagonist, who’s whole ass family knows exactly where she goes off to??? and are supportive af????? like???? her mama packs her and her squad of demon/exorcist/demon hunter pals bentos?!?! lmao i love it.

The characters are awesome and funny and likable as all heck, and of course they all have their sad backstory, but like, unlike some animes (lookin at YOU Naruto) they don’t go mega overboard on it, at least not without some plot behind the episode.

7. YU YU HAKUSHO

SUMMARY/REVIEW:

Before I even start in on the summary, ya’ll should watch this soley bc of the cute ass 90′s style animation alone. LOOK AT ALL THAT SHINY HAIR!

ANYWAY. Main character is teenage hooligan and overall cutie pie Yusuke! He gets struck by a car and fucking DIES in the first episode after shoving a little boy out of the way, only to end up in the spirit world where the head honcho up there (who looks like a wee baby) tells him “Oh shit, didn’t expect you to like, actually do anything self-sacrificing EVER so like, you’re not on our list of people who were supposed to die today...”

And uh, I don’t wanna give anything away, so I’m just gonna say that if you haven’t seen this anime yet, you definitely should! It’s hilarious and dramatic, the fight scenes are very well done, all the side characters, who eventually become main characters are a blessing (specifically Hiei, who’ve I’ve had a crush on since I was 12) and the ending is a satisfying one, which you can’t really say for a lot of media.

8. CHRONO CRUSADE

SUMMARY/REVIEW:

I still get weepy when I think of this anime, so all I’ll say is it’s about a badass demon slaying nurse and her demon companion and some very tragic shit.

It’s a great anime overall, especially if you like crying yourself to sleep at night :)

9. GHOST HUNT

SUMMARY/REVIEW:

The main character is high school student Mai, who is hired by Naru, the head of a Shibuya psychic research, and together, with a group of questionable exorcists/psychics, they encounter paranormal phenomenons and some outright scary shit.

I’m not really a fan of the horror genre tbh but I do like mystery, and the series deals with that quite a bit. They deal with each case for several episodes so nothing feels too rushed.

The series is really fun in a creepy, wtf is that way. I recommend the manga, only because it’s more detailed in terms of plot than the anime.

10. ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM

SUMMARY/REVIEW:

I didn’t really make this list in any particular order but if I had to say, Assassination Classroom and Natsume Yuujinchou probably tie for BEST ANIME PERIOD!

This anime is about a weird ass “alien” creature, no one knows where it came from or why tf it’s here on earth, all they know is that in one year it’s threatened to blow the world up.

His only request to the government is that they let him become a teacher for Class E, the worst class of Kunugigaoka Junior High School, and he will stay put, so that they can attempt an assassination on him during this one year period.

AND LISTEN! I am a shallow hoe, so I literally never would have read this manga or watched the series had I not been roaming Barnes and Noble one day with my S.O. and picked it up to read as a JOKE!

I was hooked after the first chapter and I am soooooooo glad I picked this manga up, bc it is absolutely not the type I would normally go for, cover art wise. I finally, after many many years, learned not to judge a book by its cover bc LORD this anime is so goddamn good, you don’t understand! Like, I’ve watched it so many times and still laugh at the same parts, cry at the same parts, am proud af at the same parts! like, this anime is an instant classic and should definitely be more popular than it is.

assassination classroom and natsume yuujinchou????? MASTERPIECES!

#anime i can't imagine life without #natsume yuujinchou #assassination classroom #inuyasha #black butler #detective conan #whump #chrono crusade #ghost hunt #yu yu hakusho #the devil is a part-timer #kodocha #long post is long

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ripplestitchskein · 6 years

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Was explaining to Boyfriend that The Chase was my favorite movie as a wee 4th grade Steffie because I had a huge crush on both Charlie Sheen and Kristy Swanson and it’s basically just a movie about a kinda sleazy dude who is still a decent person and a jaded woman who takes no shit going on an adventure in a car and falling in love and he was like “It’s like they wrote it for you specifically.”

Which made me think about the other stuff I was into as a kid and it’s kind of fascinating. Everything I loved as a child has a specific relationship attached to it (almost always romantic in nature) and that’s what I remember enjoying the most and usually why I liked something. Little Steffie reading Judith Mcnaught and Lynn Kurland and Jude Deveraux along with my Animorphs and Dinotopia books. Trying to make sure no one saw the flowers on the cover because they would KNOW.

Little Steffie dying inside waiting for Gambit and Rogue on the X-Men animated series TO JUST HAVE ONE SCENE TOGETHER GAWD.

Watching French Kiss a million times because honestly, is there a more perfect romantic comedy?

Little Steffie getting pissed at the My Girl sequel because HOW DARE YOU STAND WHERE HE STOOD.

Toonami was great because Serena and Darien (Usagi/Mamoru) and Bob and Dot and Bulma and Vegeta. I gave zero fucks about the plot of these shows I just wanted to see what happened with my romances.

Making up stories in my head about a girl getting lost on a hiking trip and falling in love with Sam Gribley from My Side of the Mountain.

My brother and sister asking me to tell them a story about the Rugrats and me making up what was basically an oral fanfic about grownup babies and how Tommy and Lil and Chucky and Phil were totally a thing.

Like, I still, to this day feel that weird woman shame about loving ships and fic and reading romance novels. If someone asks what I’m reading I usually say “a historical novel” or something else non descript. I’ve only recently started admitting to “regular folk” that I read and write fanfiction (which is incredibly freeing btw, you should try it if you do). I only gush about romance novels on here. I don’t recommend them to my IRL friends or family and when they recommend books to me it’s usually nothing I’m interested in because they have no idea that I have like 1000 romance novels in my Kindle library.

I just still feel that stigma, that weird societal assumption that loving romantic relationships means that you’re lonely or desperate or self inserting. And i know now that can’t be true because 4th grade Steffie was none of those things. She was just a kid. She didn’t even really want a boyfriend/girlfriend, she just liked watching and reading about people falling in love.

I find myself thinking about it a lot lately, that stigma, because the books I am writing are becoming less something I just daydream about and think about constantly and more a reality. Words are going on the page, characters I love are coming to life, but in the back of my head I still feel that shame.

“Maybe I shouldn’t tell anyone I wrote this. It’s a romance novel, they’ll think it’s stupid or corny or desperate or sad or me just trying to make money off poorly written ebooks. I won’t even share it on Facebook or tell my family, no one will know.”

Even my boyfriend didn’t really know until I told him. When he asked what I was writing I initially laughed it off and said “a cheesy romance novel, I’m not even gonna put my name on it. It’s just to put something out there and actually finish something” and that was a LIE because I spend most of my day thinking about these characters, about this world and I LOVE it and somehow I’ve been conditioned to hide that, even from my own family.

I’m just trying to appreciate that my entire life I’ve been in love with romance and that there is no shame in wanting to write it. And it’s all I’ve been able to think about since last night. If this was a movie or a show, I think the flashbacks would reveal how silly it is for me to fight it or try to change it. If little Steffie was going to write anything it was always going to be this.

#writing #romance novels #romance #writeblr #steffie is introspective #and self indulgent #fanfiction #ruminations

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birdlord · 8 years

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Every Book I Read in 2016

Here’s a list of the books I finished in 2016! By the way, keeping a list like this WILL make you disinclined to start books and not finish them...when I was going through my notes to write these up, I found one or two that I didn’t manage to finish, but otherwise I finished ‘em all! Asterisks mark re-reads (though there’s only one this year!). Here’s last year’s list.

01 * Anne’s House of Dreams; Lucy Maud Montgomery - There are plenty of unlikely plot points in LMM’s books, but this one really takes the cake (SPOILER ALERT): woman marries a man out of blackmail, he disappears at sea, returns brain damaged, gets trepanned in Montreal, and turns out to be his own cousin. WHAT IS THAT EVEN, LUCY

02 Kindred; Octavia E. Butler - Oh just your typical sci-fi time travel slavery story! A thoughtful gloss on the idea that time travel is a white-man’s game (since any other type of person is likely to be disregarded, or killed, or put in jail in an earlier time period in the West) & complicating any modern person’s idea that if they were put in a difficult situation in the past, they’d certainly be able to get out of it easily, with their superior knowledge. I just came across a graphic novel version in a bookshop today, so check that out too if you’re more inclined towards a graphic interpretation.

03 The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society; Annie Barrows & Mary Anne Shaffer - I read this without much prior knowledge, so I was surprised to find that this book with a cutesy title was in fact an epistolary novel about the German occupation of the Channel Islands, and as such is fairly intense (though still imbued with cheery, stiff-upper-lippishness).

04 The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Clash of Two Cultures; Anne Fadiman - This is perhaps the first work of medical anthropology I’ve ever read, and it was eye-opening. It’s not that I didn’t know that western medicine doesn’t easily leap cultures, doesn’t cross cultural barriers in spite of our own belief in its efficacy. But knowing this abstractly is a different experience than seeing it laid out bare, in the body of a Hmong child in California, born with epilepsy.

05 Rain: A Natural and Cultural History; Cynthia Barrett - Two great tidbits from this book: 1) witch-hunts in Europe coincided with the worst years of the Little Ice Age, since witches were presumed to be affecting the weather. 2) Settlement of the Great Plains in the 1870s was brought on by mistaking weather (some wet years) for climate (arid with occasional wet periods).

06 In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex; Nathaniel Philbrick - This is the “real story” that inspired Melville to write Moby Dick. Or, a 2000 nonfiction history of that story, anyhow. Interesting narrative but I found it somewhat weakly-written - Philbrick weirdly (for a book about ships) consistently confuses the meaning of ship tonnage, which is a measure of volume, not mass. What a nit to pick, but here we are. The film version has some seriously bad CGI and added lots of stuff to juice the drama.

07 The State We’re In; Ann Beattie - A book of linked short stories, all set in Maine. I don’t know that I would have noticed that they were all in Maine if I hadn’t read it on the dust jacket, as it’s not really a set of stories where, like the setting is a character, or what have you. Not that I need everyone to be wearing a lobster as a hat, but the connection felt a bit weak.

08 Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Revolutionary Structure; Alastair Gordon - a book about the design of airports, from their earliest incarnations until the milennium. There’s some great material in here about airports and american imperialism in central and south america, under the auspices of Pan Am. Unfortunately I read the un-updated version, so it didn’t cover much in terms of the way airports have physically been changed since 9/11. I want THAT book.

09 The Argonauts; Maggie Nelson - This is probably the best piece of “confessional writing” I’ve ever read. It’s shot through with theory in a way that’s really invigorating, but is at the same time extremely personal and revealing, with thoughtful perspective on radically and motherhood, producing and reproducing.

10 A Bell for Adano; John Keene - More WWII occupation, but this time from the occupiers’ POV. An American major is assigned to administer a city in Italy, and decides to return their church bell to them. Hijinks, stereotypes, bureaucracy and some good ol’ American stick-to-itiveness ensue.

11 The Fly Trap; Fredrik Sjoberg - ostensibly a book about an entomologist who lives on an island in Sweden, it’s really a collection of digressions on summer, a fellow entomologist, travel, and collecting as avocation and vocation.

12 Spill Simmer Falter Wither; Sara Baume - the story of a man, and a dog, and the four seasons that they spend together; a year of increasing dread and discomfort. Exceedingly well-described, just thinking about this again months later has put me right back in a slightly damp Irish seaside town, full of prying watching eyes.

13 How to Watch a Movie; David Thomson - Often more of a biography of a film critic than a book teaching the reader “how to watch a movie”. He might well have called it “How to Watch a Movie Like Me, and Also Be Me, I’m Great”. I did appreciate the comparison of cuts in a film to periods after a sentence - a way of adding rhythm to a scene just as one adds it to a paragraph.

14 Mislaid; Nell Zink - A lesbian woman in 1966 in becomes enamoured of a gay professor at her college, marries him, has some babies, and leaves him a decade later. She and her daughter take to the south and live as African Americans, leading to some identity-politics hullabaloo and a pretty nonsensical over the top ending. Zink is poking at her readers, hoping they’ll feel uncomfortable.

15 Station Eleven; Emily St John Mandel - A lifetime of having Can-con thrust on me leaves me with the sense of vague embarrassment when a book is set in Canada. It feels specific where Americanness feels general, universal. Silly, I know. My desire to see an author’s description of how civilization collapses is ultimately well-satisfied in this book, though it takes a long time for the book to get there.

16 First Bite: How we Learn to Eat; Bee Wilson - A look at how we (and our families, friends, and cultures at large) shape our food preferences. Wilson takes us through her own past of disordered eating, and learning to feed picky children, all the while consulting with neuroscientists and nutritionists for backup. The overall message is about the possibility of change; even bad habits can be altered, even those learned as a wee babby.

17 The Slave Ship: A Human History; Marcus Rediker - This was an amazing, absorbing read, using the slave ship as a site to examine the slave trade in general, its innovations and consequences. Reducer points out that it’s only on the ship that Africans forged a collective sense of africanness, since they would have come from different linguistic and familial groups. It’s the shipboard life that allows the categories of “black” for the diverse enslaved people, and “white” for the multiethnic and multilingual crews to be created.

18 The Devil’s Picnic: Travels Through the Underworld of Food and Drink; Taras Grescoe - This guy is like a low-rent Canadian ersatz Bourdain. Blecch.

19 On Looking: A Walker’s Guide to the Art of Observation; Alexandra Horowitz - Horowitz takes the same walk with 11 different experts, in the hopes of learning or noticing something different every time. Perhaps because of being harnessed to this conceit, she often takes on the pose of a naif, which can strike the reader as a bit rich given that she’s got a PhD in psychology and works on animal behaviour. Is this the editorial hand, making sure the science doesn’t get to be too much?

20 Counternarratives; John Keene - Engrossing short stories (some longer than others, perhaps novella-length?) placed in various north and south american colonial contexts. Each is expanded from a short historical documents (e.g. newspaper announcements) and provides enough background to understand the subjects as complex people in their own rights.

21 An Age of License; Lucy Knisley - All of her books are pretty open, emotionally-speaking, but this one feels especially nakedly exposed. Her feelings will seem familiar to anyone who has gone through a big breakup, then made some assorted attempts to get their shit together. Not everyone gets to do that while on an expenses-paid European book tour, but there you are.

22 Something New; Lucy Knisley - Knisley made her name in graphic travelogues like the one above, but her more recent books concentrate on more conventional life milestones: marriage, pregnancy, motherhood. I read this book about wedding planning while planning my own, in summer 2016. While the problems I encountered were different than hers, I did actually find it useful (and yeah, I made sure that I read it in time for it to come in handy!).

23 Midnight’s Children; Salman Rushdie - This book made me wish for a great documentary (or something?) about India just after independence - I think there was loads of nuance that I didn’t capture at all due to my own ignorance. I found myself distracted frequently while reading this, which is especially bad since the book’s narrator is careening around constantly, breaking narrative rules all over the place. So beware losing focus, or you may be lost for some pages. I appreciated Rushdie’s description of the family’s privilege - our hero doesn’t describe his family as wealthy, and it’s easy to lose that fact until the moment of child-swapping. Or rather, returning?

24 Love & Other Ways of Dying; Michael Paterniti - A collection of harrowing essays, which – before you read the copyright page, which obviously everyone does, right? – you’d be right to assume that they were written for men’s magazines.

25 One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding; Rebecca Mead - Besides the graphic novel above, this is the only book about weddings I read whilst planning one. And it’s a polemic against the wedding-industrial complex that 1) felt considerably out-of-date 9 years after publication and 2) espoused ideas that I was already in the bag for. So, ok but not ground-shaking.

26 Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster; Steven Biel - Though I read the un-updated version of this book, there were a couple of takes that I found interesting here that I hadn’t come across before. Firstly, post-disaster narratives tended to cast Titanic as a moment of per-WWI loss of innocence, but this is overblown, since there was lots of unrest already in 1912 (e.g. extensive strikes during King George V’s coronation summer in 1911 which threatened starvation, suffragist demonstrations. And secondly, the idea of muscular Anglo-Saxon protestant manhood was reaffirmed culturally after the sinking, contrasting their nobility to emotion (perish the thought!) and violence from “latins” and other foreigners.

27 American Youth; Phil LaMarche - A slight little book about gun violence in New England, in which a fatherless (part-time, anyway) boy falls in with a group of conservative teen wingnuts, the sort who would now be recruiting on Reddit instead of at the high school cafeteria. Angsty and pretty much resolutionless, so a fine representation of the experience of adolescence.

28 A Severed Head; Iris Murdoch - Expect the sort of soap-opera plotting typical of Murdoch. Set in London during the choking post-war fog, which reasserts itself over and over. I’ve been hit over the head with her brilliance in the past (The Black Prince, sigh), and this one didn’t pull that particular trick, but I did enjoy it.

29 Their Eyes Were Watching God; Zora Neale Hurston - Janie talks her way through the American south, attaching herself to various places and people until she finds herself, finally, reasonably content. I thought it was interesting that her ability or inability (willingness or unwillingness) to bear children isn’t an issue in any of her relationships. I realize that this is a low bar to clear, but yeah, I’m happy when women aren’t reduced to their decisions about children.

30 A Burglar’s Guide to the City; Geoff Manaugh - Manaugh sees cities (and architecture) in a way that most people don’t, and in this case he’s taking on the mantle of the law-breaker, the intruder. The book combines tales of epic burglaries involving tunnelling & hiding, LAPD helicopter ride-alongs, lock picking seminars, and tidbits about the securitization of the city. E.g. did you know that Paris’ nickname The City of Light came originally from its streetlights, which were installed on police orders?

31 Networks of New York: An Illustrated Field Guide to Urban Internet Infrastructure; Ingrid Burrington - Look, I know you need an excuse to look at your city through different eyes. And here it is! Obviously some of this is NY-specific, but having the ability to see the physical traces of the internet’s infrastructure is a great superpower to have.

32 Pond; Claire-Louise Bennett - lacking a thread of narrative through the entire book, it’s uncertain whether the best way to read this is as a novel, or as a series of short stories with the same protagonist. A woman lives in an Irish cottage, and equally divides her time musing about her surroundings and her own mental state. A quote I liked: “Then it occurred to me that perhaps I’d been terrified for longer than all day, and had rather mixed feelings upon realizing that - I wasn’t much keen on the idea that I’d been terrified for years, but it seemed possible”

33 Anne of Tim Hortons: Globalization and the Reshaping of Atlantic-Canadian Literature; Hab Wylie - This book looks a literature that acknowledges the Atlantic provinces as a contemporary space, rather than as a place frozen in time, and set outside the forces of globalization and finance. That latter notion is shorthanded as “the folk”, eg “The Folk paradigm is complicit in the colonial tactic of constructing the land as unoccupied, because it cultivates the impression that the Folk have always belonged here”

34 February; Lisa Moore - Inspired by the above, I picked up this one from the library. It covers the story of the Ocean Ranger, an oil rig that sank with all aboard off the coast of Newfoundland in 1982, and its long-term consequences for a particular family. I found the interlocking timelines to be pretty effective, and the emotional fallout from the disaster is handled with the appropriate weight and solemnity.

35 Combat Ready Kitchen: How the US Military Shapes the Way You Eat; Anastacia Marx de Salcedo - Once you find out how much military logistics affects the way the civilian world fabricates, ships and even eats, it’s hard not to want to dig in a bit further. This is the story of how military rations became industrial foods. Interestingly, where the “clean-eating” food world might expect the author to reject the convenience foods whose history she’s tracing here, she takes a far more pragmatic approach. I was a bit less fascinated by the specific scientific advancements, and wish more time had been spent on the history.

36 Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture; Jon Savage - A long monograph on adolescence prior to the creation (and cultural ascension) of the teenager in the post-WWII era. Naturally, no matter what the surrounding historical events, there’s always a generational divide between the young and their parents, and Savage plots that rift over and over again, from the 1890s to the 1940s. Sadly his research is restricted to Western Europe and North America only, I’d like to see something similar that has a broader scope (though I’m sure one of the prerequisites of a teen culture is some amount of surplus time, resources, etc which are certainly not available prior to the achievement of some serious development).

37 Our Young Man; Edmund White - A slim little thing (I’m sure all it ever snacks on is plain air-popped popcorn) with allusions to Oscar Wilde, and barely a place towards the AIDS crisis. A change of perspective in the final third was much appreciated, though the new protagonist is scarcely less self-obsessed than the first.

38 When God was a Rabbit; Sarah Winman - I felt a bit like this book’s reach exceeded its grasp. It felt more like a homey, British ensemble dramedy than the lofty Literature it presents itself to be. I was, however, with it until world events (I’ll keep it spoiler-free for y’all) crash into the narrative in a clumsy and un-earned fashion.

39 The Sport of Kings; CE Morgan - A huge, and wide-ranging tale about lineage, blood, wealth and slavery in Kentucky, with a thin veneer of horses to help the whole thing go down a bit easier. Both massively compelling and by times stomach-turning, this is book can be a rough read. I could see a tilt into High Melodrama appearing in the final quarter or so, and I wished mightily that it wouldn’t go where I thought it was going…..but it did.

40 The End of Average; Todd Rose - I was hoping for an interesting history of the science of averages, and/or the idea of designing for “the average human” and that’s what I got in the first third or so. Then the book devolves (or evolves, I guess, depending on your perspective) into a gung-ho self-help book about bootstrapping your way to the top, even if you’ve been disregarded your whole life. Meh.

2016 by the Numbers

Read on a screen 1

Read on paper ALL THE REST :):)

Book Club Reads 4 (our club met 7 times this year, but 3 of those book I’d finished in 2015)

Graphic Novels 2

Fiction 19

Nonfiction 21

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xtzardis793889-blog · 7 years

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West Midlands Rescue solution paramedics dealt with the young boy at the scene for a crack to his arm, before transferring him to Birmingham Kid's Medical center. If you're ready to find out more info about mountains in wales wikipedia - ves-saludahora.info - visit our page. The magic involved a Brazilian boy named Lucas, who was unbelievely recovered via the intercession from the shepherd little ones. Lots of parents contact their religious side especially after possessing a wonder infant. 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The miracle" required for the canonization involves the scenario of little bit of Lucas Baptista, who tale needs to date been shrouded in secrecy. Alia And The Story Of The Rose is actually a book that launches children to the hijab. Recently I go through a story composed by a pastor in the United States about his adventures in a congregation in a Developing nation. I aided Johan perform this; Rogerilio was by the way status at the other side from the room and also could certainly not see any of the composed titles. For the nickname, you may always keep Marva, which was actually also one of the top labels for gals. They say, What happens if you are actually informed to perform one thing completely from context?" Well, I was actually inquiring The lord just how I must pray for this boy as well as at that time in my life, the only means I may be specific the response was actually arising from The lord, was actually to search in the Holy bible. As an example, our company reviewed that the loaves, which the child gave Jesus, were actually barley loaves. The complying with religious child names are the excellent technique to celebrate your ideas. Now, don't acquire me inappropriate or misunderstand ... the procedures inside Lisa Olson's Pregnancy Miracle do focus upon concerns that a female (and also a guy!) can have that would certainly bring about problems in obtaining expecting normally. He has published three compilations from quick fiction, Magic Boy as well as Other Stories, City Smokes, as well as The Damaging Lawn and an unique Pet dogs from God, the final 3 of which were named Significant Books by New york city Moments, and all of which have been released in England, Germany, and also France. Eijaz is actually an Arabic little one child label, that implies 'wonder.' This stylish as well as sturdy label is ultra well-known in Muslim nations. He went residence with his brand new parents, George and also Patrice Lim when he was 8 full weeks old. His accounts have appeared in Esquire, Zoetrope: All-Story, the Holly Honor collection, the New Stories southern series, the Pushcart Reward collection, The Oxford Book of American Short Stories, as well as The Ecco Compendium from Contemporary American Short Myth. Once our company get inside, that's 'can our team see a motion picture?' They have actually already observed Noah's favorite motion picture Cars and trucks a number of opportunities". Knowing when should I attempt to conceive a child and the time from ovulation as well as sex is arguably the best vital variable that could affect whether you develop a young boy or even female. Many success accounts have been actually covered the all-natural penis development physical exercises and the upcoming wonder story could be your own. However, I took the liberty, after listening to the facts once, to dramatize the story and boost in my personal style. A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD magic child is actually readied to return the home of Scotland after lead-in therapy in Mexico began to eliminate his tumor. You will not have the ability to achieve wonder maternity after 40 rapidly if you carry out certainly not perform the greatest time to make love. Another wonder concerns a guard who was actually out in the rainforest, tending his flock. A child along with autism that is actually intrigued with criminal offense on TELEVISION, is suspected as a killer behind a collection of homicides happen in the neighborhood. You additionally could wish to maintain it to on your own till after you are actually expectant that you were utilizing the information in Lisa Olson's Maternity Wonder to assist you in order to get expecting. And also they were panicked as well as started checking the little bit of young boy however the blood was actually certainly not from the little bit of boy it was actually arising from the roses. I obtained the wonder A Program in Miracles teaches-a real shift in understanding. The wonder from your child developing inside coming from month to month could very soon be actually forgotten in the various challenges of maintaining a new birthed and these photos will certainly be a tip of this particular marvelous opportunity. I was wed to my partner George Morgan, i love him a lot we have actually been gotten married to for 5 years right now with two youngsters. He becomes immersed along with Wonder Boy and with his aged shoes surviving and also hanging coming from the electrical cords up above. I only always remember the child-like belief of a little bit of young boy who believed along with his entire heart, unable from doubting exactly what his mother had told him to perform. After some time, my puffy, soaked eyes gazed upward to find that happen. Planned months ahead of time, she prepared this time around aside to satisfy the wee young boy who shook his means into her heart. This account is especially preferred with youngsters, as well as typically kids comprise many of the cast for Xmas plays. They allege the enemy and a 14-year-old kid likewise presumably engageded in the assault later on made admissions to cops. Anxiety is actually of no benefit to either the mum to become or even her baby so to prevent this ready early and then enjoy this fantastic wonder that will if this is your second, 3rd, 4th or even extra baby this is actually special whenever, just like unique as well as genuinely a miracle. Your ability to breath, the continual in and out from your breath is actually a remarkable tip that you are actually a wonder simply taking a breath life as you understand that. The little young boy devoted THIRTEEN days on life support in John Radcliffe Healthcare facility in Oxford prior to being actually moved to Nottingham Youngster's Health center for professional treatment.

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