#the guide had a crush on guillermo in the past and that was it

[clarasghosts]

the fact that they seem to be genuinely pushing nandor/guide out of absolutely nowhere. I can only assume that paul simms hates the audience.

[danepopfrippery]

Only thing i really have on Guidor is think of this: 3eps at least a few weeks time we’ve seen him having this crush after his heart broke.

Dude was writing letters that somehow burned. And then when he ‘goes for it’ gives up immediately upon seeing Jerry.

(We also know in the past the Guide thought he was hot til she knew him, and it was implied the council had a weekly orgy).

We also know apparently Guillermo answered an ad, but Nandor obsessed over Panera bread.

Dude had a bad crush.

And Guillermo was so nervous and shy prbly the first time Nandor was told ‘master im sorry im busy cleaning’ he prbly just gave up.

But hes known Guillermo 15 years now. A blink to a vampire but longer than the Guide.

How long do u think this idiot has tried to build up scenarios of him and Guillermo? We know s3 ending. And Guillermo didnt meet him (not his fault). Immediate give up.

I swear to gods i dont think its lazy bs but i think this is setting an explanation up

[leebgutz]

nadja x the guide rambles because I’m mentally ill over a ship with close to no actual canon chemistry and I need to make myself feel better via headcanon:

- I just want a scene where nadja and the guide are forced to be alone on a mission and they actually connect quite a bit in a way they haven’t before to the point the guide actually catches massive feels. this actually is the ‘ unsuspected crush ‘ the writers were talking about I’m keeping myself blissfully oblivious to the fact she’s canonically crushing on guillermo - she can have two crushes ok !

- if they were in a relationship nadja would hype up her little anxiety-ridden loserwife so much and she’d help the guide come out of her shell a lot more and get past some of the insecurities she previously had. nadja would be the person in the guide’s life helping her push herself to be more confident and self-loving, while the guide might even help nadja understand humans more and help her be less cold to everyone

- nadja and the guide first start seeing each other and they delve into this passionate “secretive” love affair where they think they’re being so sneaky but everyone finds out literally the second it’s official because they’re not slick about it at all. the others have to pretend like they have no clue what’s going on when nadja makes some bullshit excuse like “ um we have to go. do council stuff it’s very urgent! “ and then she grabs the guides hand and they run off giggling. only nandor is like “ 🤨 but we aren’t on the council anymore “ and everyone else just stares at him tiredly

- they paint each other’s nails/do each other’s hair and talk about all the scandalous things they’ve done over the centuries. the guide is nervous about spilling her secrets at first because of all the shame that’s built up and all the repressed memories but nadja eventually helps her feel more lighthearted about it all and learn to laugh at her past and maybe even feel a little nostalgic instead of guilty

- nadja teaches the guide how to be more aggressive/assertive flat out while the guide teaches nadja how to be more unsettling and ominous. nadja gives her lessons on how to confront people in the loudest and most scary possible way while the guide gives nadja lessons on how to make people shit their pants when she sneakily and mysteriously enters a room. the guide learns how to make people stand down with a single threatening stare and hiss while nadja learns how to jumpscare people through turning into smoke

- theyre passionate and flirtatious 24/7. It’s worse than nadja and laszlo. they’re CONSTANTLY touching and giving each other goo-goo eyes and batting eyelashes and randomly leaving during important meetings just to go make out somewhere or even just enjoy each other’s company in private without any strictly romantic stuff. occasionally you will see the guide sitting in nadjas lap at house meetings or the other way around. they’re constantly attached at the hip and if they’re not then they’re having a couples squabble. no you know what even then they still probably hold hands they both just refuse to look at each other and appear cross despite the fact they can’t stop touching because they’ll get too lonely if they do that

- laszlo is chill with all of this. no, really. “ this is my lady wife nadja and this is her lady partner the guide. “ - laszlo probably, holding nadjas hand while nadja holds the guides hand

- nadja asks laszlo to teach her about psychology and when that inevitably obviously fails she asks (demands) guillermo what he knows about it so she can understand the guide better and even help her through bad ocd/general anxiety moments. she becomes weirdly supportive and gentle and it freaks everyone out

- the wraiths set up nice small cliche dates for them where they dine upon blood in goblets under candlelight on a nice round table with flowers on it in a little vase. they do this at least once a week and nobody else is invited and all they do is vent to each other and hold hands

- nadja helps the guide regain part of her past self and it makes the guide more of a spontaneous party animal at random times and it’s just nadja being like “ YES BABE SLAY! “ while everyone else watches in fear as the guide swings from a very expensive chandelier

this post is getting quite long so I’ll leave it at that but I have so many thoughts about this guys it’s actually insane

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

Trollhunters: “the book” versus “the books”

The Book

Trollhunters, a standalone horror-suspense novel by Daniel Krauss and Guillermo del Toro. It inspired the animated series produced by Dreamworks. 

This is the story people are usually referring to in Trollhunters fanfiction when they say they got an idea from the novel, or, the original novel. 

A general and spoiler-tastic summary: 

In San Bernardino, California, Jim Sturges Junior and his best friend Tobias ‘Tub’ Dershowitz discover trolls are real, and that Jim’s dad had legit reason for his paranoia because James Senior’s older brother Jack really had gotten stolen by monsters when they were kids. Jack works with the trolls, fighting Gunmar alongside Johanna M. ARRRGH!!! and Blinky, and has not aged since disappearing. 

Now they’re recruiting Jim because being a Trollhunter is a matter of genetic predisposition - the amulet is solely a translation device - and it looks like Gunmar’s going to escape from where Jack imprisoned him and they’re going to have to actually kill Gunmar this time, so they need all hands on deck. 

Jim’s crush, Claire Fontaine, is one of several kids who go missing in the next few weeks. Those kids are luckily rescued before they can be eaten, and it turns out Claire has the same genetic predisposition for Trollhunting. 

Gunmar spawns many unnamed babies on the football field during his attack on the surface. Jim’s dad acts as a cavalry in that scene, mowing them down with a landscaping vehicle. Steve Jorgensen-Warner, the school bully, is exposed as a Changeling when forced to touch a football helmet for the rival team, who use a horseshoe logo. We never do learn exactly what was up with Professor Lempke, but he was involved in the rebuilding of Killaheed Bridge (respelled as Killahead in the show) and implied to also be a Changeling. 

The Books 

Dreamworks Trollhunters Tales of Arcadia, a series of six novels by Richard Ashley Hamilton written as supplementary material to the animated series. 

These are the stories people are usually referring to in Trollhunters fanfiction when they say they got an idea from the novels, plural. 

A general and spoiler-tastic summary: 

The Adventure Begins: overlaps the first couple of episodes, Jim discovering the Amulet and becoming the Trollhunter. Also has some bonus scenes, like Kanjigar pleading with the Amulet not to pick Draal as Kanjigar falls to his death, and Jim’s knife-spinning trick being to dry the blade after cleaning it, and Barbara meeting Claire and Claire revealing Jim got the part of Romeo but learning Barbara didn’t know he was auditioning and Barbara promising to act surprised when Jim tells her. 

Welcome to the Darklands: in the start of the gap between Seasons 1 and 2, showing what the kids told Barbara had happened to her house, how they got the Glamour Mask, what Jim’s first few days in the Darklands were like and some interesting characters he met there, and why Nomura ended up in Gunmar’s dungeon. 

The Book of Ga-Huel: some time in mid-Season 2, a Changeling polymorph tries to assassinate the main characters and Blinky has to thwart a prophecy that implies he will die. Uhl is allergic to iron and thus mistaken for said Changeling. 

Age of the Amulet: early Season 3, a broken Kairosect results in Jim, Blinky, AAARRRGGHH, Toby, and Claire getting sent back in time and fighting a Trollhunter who cracked under the pressure of the job and joined Gunmar. In the present, Vendel’s grandfather has been brought forward in time and wants to eat humans, and Eli attacks Gunmar while under the influence of a grit-shaka. (Previously misremembered in this post as Gravesand - thank you @goodfish-bowl for the correction.)

The Way of the Wizard: Merlin, despite supposedly having almost no power, tampers with the Shadow Staff so they can’t portal from his tomb back to Arcadia, and the cast meets Draal’s mom while walking home, but Draal’s body gets exploded (possibly to justify why he can’t be revived with the Creeper’s Sun antidote they used on AAARRRGGHH) and his soul ends up in the Void. Somehow this is supposed to show Merlin being nice? Porgon the Trickster, who appears in 3Below, is also in this novel. 

Angor Reborn: Jim turning into a troll was a gradual process after the bathtub teleported him to a lake in the forest. During this, he meets troll versions of Romeo and Juliet, befriends a wolf cub, considers running away to live in the wilderness because he can’t fit in among humans anymore, and fights Angor Rot. Meanwhile, Barbara yanks Merlin around by the beard searching for Jim. 

The Other Books 

Yes, there’s more. There were a few “bonus content” books released. These are less likely to be referred to by writers, but handy for artists. 

Jim Lake Jr.’s Survival Guide: A journal written by Jim about the events of Season 1, added to here and there by other characters. (Unlike most of the Tales of Arcadia spin-off books, this one is credited to Cala Spinner instead of Richard Ashley Hamilton.) 

A Brief Recapitulation of Troll Lore: Volume 48: A glossy book with screenshots and descriptions of key moments and artifacts in Trollhunters Season 1. Has a framing device implying it was somehow put together in the, what, twelve hours?, between Strickler leaving Arcadia and Jim going into the Darklands. There are a few pull-out pages. 

The Art of Trollhunters: A coffee table book with production notes and concept art from the show’s development. This one goes all the way through Season 3.

The Comics 

You know, while we’re here. The comics disconnect from what was established in the show in jarring ways sometimes (like Draal joining Kanjigar on Trollhunting missions in the comics, when the show says their relationship suffered because Kanjigar started avoiding Draal after being called as Trollhunter), but they’ve got some fun ideas in them. 

The comics were written before Wizards aired and do not share a continuity. In the comics, there were Trollhunters before Deya, Deya herself was Trollhunter for at least a hundred years before the Battle of Killahead took place, and Kanjigar was Deya’s immediate successor. 

These, obviously, are the stories people are usually referring to in Trollhunters fanfiction when they say they got an idea from the comics. 

The Secret History of Trollkind: Blinky tells Jim, Toby, and Claire about the Battle of Killahead Bridge, the trolls’ decision to leave Europe for the Americas, Deya the Deliverer’s death, Kanjigar’s first few centuries as a Trollhunter, with sidenotes about Blinky and AAARRRGGHH’s slow journey from enemies to acquaintances to friends. 

The Felled: After the events of ‘Hero With A Thousand Faces’, Jim returns the Aspectus Stone to Vendel, who tells Jim and Toby some stories about various past Trollhunters: Spar the Spiteful (who met an Akiridion, which I was expecting to come up in 3Below but did not), Maddrux the Many, Araknak the Agile (mentioned here as being one of Blinky’s ancestors), Unkar the Unfortunate, Deya the Deliverer (on a quest to punch Merlin in the face), and Kanjigar the Courageous. Jim then goes to fight goblins with Claire.

[lemon-writings]

Writing Update: Hamish Pt. I

Genre: Adult literary fiction // Status: Rewriting // Progress: 13,359 words

I first wrote Hamish, my Hamlet retelling, in January of last year. It was my first foray into literary fiction, and I can genuinely attribute my current literary writing to this book. It’s actually one of the most solid first drafts I’ve ever written. I’m keeping most of the first draft, only changing a couple things.

The tea is that whenever I write for Hamish, I don’t stop unless I get stuck or have to leave for school. The first draft was the cleanest I’ve written so far. Rewriting this is a breeze. 

Chapter I

Epitaph: “Knock knock. / Who’s there? / No one.”-Warsan Shire, “The House”

Chapter I is best described as “Horacio gets rich people culture shock”. Poor dude just went from believing Hamish was the son of some small-time politicians to knowing that he is the son of a Governor and a Senator. We’re introduced to the narrator Horacio, Hamish (the “you” in the story), Hamish’s mother, and most of the other important characters.

The character introductions. Gosh, I adore introducing my characters, just because I get to describe them in this horribly gothic, pretentious way.

Claude looked like you, if you looked more like a Greek statue and less like a dying Romantic poet. His features are sharper, frame broader, with a crushed cherry-colored suit fitting him perfectly.

And of course, what would Hamish be without Horacio waxing poetic about his past? Genoveva asks Hamish why he likes Horacio in the first place, and when Hamish replies that Horacio is his life, Horacio thinks back on a past boyfriend. (tw for abuse, blood, and sex)

The one who liked me most was Terry, who would press me against any surface he liked, hold my hands over my head, and devour my mouth like I was his last meal. We broke up after nine months, after he’d grabbed me by my hair and slammed by face into the side of our bed frame. I’d told him, nose broken and gushing blood, rapidly swelling black eye and tears blurring my vision, that if he didn’t leave in five minutes, I would make him regret ever touching me.

And, of course, this stray line Horacio just casually thought:

My heart slammed against my ribcage, child’s hands pounding desperately. I was that child, once. 

Chapter II

Epitaph: “The people you love become ghosts inside of you, and like this you keep them alive.”-Rob Montgomery

Our first ghost appearance! Hamish has a Ouija board (the man shops at Hot Topic and lives for pretentious gothiness, of course he has a Ouija board) that he uses to communicate with his father, something they’d only been doing in the last year of his father’s life.

Horacio is a skeptic until the board, like, starts talking back to Hamish. We get this glorious moment when he’s like *John Mulaney voice* this might as well happen. Life is already so goddamn weird.

At the time, I supposed that this was the sort of thing that would happen around you: you attracted weird, unusual things, as you were one of them, and they felt home alongside you.

(He still doesn’t believe that they’re speaking with Hamish Herbert I and not, like, a demon.)

Did I mention that Hamish is a philosophy major? No? Oh, well, he is, and that means one thing and one thing only: he waxes poetic about as often as Horacio does.

“You do. You’re not a bad person. You’re not evil.” I unwrapped my arms from around your waist and moved them up higher, splaying my hands over your chest as if laying a claim. “You’re a good man. You’re… my life,” I said.

“Maybe evilness is genetic. Or a part of humanity.” You laid a hand atop both of mine, guiding them over your heart, arranging us like a director particularly focused on posing. “Maybe we’re predisposed to good or evil, or maybe we’re not. What do you think?”

“I think this is why you’re a philosophy major,” I said.

You know, the type of conversations you have when you’re convinced that your mother and uncle murdered your father. That #relatable content.

Chapter III

Epitaph: “What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and time again? An instant of pain perhaps. Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time like a blurred photograph, like an insect trapped in amber.”-Guillermo Del Toro, The Devil’s Backbone

This chapter begins with Hamish having a Moment over the death of his father. Horacio tries to comfort him, but soon they’re chasing ghosts again. Hamish Herbert I’s ghost is not happy that the retribution against his murderer hasn’t happened yet even though it’s, like, maybe a day since he first made the murder request. Chill out, your spooky highness.

On the bright side, Horacio’s always saying beautiful, profound things that look so pretty in pictures, and we’ve got a couple in this chapter.

“We romanticize the dead like that. We give them the traits we wish they had possessed in their lives.”

Horacio also reads Hamish for filth when Hamish is scared of a little murder. To be fair, Horacio is no Lady Macbeth, but he does point out how ironic it is that someone who carries death in his pocket is scared of killing someone.

You wrote poems that reeked of dead roses and formaldehyde, read books where pages were spent waxing about eternal darkness, carried around ghosts and shadows as if they were just a part of you, but, in the end, you were just as scared of death as the rest of us were.

And, of course, what’s a writing update without a baller playlist? This is what I’ve been listening to while writing this post these chapters.

Grave Digger - Matt Maeson

Wait - The Dear Hunters

Creve Coeur 1 - Hobo Johnson

Peach Scone - Hobo Johnson

We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed - Los Campesinos!

The Other Side of Paradise - Glass Animals

Archive - Mal Blum

So that’s what’s up with the first part of this Hamish rewrite. Stay tuned for the next portion, alternatively titled: When Will Horacio Get His Shit Together?.

[chapitre7]

Alexandria Chapter I

The Untamed [陈情令] | Mo Dao Zu Shi [魔道祖师] fanfiction

Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji/Wei Yīng | Wei Wuxian (Wangxian)

Time Travel/Sci-Fi AU

Characterization is based on the drama

Canon does not exist. World building of the past is based on canon but none of the original events has transpired here;

Likewise, the future presented here is not our own;

Liberal use of cultivation;

Not actually any demonstration of science.

Read on AO3

“Have you always been alone? Did you ever have someone? Do you know what happened to you? Do you? Because I don’t. I don’t know what happened to me. I don’t know. I look in the mirror and the only thing that I recognize are these eyes in this old man’s face. You know, sometimes I think I was either born too early or too late for my life. Maybe we’re both just relics.” – The Shape of Water, 2017, screenplay by Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor

   When they find him, he’s already thawing. The researchers try to preserve him the best they can, so they can catalog every last piece of him, the period of his clothes, the shape of his face, the age of the ice, running their numbers to estimate the years since his last breath. They presume he’s a corpse, making only the most plausible assumptions, but his skin is unmarred and his complexion is so peaceful, he looks safely asleep. He’s a jewel kept in a box, unearthed from the deep sea, as treasures ought to be, in the olden days.

 There’s a small feud to decide who will keep him and in what manner. Some want to maintain him exactly as he is, like a pinned butterfly, listing all the outside layers of his identity, file away all the details they can perceive and then showcase him to the community by the end of the semester. Others want to be gone with the ice so they can study his body, uncovering the mysteries of a past they have long lost, before keeping him suspended in time by their own terms. Endless conferences, heated discussions, and piles of paperwork so huge no one bothers to read later, they decide to compromise.

 When he takes his first breath in the new age, everyone around him gasps. The sound bounces around his skull, dark eyes widening at the white, all the overwhelming white of the room he’s in. There are needles on him, prickling like insects, and just one glance at the glass wall where countless bug eyes spy on him from behind their notes sends him on a spiral of hysteria, pulling at everything that intrudes him, the machines, the foreign feeling of the sheets, the bed itself, jumping and falling from his position before trained men run inside, hold him down and knock him out.

 The second time he opens his eyes, he’s alone. There’s no glass wall, no machine attached to him, no window, just him, the bed, a chair, and two closed doors. He glances down at himself and frowns, failing to recognize the robes he’s wearing. Even if it’s in a familiar style and fabric, the stitches confuse him, unlike anything his sister has ever learned and sewn upon his clothes. And unlike any of the inner robes he owned, these are piercingly white. Maybe he’s in the afterlife. He had imagined it differently.

 A sound comes from one of the doors, startling him, but it’s only a knock. He half expects them to swarm in again, the bugs, the monsters, and he’s not ready, not yet, he doesn’t know where his sword is and he’s light-headed and breathing too fast, breaking every rule his master has ever taught him, defenseless, useless.

 They don’t come in. He waits, catches his breath, a hand on his chest. There’s nothing for a while until the second knock comes, softer than the first, less like a thunder. He didn’t use to be scared of thunder; maybe that’s why.

 He tries to speak, but only a weak, pitiful sound comes out. It seems to be enough for whoever, or whatever, is waiting on the other side of the door. He tries to brace himself the best he can — he can still bite, if that’s what it takes —, but he’s wholly unprepared for the smiling man that walks into his room.

 The man is tall, jet-black hair gracefully combed sideways, much, much shorter than he was used to seeing. His eyes are clear, hiding in the crescent moon of his smile, but not threatening. He knows threatening; would be able to spot it from miles away, still remembers the crawling feeling of fingers holding him down as he screamed. The man wears white, just like he does, only it’s a different, foreign style of robes. Did he somehow end up in a different land, drifting along the icy waters of the north?

 When the man speaks, he feels like he’s still underwater, miles from the surface. He can’t understand a single sound the man is making and it’s unsettling, an emptiness burning inside of his stomach. He vaguely remembers a time when he had meant to leave, get away from everything and everyone, he did, but not like this, nothing like this. The man steps into the room, towards the bed, and he throws himself to the floor, wincing at the pain on his knees, unable to do anything but push himself as far away as possible using the strength of his arms.

 Looking over his shoulder, he notices the man’s smile fading away. He places a tray he hadn’t noticed before on the bed and speaks some more, but when he gets no response, he just sighs and moves back to the door, walking out and leaving the confused man to his panic and his disarray of thoughts.

 Eventually, he moves back to the bed. Too tired to climb back up, he settles for a sitting position, reaching for the bowl on the tray the man had brought in. There’s nothing particularly enticing about the smell of the soup but he brings the bowl to his lips and downs it almost instantly, like a dying man. He coughs, not really chewing the vegetables, but doesn’t stop until the bowl is clean and back on the tray. Where the nothingness had once been is now warmth and he feels a little better about it, because maybe, just maybe, he’s not in a place to be judged and punished for whatever misdeed. Maybe he’s alive, after all.

 He lets his eyes draw back and sleeps right there on the floor, until the smiling man returns, gives the tray away to men who don’t cross the threshold into the room, and puts him back on the bed, safe under the covers. He never notices it. Never even dreams, just listens, every once in a while, to the hums that must consist of a language, like the birds that once sang in the homeland of his childhood.

 ***

 The smiling man is the only one he sees for a while. He grows used to him, his harmless presence, as he brings him food, watches him as he eats, guides him to stand and walk and even teaches him how to use the adjoined bathroom with a series of simple gestures, before bowing politely and leaving. When he’s alone, he tries to speak to himself, and not too long after, he’s glad to hear his own voice again. For a while he was afraid he would forget what his voice sounded like, his memory a haze of misplaced images and sounds, unsure if he could trust the voice of his own thoughts. He’s safe, though. He dares to feel safe, if only briefly.

 He doesn’t have any concept of time, but he knows one day the smiling man brings a needle connected to a small vial. Before he can run away, the man raises a hand, a plea for patience, and inserts the needle in his own arm, drawing blood into the vial. It’s not a lot of blood, and there’s no harm or mess when he’s done. The man raises his eyebrows in question. There’s so little to lose in the small action that he yields when the man pulls another needle from his robes.

 The act is not as gentle as the man made it seem and he winces. The man seems apologetic and the grip he has on his arm is feather light to compensate. It’s over quickly, cleanly, the man giving him a small cotton ball to hold against the minuscule wound. After the man leaves, he stares at the little drop of blood on the cotton ball and wonders when, exactly, he’s going to start living again. Wherever he is, in what possible way, and under whose glare, peering at him from outside those four white walls.

 He falls asleep with his gaze fixed on the wall across from his bed, knowing they’re still there. Waiting for him, crushing him with their expectations.

 ***

 The man who walks into his room next is not smiling. And although his eyes are just as clear as the other’s, the bangs that frame his face are longer, and his features are softer, with a less striking bone structure. He’s definitely younger, but the resemblance is so strong that there’s no way the two men aren’t related.

 “Ah,” he says from the bed, apprehensive that there’s nothing in the man’s hands but a small notebook, and he’s not sure what to expect when he sits on the chair by the bed. The unknown, in that white world, is nothing but white fear.

 “How do you feel?”

 He perks up immediately, leaning forward, causing the man to lean back on instinct.

 “I can understand you!”

 The man nods, crossing his legs.

 “And you can understand me?”

 The man gives a shorter nod.

 “Yes, I speak your language.”

 “Oh, thank the heavens, I was afraid I was going to be lost in here forever.”

 He lets out a laugh that sounds as weak as it feels, but he’s speaking again just as the man is opening his mouth.

 “I’m Wei Ying! What’s your name?”

 “I’m...”

  He pauses, as if he’s been questioned about the meaning of the breaking dawn and the fall of dusk. Wei Ying waits, expectantly, because he can understand, at last, and maybe the world isn’t going to be so white anymore.

 “I’m Lan Zhan,” the man finally answers, after what couldn’t have been more than a few seconds.

 “Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying repeats, testing, tasting the name.

 “Your turn.”

 “Huh?”

 “To answer. How do you feel?”

 “If I answer your questions, will you answer mine?”

 Lan Zhan looks up from his notes and Wei Ying feels like himself for the first time in what seems like a lifetime. Not scared, not cornered, not useless, but capable of speech again, something he had always been so naturally good at, and finally, finally he can attempt to turn the game board around, gain some ground, escape that terrifying prison of whispers.

 Only a noncommittal noise comes from Lan Zhan’s throat, and Wei Ying takes what he can get.

 “I feel well. I can finally walk, but not for long.”

 The man makes some notes, and Wei Ying, with fidgety fingers, adds, “It’d help if the food tasted better.”

 Lan Zhan’s strange brush seems to pause. In different circumstances, where he didn’t feel uneasy all the time, Wei Ying might have grinned.

 “What—”

 “No, it’s my turn. Where am I?”

  And when can I get out? is at the tip of his tongue.

 “You’re in a research facility.”

 Wei Ying frowns, fingers grasping at the sheets on his lap.

 “Why am I in a place of research? Why? Did something happen to me?”

 “Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan calls, and the cadence of his voice when he calls his name grounds him where he would otherwise fall. But he’s at the edge of the precipice, and hanging by a thread. “What do you remember?”

 “What...?”

 He remembers the cold. He remembers wandering far and leaving people behind, cities, villages, everyone. He doesn’t remember why. His head hurts. He remembers desolation, and a plethora of knowledge that had no outlet and no meaning. He remembers leaping. And the cold, taking over, surrounding, pulling him deep.

 “Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan calls again, and he can hear himself, his own shallow breaths. “It’s okay. Ca—”

 Wei Ying snaps, slaps away the hand that he sees coming in his direction. Lan Zhan, who sported a professional look ever since he came through the door, has the grace to look taken aback.

 “Tell me,” Wei Ying speaks, and it’s a voice he didn’t know he still possessed. He wishes he had left it behind, wherever those memories were from. “What happened to me?”

 Lan Zhan straightens his jaw, leans back against his chair.

 “You’ve been asleep for over a thousand years.”

[takenews-blog1]

12 Finest Films of 2017, From ‘Dunkirk’ to ‘Name Me by Your Identify’ (Images)

New Post has been published on https://takenews.net/12-finest-films-of-2017-from-dunkirk-to-name-me-by-your-identify-images/

12 Finest Films of 2017, From ‘Dunkirk’ to ‘Name Me by Your Identify’ (Images)

2017 was a powerful 12 months for cinema, with achievements that may be measured on many yardsticks: It was the 12 months a Surprise Lady obtained to rock the seemingly unassailable superhero style, the 12 months a black sketch comic grew to become a massively worthwhile writer-director, and the 12 months when Tiffany Haddish ascended to the comedy cosmos. Company filmmaking could proceed to choke Hollywood (and a Disney-Fox merger is not excellent news in that division), however this was a 12 months when there was at all times one thing to suggest, whether or not it was blasting to the massive display or streaming to a smaller one.

The runners-up (alphabetically) “Seaside Rats,” “Blade Runner 2049,” “BPM,” “The Florida Undertaking,” “God’s Personal Nation,” “Commencement,” “I, Tonya,” “Ingrid Goes West,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” “Phantom Thread,” “Professor Marston and the Surprise Ladies,” “Sieranevada.”

10. “My Comfortable Household”  At the moment streaming on Netflix, this import from Georgia options one of many 12 months’s strongest performances: Ia Shugliasvili stars as Manana, a spouse and mom residing in an overcrowded Tbilisi house along with her dad and mom, husband, and grownup kids. She shocks all of them by shifting out and getting her personal place on this highly effective and infrequently darkly humorous character examine.

9. “Dunkirk” and “Detroit”  Amidst the popcorn fluff of summer time, we obtained two auteurist movies that dropped audiences into the center of historic brutality. Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” was a suspenseful, staccato WWII story offered from quite a lot of views, whereas Kathryn Bigelow’s “Detroit” was a hard-to-watch horror-show about police brutality in 1967 that rang all too true in 2017 America. Each movies had been illuminating, visceral experiences.

8. “Private Shopper”  This very up to date ghost story — the place are these texts coming from, and the way not too long ago had been they despatched? — reteamed Kristen Stewart with director Olivier Assayas, who beforehand guided her via the acclaimed “Clouds of Sils Maria.” Stewart is rarely lower than sensible as a millennial medium who’s as trapped between life and dying as she is caught between profession paths.

7. “Brad’s Standing” and “The Meyerowitz Tales (New and Chosen)”  Mike White and Noah Baumbach strengthened their reputations as two of the main voices of graying white Gen X-ers with these hilarious and heartbreaking character research of middle-aged males going through regrets, paths not taken, and the angst of sending your child off to varsity. Adam Sandler (in “Meyerowitz”) and Ben Stiller (in each motion pictures) are given the chance to supply a few of their most heartfelt, grownup performing.

6. “Marjorie Prime”  Lois Smith’s heartbreaking efficiency deserves discover, however there’s much more to this poignant and provocative take a look at the top of life and the way we regularly change into the unreliable narrators of our personal lives. The extraordinary ensemble additionally options Jon Hamm, Geena Davis and Tim Robbins, all beneath the delicate and humane path of Michael Almereyda (adapting the play by Jordan Harrison).

5. “Get Out”  It’s an excellent horror film that follows the Blumhouse guidelines — most scares on as few units as doable — however this chiller is a lot extra. Making his debut as writer-director, Jordan Peele crafts a prickly, hilarious and terrifying metaphor for American life in 2017; what Ira Levin did for feminism with “The Stepford Wives,” Peele does right here for #BlackLivesMatter.

4. “Their Most interesting”  Of the three Dunkirk motion pictures I noticed this 12 months, this one’s my favourite. Not like so most of the valentines to filmmaking we’ve seen recently, this one cannily sends up its topic — wartime propaganda motion pictures — whereas telling a narrative that pushes all the identical buttons. (It’s as stirring, humorous, romantic and poignant as something turned out by the Battle Workplace.) Gemma Arterton shines as a copywriter who will get promoted to the photographs, and Invoice Nighy is, as at all times, a charmingly roguish ham, but it surely’s Sam Claflin who makes probably the most of his meatiest position to this point, proving he’s greater than only a YA crush object.

3. “The Form of Water”  A hauntingly lovely salute to simply about all the pieces that’s come out of the Hollywood dream manufacturing unit — from monster motion pictures to silents to musicals — and the most effective film Guillermo del Toro has made since “Pan’s Labyrinth.” Sally Hawkins suffuses her mute character with longing, Richard Jenkins upends gay-best-friend clichés, and the great thing about 1962 design hides males’s ugliest impulses on this breathtaking creature-feature romance.

2. “Woman Chicken”  Greta Gerwig has been dazzling art-house audiences for years in automobiles like “Frances Ha” (which she co-wrote) and “Damsels in Misery,” however nobody was fairly ready for the way pretty or heartfelt her solo debut as writer-director can be. Saoirse Ronan dazzles anew on this good and unsentimental coming-of-age story, and Lucas Hedges and Timothée Chalamet present key help as boys who cross her path, but it surely’s Laurie Metcalf’s brusquely humorous flip as a frazzled mother that enables this stage and TV legend a uncommon probability to shine on the motion pictures.

1. “Name Me By Your Identify”  Past love is awkward, and it entails plenty of second-guessing and misreading of indicators and badly hidden obsession. Films don’t normally get that half proper, however Luca Guadagnino’s 1983-set story of a teen and his barely older crush traverses the terrain of the inexperienced coronary heart with subtlety and sensitivity. James Ivory’s script (from the novel by André Aciman) and the 2 astonishing lead performances by Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer make this a romance to recollect.

Now be sure you take a look at Alonso Duralde’s picks for the worst motion pictures of 2017.