#As the writer I am legally obligated to make people cry | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

justforbooks · 4 years

Photo

The many lives of John le Carré, in his own words.

An exclusive extract from his new memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel.

How I write

If you’re ever lucky enough to score an early success as a writer, as happened to me with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, for the rest of your life there’s a before-the-fall and an after-the-fall. You look back at the books you wrote before the searchlight picked you out and they read like the books of your innocence; and the books after it, in your low moments, like the strivings of a man on trial. ‘Trying too hard’ the critics cry. I never thought I was trying too hard. I reckoned I owed it to my success to get the best out of myself, and by and large, however good or bad the best was, that was what I did.

And I love writing. I love doing what I’m doing at this moment, scribbling away like a man in hiding at a poky desk on a black clouded early morning in May, with the mountain rain scuttling down the window and no excuse for tramping down to the railway station under an umbrella because the International New York Times doesn’t arrive until lunchtime.

I love writing on the hoof, in notebooks on walks, in trains and cafés, then scurrying home to pick over my booty. When I am in Hampstead there is a bench I favour on the Heath, tucked under a spreading tree and set apart from its companions, and that’s where I like to scribble. I have only ever written by hand. Arrogantly perhaps, I prefer to remain with the centuries-old tradition of unmechanized writing. The lapsed graphic artist in me actually enjoys drawing the words.

I love best the privacy of writing. On research trips, I am partially protected by having a different name in real life. I can sign into hotels without anxiously wondering whether my name will be recognised, then, when it isn’t, anxiously wondering why not. When I’m obliged to come clean with the people whose experience I want to tap, results vary. One person refuses to trust me another inch, the next promotes me to chief of the secret service and, over my protestations that I was only ever the lowest form of secret life, replies that I would say that, wouldn’t I? There are many things I am disinclined to write about ever, just as there are in anyone’s life. I have been neither a model husband nor a model father, and am not interested in appearing that way. Love came to me late, after many missteps. I owe my ethical education to my four sons. Of my work for British intelligence, performed mostly in Germany, I wish to add nothing to what is already reported by others, inaccurately, elsewhere. In this I am bound by vestiges of old-fashioned loyalty to my former services, but also by undertakings I gave to the men and women who agreed to collaborate with me. It was understood between us that the promise of confidentiality would be subject to no time limit, but extend to their children and beyond. The work we engaged in was neither perilous nor dramatic, but it involved painful soul-searching on the part of those who signed up to it. Whether today these people are alive or dead, the promise of confidentiality holds.

Spying was forced on me from birth much in the way, I suppose, that the sea was forced on CS Forester or India on Paul Scott. Out of the secret world I once knew, I have tried to make a theatre for the larger worlds we inhabit. First comes the imagining, then the search for the reality. Then back to the imagining, and to the desk where I’m sitting now.

My Father: conman and inspiration

It took me a long while to get on writing terms with Ronnie, conman, fantasist, occasional jailbird, and my father. From the day I made my first faltering attempts at a novel, he was the one I wanted to get to grips with, but I was light years away from being up to the job. My earliest drafts of what eventually became A Perfect Spy dripped with self-pity: cast your eye, gentle reader, upon this emotionally crippled boy, crushed underfoot by his tyrannical father. It was only when he was safely dead and I took up the novel again that I did what I should have done at the beginning, and made the sins of the son a whole lot more reprehensible than the sins of the father.

With that settled, I was able to honour the legacy of his tempestuous life: a cast of characters to make the most blasé writer’s mouth water, from eminent legal brains of the day and stars of sport and screen to the finest of London’s criminal underworld and the beautiful creatures who trailed in their wake. Wherever Ronnie went, the unpredictable went with him. Are we up or down? Can we fill up the car on tick at the local garage? Has he fled the country or will he be proudly parking the Bentley in the drive tonight? Or is he enjoying the safety and comfort of one of his alternative wives?

Of Ronnie’s dealings with organised crime, if any, I know lamentably little. Yes, he rubbed shoulders with the notorious Kray twins, but that may just have been celebrity-hunting. And yes, he did business of a sort with London’s worst-ever landlord, Peter Rachman, and my best guess would be that when Rachman’s thugs had got rid of Ronnie’s tenants for him, he sold off the houses and gave Rachman a piece. But a full‑on criminal partnership? Not the Ronnie I knew. Conmen are aesthetes. They wear nice suits, have clean fingernails and are well spoken at all times. Policemen in Ronnie’s book were first-rate fellows who were open to negotiation. The same could not be said of “the boys”, as he called them, and you messed with the boys at your peril.

Ronnie’s entire life was spent walking on the thinnest, slipperiest layer of ice you can imagine. He saw no paradox between being on the wanted list for fraud and sporting a grey topper in the owners’ enclosure at Ascot. A reception at Claridge’s to celebrate his second marriage was interrupted while he persuaded two Scotland Yard detectives to put off arresting him until the party was over – and, meanwhile, come in and join the fun, which they duly did. But I don’t think Ronnie could have lived any other way. I don’t think he wanted to. He was a crisis addict, a performance addict, a shameless pulpit orator and a scene-grabber. He was a delusional enchanter and a persuader who saw himself as God’s golden boy, and he wrecked a lot of people’s lives.

Graham Greene tells us that childhood is the credit balance of the writer. By that measure at least, I was born a millionaire.

Sixty-something years back, I asked my mother, Olive, how prison changed Ronnie. Olive was a tap you couldn’t turn off. From the moment of our reunion at Ipswich railway station, she talked about Ronnie nonstop. She talked about his sexuality long before I had sorted out mine, and for ease of reference gave me a tattered hardback copy of Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis as a map to guide me through her husband’s appetites before and after jail.

“Changed, dear? In prison? Not a bit of it! You were totally unchanged. You’d lost weight, of course – well, you would. Prison food isn’t meant to be nice.” And then the image that will never leave me, not least because she seemed unaware of what she was saying: “And you did have this silly habit of stopping in front of doors and waiting at attention with your head down till I opened them for you. They were perfectly ordinary doors, not locked or anything, but you obviously weren’t expecting to be able to open them for yourself.” Why did Olive refer to Ronnie as you? You meaning he, but subconsciously recruiting me to be his surrogate, which by the time of her death was what I had become.

There is an audiotape that Olive made for my brother Tony, all about her life with Ronnie. I still can’t bear to play it, so all I’ve ever heard is scraps. On the tape she describes how Ronnie used to beat her up, which, according to Olive, was what prompted her to bolt. Ronnie’s violence was not news to me, because he had made a habit of beating up his second wife as well: so often and so purposefully and coming home at such odd hours of the night to do it that, seized by a chivalrous impulse, I appointed myself her ridiculous protector, sleeping on a mattress in front of her bedroom door and clutching a golf iron so that Ronnie would have to reckon with me before he got at her.

Ronnie beat me up, too, but only a few times and not with much conviction. It was the shaping up that was the scary part: the lowering and readying of the shoulders, the resetting of the jaw. And when I was grown up, Ronnie tried to sue me, which I suppose is violence in disguise. He had watched a television documentary of my life and decided there was an implicit slander in my failure to mention that I owed everything to him.

For the last third of Ronnie’s life – he died suddenly at the age of 69 – we were estranged or at loggerheads. Almost by mutual consent, there were terrible obligatory scenes, and when we buried the hatchet, we always remembered where we’d put it. Do I feel more kindly towards him today than I did then? Sometimes I walk round him, sometimes he’s the mountain I still have to climb. Either way, he’s always there, which I can’t say for my mother, because to this day I have no idea what sort of person she was. I ran her to earth when I was 21, and thereafter broadly attended to her needs, not always with good grace. But from the day of our reunion until she died, the frozen child in me showed not the smallest sign of thawing out. Did she love animals? Landscape? The sea that she lived beside? Music? Painting? Me? Did she read books? Certainly she had no high opinion of mine, but what about other people’s?

In the nursing home where she stayed during her last years, we spent much of our time deploring or laughing at my father’s misdeeds. As my visits continued, I came to realise that she had created for herself – and for me – an idyllic mother–son relationship that had flowed uninterrupted from my birth till now.

Today, I don’t remember feeling any affection in childhood except for my elder brother, who for a time was my only parent. I remember a constant tension in myself that even in great age has not relaxed. I remember little of being very young. I remember the dissembling as we grew up, and the need to cobble together an identity for myself and how, in order to do this, I filched from the manners and lifestyle of my peers and betters, even to the extent of pretending I had a settled home life with real parents and ponies. Listening to myself today, watching myself when I have to, I can still detect traces of the lost originals, chief among them obviously my father.

All this no doubt made me an ideal recruit to the secret flag. But nothing lasted: not the Eton schoolmaster, not the MI5 man, not the MI6 man. Only the writer in me stuck the course. If I look over my life from here, I see it as a succession of engagements and escapes, and I thank goodness that the writing kept me relatively straight and largely sane. My father’s refusal to accept the simplest truth about himself set me on a path of enquiry from which I never returned. In the absence of a mother or sisters, I learned women late, if ever, and we all paid a price for that.

A trip to Panama

In 1885, France’s gargantuan efforts to build a sea-level canal across the Darien ended in disaster. Small and large investors of every stamp were ruined. In consequence there arose across the country the pained cry of “Quel Panama!” Whether the expression has endured in the French language is doubtful, but it speaks well for my own association with that beautiful country, which began in 1947 when my father, Ronnie, dispatched me to Paris to collect £500 from the Panamanian ambassador to France, one Count Mario da Bernaschina, who occupied a sweet house in one of those elegant side roads off the Elysées that smell permanently of women’s scent.

It was evening when I arrived by appointment on the ambassadorial doorstep wearing my grey school suit, my hair brushed and parted. I was 16 years old. The ambassador, my father had advised me, was a first-class fellow and would be happy to settle a longstanding debt of honour. I wanted very much to believe him.

The front door to the elegant house was opened by the most desirable woman I had ever seen. I must have been standing one step beneath her, because in my memory she is smiling down on me like my angel redeemer. She was bare-shouldered, black-haired and wore a flimsy dress in layer after layer of chiffon that failed to disguise her shape. When you are 16, desirable women come in all ages. From today’s vantage point, I would put her at a blossoming thirtysomething.

“You are Ronnie’s son?” she asked incredulously. She stood back to let me brush past her. Laying a hand on each of my shoulders, she scrutinised me playfully from head to toe under the hall light and seemed to find everything to her satisfaction.

“And you have come to see Mario?” she said.

If that’s all right, I said.

Her hands remained on my shoulders while her eyes of many colours continued to study me. “And you are still a boy,” she remarked, as a kind of memo to herself.

The count stood in his drawing room with his back to the fireplace, like every ambassador in every movie of the time: corpulent, in a velvet jacket, hands behind him and that perfect head of greying hair they all had – marcelled, we used to call it – and the curved handshake, man to man, although I’m still a boy. The countess – for so I have cast her – doesn’t ask me whether I drink alcohol, let alone whether I like daiquiri. My answer to both questions would anyway have been a truthless “yes”. She hands me a frosted glass with a speared cherry in it, and we all sit down in soft chairs and do a bit of ambassadorial small talk. Am I enjoying the city? Do I have many friends in Paris? A girlfriend, perhaps? Mischievous wink. To which I no doubt give compelling and mendacious answers that make no mention of golf clubs or concierges, until a pause in the conversation tells me it’s time for me to broach the purpose of my visit which, as experience has already taught me, is best done from the side rather than head on.

“And my father mentioned that you and he had a small matter of business to complete, sir,” I suggest, hearing myself from a distance on account of the daiquiri.

I should here explain the nature of that small matter of business which, unlike so many of Ronnie’s deals, was simplicity itself. As a diplomat and a top ambassador, son – I am echoing the enthusiasm with which Ronnie had briefed me for my mission – the count was immune from such tedious irritations as taxation and import duty. The count could import what he wished, he could export what he wished. If someone, for instance, chose to send the count a cask of unmatured, unbranded Scotch whisky at a couple of pence a pint under diplomatic immunity, and the count were to bottle that whisky and ship it to Panama, or wherever else he chose to ship it under diplomatic immunity, that was nobody’s business but his.

Equally, if the count chose to export the said unmatured, unbranded whisky in bottles of a certain design – akin, let us imagine, to Dimple Haig, a popular brand of the day – that, too, was his good right, as was the choice of label and the description of the bottle’s contents. All that need concern me was that the count should pay up – cash, son, no monkey business. Thus provided, I should treat myself to a nice mixed grill at Ronnie’s expense, keep the receipt, catch the first ferry next morning and come straight to his grand offices in the West End of London with the balance.

“A matter of business, David?” the count repeated in the tone of my school housemaster. “What business can that be?”

“The £500 you owe him, sir.”

I remember his puzzled smile, so forbearing. I remember the richly draped sofas and silky cushions, old mirrors and gold glint, and my countess with her long legs crossed inside the layers of chiffon. The count continued to survey me with a mixture of puzzlement and concern. So did my countess. Then they surveyed each other as if to compare notes about what they’d surveyed.

“Well, that’s a pity, David. Because when I heard you were coming to see me, I rather hoped you might be bringing me a portion of the large sum of money I have invested in your dear father’s enterprises.”

I still don’t know how I responded to this startling reply, or whether I was as startled as I should have been. I remember briefly losing my sense of time and place, and I suppose this was partly induced by the daiquiri, and partly by the recognition that I had nothing to say and no right to be sitting in their drawing room, and that the best thing I could do was make my excuses and get out. Then I realised that I was alone in the room. After a while, my host and hostess returned.

The count’s smile was genial and relaxed. The countess looked particularly pleased. “So, David,” said the count, as if all were forgiven. “Why don’t we go and have dinner and talk about something more pleasant?”

They had a favourite Russian restaurant 50 yards from the house. In my memory, it is a tiny place and we are the only three people in it, save for a man in a baggy white shirt who plucked at a balalaika. Over dinner, while the count talked about something more pleasant, the countess kicked off a shoe and caressed my leg with her stockinged toe. On the tiny dance floor she sang Dark Eyes to me, holding the length of me against her and nibbling my earlobe while she flirted with the balalaika man and the count looked indulgently on. On our return to the table, the count decided that we were ready for bed. The countess, by a squeeze of my hand, seconded the motion.

My memory has spared me the excuses I made, but somehow I made them. Somehow I found myself a bench in a park, and somehow I contrived to remain the boy she had declared me to be. Decades later, finding myself alone in Paris, I tried to seek out the very street, the house, the restaurant. But by then no reality would have done them justice.

Now I am not pretending that it was the magnetic force of the count and countess that half a century later drew me to Panama for the space of two novels and one movie; merely that the recollection of that sensuous, unfulfilled night remained lodged in my memory, if only as one of the near-misses of interminable adolescence. Within days of my arrival in Panama City, I was enquiring after the name. Bernaschina? Nobody had heard of the fellow. A count? From Panama? It seemed most improbable. Maybe I had dreamed the whole thing? I hadn’t.

I had come to Panama to research a novel. Unusually, it already had a title: The Night Manager. I was looking for the sort of crooks, smooth talkers and dirty deals that would brighten the life of an amoral English arms seller named Richard Onslow Roper. Roper would be a high-flyer where my father, Ronnie, had been a low one who frequently crashed. Ronnie had tried selling arms in Indonesia and gone to jail for it. Roper was too big to fail, until he met his destiny in the shape of a former special forces soldier turned hotel night manager named Jonathan Pine.

Working with Sir Alec Guinness

“We are definitely not as our host here describes us,” says Sir Maurice Oldfield severely to Sir Alec Guinness over lunch. Oldfield is a former chief of the secret service who was later hung out to dry by Margaret Thatcher, but at the time of our meeting, he is just another old spy in retirement. “I’ve always wanted to meet Sir Alec,” he told me in his homey, north country voice when I invited him. “Ever since I sat opposite him on the train going up from Winchester. I’d have got into conversation with him if I’d had the nerve.”

Guinness is about to play my secret agent George Smiley in the BBC’s television adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and wishes to savour the company of a real old spy. But the lunch does not proceed as smoothly as I had hoped. Over the hors d’oeuvres, Oldfield extols the ethical standards of his old service and implies, in the nicest way, that “young David here” has besmirched its good name.

Guinness, a former naval officer, who from the moment of meeting Oldfield has appointed himself to the upper echelons of the secret service, can only shake his head sagely and agree. Over the Dover sole, Oldfield takes his thesis a step further: “It’s young David and his like,” he declares across the table to Guinness while ignoring me sitting beside him, “that make it that much harder for the service to recruit decent officers and sources. They read his books and they’re put off. It’s only natural.” To which Guinness lowers his eyelids and shakes his head in a deploring sort of way, while I pay the bill.

“You should join the Athenaeum, David,” Oldfield says kindly, implying that the Athenaeum will somehow make a better person of me. “I’ll sponsor you myself. There. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” And to Guinness, as the three of us stand on the threshold of the restaurant: “A pleasure indeed, Alec. An honour, I must say. We shall be in touch very shortly, I’m sure.”

“We shall indeed,” Guinness replies devoutly, as the two old spies shake hands.

Unable apparently to get enough of our departing guest, Guinness gazes fondly after him as he pounds off down the pavement: a small, vigorous gentleman of purpose, striding along with his umbrella thrust ahead of him as he disappears into the crowd. “How about another cognac for the road?” Guinness suggests, and we have hardly resumed our places before the interrogation begins: “Those very vulgar cufflinks. Do all our spies wear them?” No, Alec, I think Maurice just likes vulgar cufflinks.

“And those loud orange suede boots with crepe soles. Are they for stealth?” I think they’re just for comfort actually, Alec. Crepe squeaks. “Then tell me this.” He has grabbed an empty tumbler. Tipping it to an angle, he flicks at it with his thick fingertip. “I’ve seen people do this before” – making a show of peering meditatively into the tumbler while he continues to flick it – “and I’ve seen people do this” – now rotating the finger round the rim in the same contemplative vein.

“But I’ve never seen people do this before” – inserting his finger into the tumbler and passing it round the inside. “Do you think he’s looking for dregs of poison?”

Is he being serious? The child in Guinness has never been more serious in its life. Well, I suppose if it was dregs he was looking for, he’d have drunk the poison by then, I suggest. But he prefers to ignore me.

It is a matter of entertainment history that Oldfield’s suede boots, crepe-soled or other, and his rolled umbrella thrust forward to feel out the path ahead, became essential properties for Guinness’s portrayal of George Smiley, old spy in a hurry. I haven’t checked on the cufflinks recently, but I have a memory that our director thought them a little overdone and persuaded Guinness to trade them in for something less flashy.

The other legacy of our lunch was less enjoyable, if artistically more creative. Oldfield’s distaste for my work – and, I suspect, for myself – struck deep root in Guinness’s thespian soul, and he was not above reminding me of it when he felt the need to rack up George Smiley’s sense of personal guilt; or, as he liked to imply, mine.

Lunch with Rupert Murdoch

One morning in the autumn of 1991, I opened my Times newspaper to be greeted by my own face glowering up at me. From my sour expression, I could tell at once that the text around it wasn’t going to be friendly. A struggling Warsaw theatre, I read, was celebrating its post-communist freedom by putting on a stage version of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. But the rapacious le Carré [see photograph] wanted a whacking £150 per performance: “The price of freedom, we suppose.”

I took another look at the photograph and saw exactly the sort of fellow who does indeed go round preying on struggling Polish theatres. Grasping. Unsavoury appetites. Just look at those eyebrows. I had by now ceased to enjoy my breakfast. Keep calm and call your agent. I fail on the first count, succeed on the second. My literary agent’s name is Rainer. In what the novelists call a quavering voice, I read the article aloud to him. Has he, I suggest delicately – might he possibly, just this once, is it at all conceivable? – on this occasion been a tad too zealous on my behalf? Rainer is emphatic. Quite the reverse. Since the Poles are still in the recovery ward after the collapse of communism, he has been a total pussycat. We are not charging the theatre £150 per performance, he assures me, but a measly £26, the minimum standard rate. In addition to which, we’ve thrown in the rights for free. In short, a sweetheart deal, David, a deliberate helping hand to a Polish theatre in time of need. Great, I say, bewildered and inwardly seething.

Keep calm and fax the editor of the Times. His response is lofty. Not to put too fine an edge on it, it is infuriating. He sees no great harm in the piece, he says. He suggests that a man in my fortunate position should take the rough with the smooth. This is not advice I am prepared to accept. But who to turn to?

Why, of course: the man who owns the newspaper, Rupert Murdoch, my old buddy!

Well, not exactly buddy. I had met Murdoch socially on a couple of occasions, though I doubted whether he remembered them. I have three conditions, I say: number one, a generous apology prominently printed in the Times; number two, a handsome donation to the struggling Polish theatre. And number three, lunch. Next morning his reply was lying on the floor beneath my fax machine: “Your terms accepted. Rupert.”

The Savoy Grill in those days had a kind of upper level for moguls: red-plush, horseshoe-shaped affairs where in more colourful days gentlemen of money might have entertained their ladies. I breathe the name Murdoch to the maître d’hôtel and am shown to one of the privés. I am early. Murdoch is bang on time. He is smaller than I remember him, but more pugnacious, and has acquired that hasty waddle and little buck of the pelvis with which great men of affairs advance on one another, hand outstretched, for the cameras. The slant of the head in relation to the body is more pronounced than I remember, and when he wrinkles up his eyes to give me his sunny smile, I have the odd feeling he’s taking aim at me. We sit down, we face each other. I notice – how can I not? – the unsettling collection of rings on his left hand. We order our food and exchange a couple of banalities. Rupert says he’s sorry about that stuff they wrote about me. Brits, he says, are great penmen, but they don’t always get things right. I say, not at all, and thanks for your sporting response. But enough of small talk. He is staring straight at me and the sunny smile has vanished.

“Who killed Bob Maxwell?” he demands.

Robert Maxwell, for those lucky enough not to remember him, was a Czech-born media baron, British parliamentarian and the alleged spy of several nations, including Israel, the Soviet Union and Britain. As a young Czech freedom fighter, he had taken part in the Normandy landings and later earned himself a British army commission and a gallantry medal. After the war, he worked for the Foreign Office in Berlin. He was also a flamboyant liar and rogue of gargantuan proportions and appetites who plundered the pension fund of his own companies to the tune of £440m, owed around £4bn that he had no way of repaying and in November 1991 was found dead in the seas off Tenerife, having apparently fallen from the deck of a lavish private yacht named after his daughter. Conspiracy theories abounded. To some, it was a clear case of suicide by a man ensnared by his own crimes; to others, murder by one of the several intelligence agencies he had supposedly worked for. But which one? Why Murdoch should imagine I know the answer to this question is beyond me, but I do my best to give satisfaction. Well, Rupert, if we’re really saying it’s not suicide, then probably, for my money, it was the Israelis, I suggest.

“Why?”

I’ve read the rumours that are flying around, as we all have. I regurgitate them: Maxwell, the long-term agent of Israeli intelligence, blackmailing his former paymasters; Maxwell, who had traded with the Shining Path in Peru, offering Israeli weapons in exchange for strategic cobalt; Maxwell, threatening to go public unless the Israelis paid up. But Rupert Murdoch is already on his feet, shaking my hand and saying it was great to meet me again. And maybe he’s as embarrassed as I am, or just bored, because already he’s powering his way out of the room, and great men don’t sign bills, they leave them to their people. Estimated duration of lunch: 25 minutes.

A meeting with Margaret Thatcher

The prime minister’s office wished to recommend me for a medal, and I had declined. I had not voted for her, but that fact had nothing to do with my decision. I felt, as I feel today, that I was not cut out for our honours system, that it represents much of what I most dislike about our country. In my letter of reply, I took care to assure the prime minister’s office that my churlishness did not spring from any personal or political animosity, offered my thanks and compliments to the prime minister, and assumed I would hear no more.

I was wrong. In a second letter, her office struck a more intimate note. Lest I was regretting a decision taken in heat, the writer wished me to know that the door to an honour was still open. I replied, equally courteously I hope, that as far as I was concerned the door was firmly shut, and would remain so in any similar contingency. Again, my thanks. Again, my compliments to the prime minister. And again I assumed the matter was closed, until a third letter arrived, inviting me to lunch. There were six tables set in the dining room of 10 Downing Street that day, but I only remember ours, which had Mrs Thatcher at its head and the Dutch prime minister Ruud Lubbers on her right, and myself in a tight new grey suit on her left. The year must have been 1982. I was just back from the Middle East, Lubbers had just been appointed. Our other three guests remain a pink blob to me. I assumed, for reasons that today escape me, that they were industrialists from the north. Neither do I remember any opening exchanges between the six of us, but perhaps they had happened over cocktails before we sat down. But I do remember Mrs Thatcher turning to the Dutch prime minister and acquainting him with my distinction. “Now, Mr Lubbers,” she announced in a tone to prepare him for a nice surprise, “this is Mr Cornwell, but you will know him better as the writer John le Carré.”

Leaning forward, Mr Lubbers took a close look at me. He had a youthful face, almost a playful one. He smiled, I smiled: really friendly smiles. “No,” he said. And sat back in his chair, still smiling. But Mrs Thatcher, it is well known, did not lightly take no for an answer.

“Oh, come, Mr Lubbers. You’ve heard of John le Carré. He wrote The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and…” – fumbling slightly – “… other wonderful books.”

Lubbers, nothing if not a politician, reconsidered his position. Again he leaned forward and took another, longer look at me, as amiable as the first, but more considered, more statesmanlike.

“No,” he repeated.

Now it was Mrs Thatcher’s turn to take a long look at me, and I underwent something of what her all-male cabinet must have experienced when they, too, incurred her displeasure. “Well, Mr Cornwell,” she said, as to an errant schoolboy who had been brought to account, “since you’re here” – implying that I had somehow talked my way in – “have you anything you wish to say to me?”

Belatedly, it occurred to me that I had indeed something to say to her, if badly. Having recently returned from South Lebanon, I felt obliged to plead the cause of stateless Palestinians. Lubbers listened. The gentlemen from the industrial north listened. But Mrs Thatcher listened more attentively than all of them, and with no sign of the impatience of which she was frequently accused. Even when I had stumbled to the end of my aria, she went on listening before delivering herself of her response. “Don’t give me sob stories,” she ordered me with sudden vehemence, striking the key words for emphasis. “Every day people appeal to my emotions. You can’t govern that way. It simply isn’t fair.”

Whereupon, appealing to my emotions, she reminded me that it was the Palestinians who had trained the IRA bombers who had murdered her friend Airey Neave, the British war hero and politician, and her close adviser. After that, I don’t believe we spoke to each other much. Occasionally I do ask myself whether Mrs Thatcher nevertheless had an ulterior motive in inviting me. Was she, for instance, sizing me up for one of her quangos – those strange quasi-official public bodies that have authority but no power, or is it the other way round? But I found it hard to imagine what possible use she could have for me – unless, of course, she wanted guidance from the horse’s mouth on how to sort out her squabbling spies.

• This is an edited extract from The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories From My Life, by John le Carré, published next week by Viking at £20. Order a copy for £15 from the Guardian bookshop.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #John le Carré #The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories From My Life

125 notes · View notes

eternitas-archive · 4 years

Text

Oh one more thing before I leave

It’s just my two cents but I really gotta speak it into the world.

This is gonna be LONG so here have a read more

You all are hypocritical cherry pickers that want fandoms and communities to cater to your interests and morals

And let me tell you honey, that is gonna ruin not only your own experience, but everyone elses.

Lemme adress some things

Why y’all so ready to cry wolf when someone ages up a character?

The discourse is probably as old as this fucking community. It happens every other month and I am sick of it. “If you age up characters you are a pedo uvu sorry I don’t make the rules.” yes you do. You literally made up your own fucking rules about this. “Well you are shipping with a minor!” they’re aged up. “But you still ship with a minor!!”

Okay by that logic, why are we allowing all these other shippers doing their thing? The people that ship with Sans from Undertale that is a skeleton? I mean he is still just a skeleton linking him strongly to the image of death so necrophilia much?

What about the people shipping with inanimate objects? The people shipping with transformers? Those are aliens and or vehicles? Yeah that is mechanophilia.

What about people who ship with f/os that have animalistic features? I mean they are mainly antropomorphic but they still are animals. Beastiality

“No wait that is all dif-”

How about the people shipping with villains and criminals? Clearly that means they endorse that shit irl.

What about the people that ship with people MUUUCH older than them? some millenia or hundreds of years? or just 20? clearly endorse predatory behavior

While we’re at it what’s up with people shipping with divine beings? Angels? Demons? Sounds like blatant blasphemy to me

Do I want you to double down so you can prove yourself right? NO! I want you to understand that you guys are cherry picking and not understanding correlation between topics! Are there legit pedos on tumblr? yes. is it a strangers job to care for all the minors out there? no? If I go into a park it is not my job to hold an eye out for all kids that there are. I am not their parent, guardian or otherwise a person with any responsibility towards them. Same for people on the internet. I will do my shit and keep to myself. and if I happen to enjoy stuff for myself that is my right. Do I halt at a red light bc I want to be a good example for kids so they don’t learn bad behavior? Can I stop every person that crosses a red light and hold them a long ass lecture about how they endorse dangers in the streets? No.

“But there are minors on the internet!” Yes, I am aware, they will always be, always have been, your point?

“We need to make a safe space for the kids!” No we don’t? people need to follow the Terms of Service of a platform and honestly most people that reblog nsfw stuff even clearly state that minors should not interact.

“No like, YOU need to be on your best behavior bc there could be a minor anywhere!”

Since when did I become these minors parent? Since when did someone push these kids into my lap and say “your responsibility now”?

You need to understand that you can’t always just get upset at stuff EXISTING

nsfw fics are usually tagged and marked accordingly, most people that engage in a lot of nsfw stuff usually have “minors don’t interact” on their blog somewhere. Some even BLOCK people that follow them and are clear minors, that’s some DEDICATION.

But I have seen posts catering to FUCKING WRITERS saying “pls keep nsfw out of ur imagines and reader fics :)))) for the minors, otherwise I cant reblog it.” If you want to cater to your minor audience sure, but I can not stress enough how you can not tell others how to run their shit. Yes, you can suggest that to the imagine writers or writers in general but it is their right to say “no I run it like I want to” and proceed with their shit. And there is nothing you can do about it. Besides if minors really want some nsfw, trust me they WILL find it. Should we therefore police everyone and stuck them into horny jail? No.

“haha look at this lame ass adult getting upset they can’t be predatory anymore bc they are being called out on their pedophilia”

Idk how to tell you that it’s none of your fucking buisness what my personal history is and that you have no claim outside of “aging up is pedophilia” but sure go off, bc I am “upset I can not be predatory” anymore and not just outraged people are throwing around unreasonable claims.

Why would I even age up a character if pedophilia is about being into MINORS? Why would I age a character up if the WHOLE THING about pedophilia is that they are kids????

“Okay but then it’s predatory!” There is a point that depictions of an adult dating someione who is “barely legal” normalizes predatory behavior, but honestly, why is that MY responsibility? And who says I age them up to be barely legal? My social media/tumblr/ selfship experience is a very private thing. It’s a very personal thing, so why tf do I need to cater it to people who are NOT ME? When I do that it’s because I want to do it, not because I need to fill some moral obligations. (and yet I can say that YES caring about lgbt, other religious, non white selfshippers and boosting them is something generally people should do)

Like there is a thing about fiction. It doesn’t age like normal people. When I started to love one of my f/os we were the same age. The series eventually ended, it didn’t progress in real time, so I grew up while they stayed their age. And guess what! none of this backstory is any of your god damn buisness!! I don’t OWE it to you as much as writers and others don’t owe their trauma to you just so you can “give them permission” to deal with their trauma through selfshipping or writing. Who do you think you fucking are?

Fiction is not reality. And I am sick being stuck in medevial dark ages europe where people believed everything on a stage to be real life. Where actors were not allowed to exist and the people that did act and depicted a bad guy were generally shunned and hated by everyone bc they didn’t distinguish between fiction and reality.

Does fiction have an effect on reality? Yes. Jaws had repurcussions. Even the german novella “Die Leiden des jungen Werthers” had about a dozen suicides following the lead of the main character. 50 shades had an effect. 13 reasons why had an effect. But that doesn’t mean what you believe it means.

In the end I can not take the role of these minors parents to educate them and look after them. It shouldn’t be my job. And yes there are a lot of scummy adults on the internet. Like a LOT. But you need to understand that the internet will NEVER be a child safe place. And most adults take precautions already!

But fics aren’t for morality lessons. Fics aren’t for sex education. Fics aren’t there to be a fucking HOLY BOOK. Fics are just creative writing. And selfshippers are just there to have a bad time. And if they act out SURE call them out but otherwise just leave them tf alone?

“No no, what you write is what you actively endorse uvu”

Then say good bye to Horror and thriller. Say good by to books involving cheating. Say good bye to books in which anyone ever gets harmed. Say good bye to books ever even mentioning any problematic topic that isn’t 100% uwu pure

“Wait no that is different-”

How is it? Is it only problematic when you get off of it? Is that your argument? Are we going the christian route of condemning being sexually free and enjoying something that is legit a very important thing to a lot of people? (yes to asexuals their LACK of sexual attraction can also be a very important topic bc they have the right to express that without being condemed for not wanting to BONE or not being able to get horny by looking at bodies.)

Yes the over fetishization of certain topics is problematic, yes there is a lot of toxicity when it comes to porn and that shit, but kinks are just kinks.

“So you say pedophilia is just a kink!”

No. Pedophilia is aweful and no child should ever suffer through that sort of exploitation.

“But you say rape is just a kink!”

No. Real life rape is aweful and whoever rapes another human being deserves death full stop.

“You just said-”

YES! I know what I said! A lot of people hate real life stuff that they endorse in fiction. Some people are into pissing and shitting into each other! Some people are into hardcore bondage! And they all have their own histories, their own lifes and it’s their fucking thing? Do I want death on all rapists? Yes. Do I sometimes have questionable fantasies that might involve non con or dubious consent? Yes, so? Do I have my reasons for that? Yes, it’s none of your gd buisness?

It all always boils down to entitlement. Y’all need to understand that you can’t just run around demanding everyone to cater to your bullshit. You can not run around accusing people of pedophilia just because they would like to see themselves date a fictional character, but in their age.

If it makes you uncomfortable then don’t follow and interact with those people but you don’t need to pretend to have some moral high ground so you are the better person. You can just... have dislikes?

Even so, as I make this post I can not speak in broad terms because each case, each person is individual. Maybe some get off on shit and endorse it, how should I know? Maybe someone out there is fighting for not policing and censoring stuff because they actively want more pedo content, I don’t know, I am not the CIA or FBI?

It’s also none of my buisness. Is it aweful that these people exist? yeah. Are they prone to be on tumblr? probably? Are they that selfshipper that ages up their f/o so they can smooch? Unlikely.

People have their reasons. Their backstories, and none of that should have to be layed open just to get a strangers “okay” for shipping with the fictional character that makes them happy.

so uuuh before I leave

tldr: y’all full of shit and aging up is not pedophilia, you are just trying to give yourself some moral highground. you sound like a flatearther lol.

Gates closed, bitches

#and with that I abandon this sideblog for good. gbyeeeeee y'all insufferableeeeeee #except for aurora #she is a sweetheart and i support her

8 notes · View notes

jxeyhudson · 4 years

Note

hi! hope you're having a good day! i'm kind of new in the fandom and was wondering if you could recommend me some of your favorite dinah and helena fics? also who are the burps? ive seen them mentioned in tags and the like two fics ive read and it appears you are one so i thought id ask :D

Hi, welcome to the fandom I guess. The Burps are... a tumblr group chat turned discord turned mini family of some super cool ladies and theydies who all want Dinah and Helena to fuck. Not to sound horny on main, but I love them and am soft for all of them.

As for fic recs, here you go (I’m going to stick an asterisk by the fics written by my fellow Burps):

(love is) a hand-me-down brew by ace_verity When Dinah Lance takes Renee's offer of a job at her new cafe, she's only looking for a fresh start.She certainly doesn't expect to fall in love.---Helena Bertinelli is on a quest for vengeance, and she's determined not to let anything distract her from that quest.Except, it seems, the barista at the best cafe in the East End.

This is the coffee shop AU I did not know I need and I get so excited every time I see it has updated.

classic in the right way by @kate-siegel*or, the one in which Dinah is Gotham's favourite florist and Helena is in charge of getting some plants for her father's company.

I just don’t have the words for this fic, and it’s only 3 chapters in so far. I usually don’t care much for the florist x whoever AUs, but this one is making me rethink that. This writer is so good that I’m reading works of hers for fandoms I do not give a shit about just because she is that talented.

knew your love (before i kissed you) by @zxyjxy* Surviving the massacre of your entire family at the age of eight is a pretty impressive feat. Training for fifteen years in Sicily until you can kill a man with one hand and a hairpin is also a pretty impressive feat. Returning to the city where your family was cut down and killing every single person involved in their deaths is maybe the most impressive feat. Somehow, it's never been enough for Helena.

Listen. I firmly believe that every fandom has The Fic. Meaning the one that everyone in the fandom knows about and has read, probably several times. This is The Fic for Helena and Dinah. It’s well-crafted, well-written, and the first one I thought of when I read this ask.

for the first time i had something to lose by @sinand-misery* "You're trembling." // Most nights go according to plan. Tonight, however, is not one of those nights.

I’m pretty sure I’m obligated to include this one since I’m the one who submitted the dialogue prompt it is based off, but even if I weren’t, I would still include it. The writers in this fandom love hurting Helena and then making Dinah take care of her, and this writer does a great job of it.

try a little tenderness (all you gotta do is try) (also) by @kate-siegel*“I feel disgusting,” Dinah says, glancing down at herself and there’s a lilt to her voice that already puts Helena on edge, even before Dinah turns those dark eyes onto her. “I need to shower.” “Okay,” is all she says, because she’s not sure what else to say in response to that, casting an awkward glance around the living room to figure out what she’s supposed to do in this situation. Should she stay and wait, or was that Canary’s subtle way of asking her to leave? “You should join me.”

This fic makes me long to feel things I am not sure I feel capable of. It’s just, like, 3600 words of vulnerability and love. Very grateful for writers who can bring things like this to the table.

Get Used To It by @helenas-crossbow* “I’m...sorry.” Helena says, in her signature somewhat awkward cadence, still looking at the floor. “I just...I guess I’m not used to having to worry about people worrying about me, you know?”

The tenderness? The way Helena’s character comes through so cleanly and perfectly? My heart, dude. I reread this one regularly.

I’ll only hurt you (if you let me) by ThanksForListening"Tears had their purpose, initially, but overall they were counterproductive, and she had a job to do. Crying in the face of pain would do nothing, so she vowed to never do it again, no matter how much she wanted to. And she didn’t.But damn if this didn’t hurt like a bitch."

Another really good fic about Helena getting shot and being taken care of. There are so many good things about this one that it would take me way too long to list them.

sleepover by @cleanquean* It's not like Dinah doesn't realise she's got it bad for Helena; she knows that all too well, thank you very much. The problem is, what the hell do you do about it when it's right there in your face, at work, at home, in your kitchen and in your bed? And how do you keep Harley Quinn from unintentionally ruining all of it?

Some things? Are too good for us to deserve. Sleepover is it. We do not deserve it. I read it when I am feeling soft. No matter what direction this writer takes this fic it will be good and I will scream the whole time I read it, and then I will read it again.

after the afterparty by novoaa1The Canary had let loose a delighted snort at that, as if she found the whole thing somehow laughable.(Which it wasn’t, to be clear—laughable, that is.)“Are y'all seeing this shit?” she’d turned to ask the rest of them, earning a giddy squeal from Harley and a bemused scoff from Montoya even whilst Helena remained stock still in place, dutifully blinding herself with one hand. “Absolutely adorable.”“Shut up,” Helena had hissed back more out of instinct than anything else, though her tone was markedly devoid of any real anger.(And if Helena had felt her cheeks flush ever so slightly beneath her palm at the Canary’s glib assertion, she certainly didn’t let on.)Or: Sionis falls. The rest of them remain.

This was the first Birds of Prey fic I read, and I maintain that it is one of the best. This dialogue is just spot on, and the story itself is absolutely adorable.

With You I’m Briefly Gorgeous by well, me*It’s a soulmate AU and I don’t feel like attaching the description. I honestly do not usually rec my own fics, but given that I am responsible for the only soulmate AU so far I think I am legally required to link it. So there ya go.

#birds of prey #nobody draw attention to my blatant favoritism for the burps #we make up like 1/3 of the fics on ao3 so it is expected

17 notes · View notes

almaasi · 6 years

Text

reaction post typed while watching SPN 13x22 “Exodus”

“WATCH THIS SHOW” they said. “IT’LL BE FUN” they said. cue me being very stressed out for two hours straight

02:38pm

am i looking forward to this, with absolute confidence that nothing terrible and unfortunate will happen because it’s the deadly duo writing this and it’s near the end of the season and last episode was the whiplashiest of whiplashes? NOPE

am i gonna watch it anyway? .......yeah

hopes: nobody we care about dies

02:43

I DID NOT WANT THIS RECAP

SAMMY DID NOT DESERVE THAT

but also i still haven’t seen a captioned giftset of the moment cas said to dean “dean, he’s gone, we can’t save him”

‘cause wow as far as destiel moments go, that’s a heck of a lot of trust for dean, and a heck of a lot of concern and care on cas’ part

02:46

lucifer: your name is jack

jack: and yours is lucifer

i don’t even know why i laughed but i did??? i don’t think that was meant to be funny

02:48

lucifer: don’t you think that’s his choice?

cas: no

the abusive dad vs protective family saga continues

also i just realised for MONTHS/years? i’ve been using the 24-hour clock on my laptop and didn’t even notice how much i didn’t like it until just now, and i just changed it, and AAH THIS IS BETTER IT SAYS 02:49 INSTEAD OF 14:49 AND I DON’T ACCIDENTALLY TYPE 4:49 WHEN WRITING THESE POSTS

actually in terms of abusive parents vs protective families (expanding on what i said last week), i kinda feel like right now the writers are kinda toning down how bad it can be. lucifer’s so chill about this, kinda, and i’ve known families whose estranged parent is almost a perfect match for lucifer’s behaviour here:

they’ll offer the kid an incredible gift without telling the other parent(s), something the kid can’t refuse because of how badly they want/need it, and the parents can’t refuse without being the bad guy(s), and the whole family then becomes eternally indebted to the abusive parent and is obliged to give them money/time/rights with their child, with the threat of violence, property destroyed, access to said property removed, or instigated legal proceedings if they refuse.

plus the kid is often too young or innocent to understand, they just see an extra parent who gives them nice things, and for a kid from a broken home with not enough to go around, they don’t see the downside, and they maybe never see the threat their parents are under. or they’re physically or mentally abused by their parent(s), but think it’s okay because the parent(s) “apologises” or bribes them with nice things. or if the protective parent(s) try and keep them away from the abusive parent, the kid sees themselves as being deprived of that parent’s love

long story short, people can be shitty, and lucifer probably has the potential to be much worse than just standing around and having a casual discussion

i feel like the extended winchester family verbally defending jack is not gonna be enough, and lucifer’s gonna wanna take back sam, and destroy more while he’s at it

like an “if i can’t have it, nobody can have it” sort of thing

03:03

eyyy felicia day is in the credits

03:04

hug!!!!!!!!!!!

nawww the lil tiny nuzzle dean does with his chin before pulling away

03:07

YEAH MARY YOU PUNCH THE DEVIL IN THE FACE

!!!

AGAIN!!!

cas kinda looked like he was expecting that

03:09

i was busy admiring how mary’s hair was perfectly curly

and then by the next shot it was all limp and sad

if the weather was humid i guess it melted the curl between takes

but also MARY WHAT THE HELL

YOU DON’T WANNA ABANDON ALL THE PEOPLE IN THE AU

BUT WHAT ABOUT YOUR SMOL NEEDY HERO CHILDREN

??????

i mean i get it bUT ALSO NO I DON’T

also my face is >:| because they cut to cas and lucifer in the middle of mary and dean having a super important conversation

usually it’s not jarring but THAT WAS JARRING

eehh the deadly duo trademark is all over this

03:15

sam: mom doesn’t wanna leave these people.

sam: ...

sam: so let’s take ‘em with us

YEAH NOW THAT’S A PLAN

MUCH BETTER

take charlie and bobby too okay please

..........aw man now i said that, i get the terrible feeling that one or both of them is gonna go out in a blaze of glory instead, or stay on the sinking ship for no good reason other than because the writers don’t know what else to do with them

edit: i mean there’s still next episode.... (best case, they all survive and get storylines next season)

03:20

see all the stuff lucifer is telling jack is true, and it does remove the blame from the CONCEPT of lucifer

but the personality is lucifer is BAD AND ABUSIVE

like you don’t have to commit horrible crimes to be a bad person to be around

he corrupts the will of others, he tortures them emotionally, he manipulates them

none of those things are first-degree murder, or the great oppression of the entire human race, but they are Bad Things For A Father To Be

03:23

lucifer: i have done bad things, but i just want the opportunity to get better. doesn’t everybody? don’t you?

i actually feel sick ‘cause this is sooooooo very very dangerous

cas was right, talking to lucifer is bad

yeah, he says all the right things. anyone could give him the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps say sure, lucifer’s changed ‘cause he has a kid now, but he PROVED in bringing sam back to life that he hasn’t changed

and not just because of the “i’mma bring jack a gift he can’t refuse thing”, but the “i’mma kill sam again if he doesn’t agree to this” thing

lucifer is a manipulative, blackmailing, flaming trash baby and jack needs better. lucifer might treat jack himself with genuine love, but he’ll destroy everyone and everything around him in doing so

03:28

also? i relate so hard to the fact dean, sam, and cas all see and know the real lucifer, and lucifer’s putting on a show for jack

i think the people i’ve personally felt the least safe around in the past, especially growing up, are the people who are perfectly sweet when you’re in company and then become bullies as soon as the adults/parents/protectors are out of earshot

and there’s no way to prove to your protectors that you’re being hurt because all they see is “a nice person” or “ohh they’re such a sweetie”

i mean it’s the other way around for team free will and jack, where tfw see the real thing and jack sees the perfect angel but yeah

03:42

ketch: take the b&o railroad......straight to hell

good line tbh

03:43

angel to ketch: i’ve sent for an expert in these matters

probably gonna be other ketch

03:44

WHOA DARK CAS

WAY BETTER

he has a twitchy hamster face

where does misha get these ideas

i kinda wanna draw whiskers on dark!cas ???

03:46

THE FACT DEAN CAN GIVE CAS INSTRUCTIONS JUST BY FLUTTERING HIS EYELASHES

and the way he moves his eyes is so soft and gentle and subtle too

it makes my heart feel a thing tbh

even though cas is torturing someone

ugh nonverbal communication is so sexy

03:52

DARK CAS IS GERMAN ?????

and there’s........something misha-like in his smile?? that’s weird

03:54

I AM INTENSELY UNCOMFORTABLE

his two different eyes are cool though

maybe it’s just a trick of the light, or a very subtle contact lens

03:55

fuck yeah that coat

but why is he german, other than clearly being a nazi-inspired character

is it just me or is this legitimately the scariest of all misha’s characters

i want to run away and hide

actually i kinda wanna cry

03:59

that’s better

GOOD CAS, PLZ DESTROY NAZI CAS

04:02

ketch: “well helloo~”

ketch: “are you... actually saving me? about bloody time”

gayyyyyyyy

biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

also maybe definitely a destiel parallel from that time cas beat dean up to stop him saying yes to micheal

04:05

um?????

that smile when real!cas dragged the blade down dark!cas throat ?????

04:08

jack’s like LET ME DO THE THING EVERYONE’S BEEN TRYING TO DO FOR MONTHS/YEARS

IN ONE HOUR

04:11

fuck yeah mary

lookin all swish at the back of the war bus

04:12

????????????????????

??????????????????????????????????

hOW DID THEY GET THE BUS THROUGH THE TUNNEL THAT HAD THE VAMPIRES IN

DID THEY TAKE THE MOUNTAIN ROUTE THAT WOULD’VE TAKEN SEVERAL DAYS???

WHAT???????????????????

04:16

MY HEART IS POUNDING

C’MON EVERYONE YOU CAN DO IT!!!!

04:17

mary, bobby, ketch, charlie, jack are safe!!!! SAVE EVERYONE!!! QUICK QUICK

NOBODY LEFT BEHIND PLEASE

except lucifer maybe

except that would probably be bad in the long run

CAS IS SAFE

YAH C;MON!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH I’M SO STRESSED RN

fuckin feel like i’m trying to pull ducklings one by one through a fence before a dog gets them FUCK

/sobs to self

04:19

I;M GONBA HEVA FUCKING HEART ATACK FUHF

04:20

WHY IS IT ALWAYS THE BLACK GUY

DO THESE WRITERS LIKE.. HAVE A FETISH FOR DEAD BLACK PEOPLE

WHAT THE FUCK IS THEIR PROBLEM

AND THE CAMERA ALWAYS LINGERS MORE WHEN IT’S THESE WRITERS I’M PRETTY SURE??? someone do a test, go find all the dead black people and check which writers/editors/directors leave the camera lingering for longest

istg these writers do it more often and for longer

04:24

aw MAAAAN :C

dean’s “gaBE nO” though. :c :c :c

04:26

everyone except gabe :c :c :c

(and no lucifer...........like i said, great now, baaaaaad in the long run)

04:29

nobody mentions cas but he’s still there, looking all pretty and being a good, wholesome bean

04:30

SEE? BAD

VERY BAD

04:33pm

it ends

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh man that was

........a lot

overall a good ‘un but STILL VERY STRESSFUL

i need a nice calming shower after that, i smell like !!!!!anxiety!!!!

9/10, loses a point JUST BECAUSE OF HOW STRESSFUL IT WAS TO WATCH. THIS WAS NOT FUN AT ALL

BUT STILL GOOD??

I DUNNO MAN I JUST WANT A SHOW WITH THESE EXACT CHARACTERS JUST HANGING AROUND AND BEING NICE TO EACH OTHER AND FALLING IN LOVE AND HEALING EACH OTHER EMOTIONALLY AND PHYSICALLY AND BAKING CAKES AND RAISING CHILDREN

to be fair though, my endless almost-what-i-wanted-but-not-quite dissatisfaction with this show keeps driving me to write 81+ fanfics where nice things happen

win-win????

but this show would still be better with dean/cas cuddles let’s be real

#Elmie watches things #13x22 #exodus #season 13 #spn spoilers #deadly duo #post of postiness

46 notes · View notes

spirit-shroud · 6 years

Note

🔥 - games / game development?

i dont think i have any unpopular game development opinions?? like i think the only big Hot Take i have is like, jesus fuck, please hire some actual writers for your games and make your lore department TALK TO EACH OTHER PLEASE i dont care how good the gameplay is if you retcon everything like 9000 times it gets awful for everyone involved...........not gonna namedrop but if you just so happen to be named after a type of generally unpleasant, cold precipitation...... watch out

also like. i actually hate dating sims. i played through the bird dating sim, the dad dating sim, and the horror one on the whims of my pals and i did like dad dating sim (trans daddy vampire.......love him long time......) and bird dating sim DID make me cry on stream in front of like 20 people but yknow how it is. but just. god. they’re so..slow and awful as a genre and let alone how (USUALLY) the writing is terrible and just. ugh. also? there needs to be more gay. maybe i’d like them more if i could set the text scroll speed to 10000 and there was more hot guys equally as attracted to guys as i am lmao (or monsters. or robots. but that’s a Different Can Of Worms)

any game you cant run or jump is automatically a Bad Game!!!! i dont make the rules that’s really just how it is!! let me fuckin chain dash into infinity you cowards if im not clearing areas faster than a speedrunner with a shiny new exploit it’s not fast enough. catch me yeeting myself and my fuckload of guns into danger faster than you can say ‘game crash.’ i’m going to space. i’m going to the next galaxy over. and if i can’t give myself a speed boost i will MANIPULATE THE FUCKING FILES TO GIVE MYSELF A SPEED BOOST DONT TEST ME. also jumping is just. nice. if i can’t run + jump in BL 2 style (seriously why does anyone who’s ever played BL 2 just. Do that? the run + jump thing? is it the low gravity?) what’s the FUCKING point.

also god i’m. so fucking thirsty to talk about my game dev projects i’d actually astral project if anyone asked me to go into Oversharing Level of Details about any of them. but namely Coda bc Coda is precious and i’ve been steadily fixing the lore lately it’s looking pretty tight,,,,,,,,,, (this is an invitation. you are legally obligated to ask me about my game dev projects)

4 notes · View notes

readonline · 4 years

Link

https://nyti.ms/34FebC6 8, 2020 at 09:27PM

The Coronavirus Outbreak

liveLatest Updates

Maps and Cases

Vaccine Tracker

Long Recoveries

Answers to Your Questions

Modern Love

If grief is the price of love, I am unable to pay.

Credit...Brian Rea

By Jared Misner

On the day I knew Alison would die, I called my two dogs into bed with me and wrapped all three of us in a quilt that’s hand stitched with my wedding vows.

This being such a custom item, it’s curious that three of them exist.

For my wedding two years ago, Alison had commissioned the hand stitching of this quilt — 1,420 words across 42 square feet. But the quilter kept messing it up with errant commas and misspelled words, so Alison made her start over, twice. She wasn’t about to be responsible for giving a less-than-perfect gift to me and my future husband, Nate. Still, the quilter had us keep the first two because there was no sense in returning them.

Before the doctors unplugged Alison in late April — one more body claimed by the coronavirus, lost amid the zeros and statistics to become a footnote in our sordid history — that’s who she was at her core: dedicated to perfection and superior gift-giving.

More than that, she was my best friend for 12 years, and even though I’m now married to a wonderful man, I’m not sure I’ll ever love someone like I loved Alison.

I suppose it’s fitting that this gift — the most perfect my husband and I received at our wedding, the gift we use more than any other, the gift I now find myself clinging to in Alison’s absence — came from the woman who was my first, and I suppose only, Facebook-official wife.

[Sign up for Love Letter, our weekly email about Modern Love, weddings and relationships.]

Smitten with ourselves at the satirical shade we threw at others who lived for the drama and gossip of online relationship statuses at a time when Facebook had walls instead of feeds and when people still wrote on their friends’ walls, we made the digital declaration to one another and began our first marriage.

It was the most successful fictitious marriage I’ve had in my life, full of artisanal jams from roadside stands and dreams of one day living in a cabin in Vermont with a dozen dogs and a shed devoted to Halloween decorations.

Given that I’ve only been married to my husband for two years, I suppose you could say that my relationship with Alison was the most successful, long-lasting marriage I have had, period.

But now, at 29, she is dead, the ventilator no longer breathing for her, moved on to the next victim of Covid-19.

To die from this plague is a tragedy. To witness a loved one do so is a merciless, unrelenting kind of sadness — prolonged and filled with false hope. It is a faraway, forced mourning, her body a vector of contagion. It is a unique grief overridden by a forced education in a vocabulary I never wanted to learn: hydroxychloroquine, extubation, Remdesivir.

Latest Updates: The Coronavirus Outbreak

4h ago

Trump’s doctor says he’s completed his Covid-19 treatments and can return to ‘public engagements’ on Saturday.

4h ago

The pandemic makes the closing of an American Legion post even more painful.

8h ago

As virus cases spike in rural areas, India may soon outpace the U.S.

See more updates

More live coverage: Markets

And to die in the year of our lord 2020 is to die in so many places with deluging notifications, incessantly pinging you to remind you that your best friend is dead.

Texts from her father, Rich, an accountant from New York who now lives in West Palm Beach but still sounds like a New Yorker, and who once described my skinny jeans in college as “hot pants,” go off on my phone like bombs.

I think: Is this the one that tells me my best friend is dead?

Facebook posts from her mother, Robin (who once stole three mini cast-iron pans from a tapas restaurant in Gainesville, Fla., which still hang in my kitchen 12 years later), are an unpunctuated stream of terror, anger and fear. People “react” to her posts with digital tears. Instagram posts implore Alison to wake up, then shift to digital memorials, ephemeral stories that tag Alison, which she, despite the notifications, is unable to add to her own “story” because, again, she is dead.

To die amid this pandemic is to die over Zoom, your loved ones reduced to Hollywood Squares and requests to mute. Sharing stories about yesteryear with a video lag while your best friend is sedated. And while your friend dies in her hospital bed, hundreds of miles away, the process also involves rolling your eyes at the baby boomers on the call who insist on holding their phones below their chins rather than at eye level.

And then there are my own posts that I felt so obligated to birth into existence. To mourn your best friend in the 21st century is to do so publicly or risk others wondering why you haven’t already.

So I uploaded a 17-page letter Alison had written me in 2012, as we prepared to graduate from journalism school and begin our adult lives. It earned some 300 views, so I guess people liked it. How does one measure the support of digital grief anyway? Would I have loved her more if my “story” had received 400 views? Would our friendship mean more if a few more people had sent crying emojis in response?

On pages six and seven of the letter, Alison wrote, “I’m overwhelmed with clichés right now as I try to label our relationship. Best friends? Family? Soul mates? Soon-to-be newlyweds? Nothing feels right.”

“Nothing feels right” has a more macabre tinge to it these days because, well, nothing feels right.

In college at the University of Florida, and then continuing for the next eight years, Alison and I would say to each other, “Thank you for ruining me.” It was our way of telling the other: You’re so perfect, your understanding of me so nuanced and deep, that no man could ever match you.

By being all of these things, by accompanying me on another fruit-themed fall festival somewhere in north-central Florida, by sitting in a Czech restaurant in Ontario, and making me laugh even in the memo section of Venmo, “Thank you for ruining me” was to say “No one will ever know me or love me like you.”

Now that I’m actually married (the legal kind), I can say I love my husband very much. He is pragmatic, kind and handsome.

But he does not pull over for garage sales. He does not smuggle bags of dog costumes and treats out of press events to later give to my dogs and my parents’ dogs. He does not bring friendship bracelet crafts or design-your-own hats to our annual Labor Day trip and does not understand my references to the Beehive. He has no idea why Alison and I, eight years later, still laugh at the thought of when the chickens finally came to roost.

He does not speak in the Voice, a high-pitched apology-laced tone that came from who knows where but which we spoke in almost always.

He is, simply, not Alison. He could never be. It is (was?) a different kind of love. And nothing feels right now.

What happens to our inside jokes that litter the filing cabinets of my mind? Do they die along with her? Do I laugh to myself? What happens to her Facebook wall, the only record of our marriage, my first, her only?

One night while I wept in bed, my husband said to me, “Grief is the price of love.”

It was a typical thing for Nate to say: stoic New England pragmatism, the opposite of what I wanted to hear, the last thing Alison would have said. Yet it was everything I needed to hear.

He’s right, of course. He always is. One of the many reasons I married him.

But that love was expensive, a jumbo-size mortgage on my heart that I fear I won’t ever be able to repay.

Alison and I, both phone-call-averse millennials, would commonly talk on the phone for two hours at a time. Nate knew to go upstairs, don’t wait up when Alison called, the picture of her dressed as a cat for Halloween in 2012 appearing on my phone.

Do I keep her in my contact favorites now? Do I delete her? Do I unfriend her?

To die in 2020 is a messy amalgamation of digital business.

At my wedding, I asked Alison to read a passage from “The Velveteen Rabbit.” It’s a paragraph I have hanging in my home about what it means to be “real.”

The rabbit asks if becoming real hurts. The skin horse tells him yes, sometimes, it does. Sometimes your eyes will get rubbed off in the process and you’ll lose some of your shine. But that’s how you know you’re real. Nothing real can ever remain untouched.

The whole time they’re talking about love, of course.

I didn’t make the connection when I asked Alison to read that passage at my wedding, but it also describes us. Alison made me real. Alison ruined me. And I am better because of it.

Jared Misner is a writer in Charlotte, N.C.

Modern Love can be reached at [email protected].

To find previous Modern Love essays, Tiny Love Stories and podcast episodes, visit our archive.

Want more from Modern Love? Watch the TV series; sign up for the newsletter; or listen to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify or Google Play. We also have swag at the NYT Store and two books, “Modern Love: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption” and “Tiny Love Stories: True Tales of Love in 100 Words or Less” (available for preorder).

From Modern Love

#Feedly

0 notes

prettyflyforamercguy-blog · 8 years

Text

TAGGED BY : @recruitedbyhydra, @big-d-little-i-big-n-little-ozzo RULES : tag 9 people you would like to know better. TAGGING: @confidxnteveryday, @cameoutofabottle, @jerseysass, @aspecialprovidence, @askthedeanwinchester, @itcdrninja, @imnotsayingaliensbutaliens, @therussianandthefinn, @thelegendarydarcylewis

1. how old are you? 2 years old. I peak at 6 on good days. 2. current job? disabled and trying to get the government to fucking acknowledge it but hey no it’s cool i’m good 3. dream job? being a writer for adam connover’s “Adam Ruins Everything” bc i am a ruiner and i love ruining things with facts too. that or being nathan lane. i love nathan lane. 4. what are you talented at? terrible jokes, being hella gay, making memes, ruining things for people (especially organized religion and world history. seriously, ask me about Jezebel, I’ll ruin your life with over 3000 years of slut shaming) also cooking 5. what is a big goal you are working towards/have already achieved? world domination. if that doesn’t work out, i’ll settle for being a functioning adult human capable of maintaining healthy relationships 6. what’s your aesthetic? memes, stevie nicks, ryan reynold’s ass, pirating college psych text books, the musical the producers, deadpool and meg masters (yes the demon) 7. do you collect anything? books, vhs tapes (i dont give a shit what anyone says, i love vhs), supernatural posters (i am legally obligated to buy spn posters if sam is in the front), costume jewlery, other people’s children 9. what’s a pet peeve of yours? people who treat children like shit and act like its super cool to treat children like little hellspawn who have no feelings and are not people. i will fight you about it i dont even give a fuck 10. good advice to give? the world can be a nasty place. be the person who makes it better even just for one person. never let people make you feel like you are less because you are different. learn. never stop learning. explore the world, explore yourself. remember that you are not your skin and if you arent ready to forgive someone, fuck them they don’t deserve it. never let people dictate how you should heal from people fucking you up because most of them don’t know shit about dick and they can eat a unicorn fart. it’s okay to be scared. it’s okay to be angry. it’s okay to be happy. you are a child of the earth and have every right to be here. also you should try to eat one thing every day that feels like your tummy is giving you a hug. 11. recommend three songs or more: Bird Set Free- Sia, Rainbow- Robert Plant, Kill ‘Em With Kindness- Selena Gomez, All Along The Watchtower- Jimmi Hendrix, Far Cry 3 Theme- Brian Tyler (i use this to really get into the writing mood), I Started A Joke- The Bee Gees, X Gon Give It To Ya- DMX (for obvious reasons), Snowbird- Anne Murray. I might’ve gotten carried away here but jackie is like 90% of my self control and she’s busy so

#out of bullets #thank u for tagging me #now u know what kind of freak i am lmao #this probably explains my wade muse a lot #meme

5 notes · View notes

republicstandard · 7 years

Text

The Standard Conversation: YouTuber 'The Iconoclast'

The Iconoclast is a content creator and now hard copy magazine publisher from the north of England. His growth since beginning his channel a year ago has been nothing short of meteoric, having just passed 60,000 subscribers. His videos make insightful commentary on politics, demographics, Islam and Western culture.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

RS: What led you to start your YouTube Channel?

My friend and I, both avid viewers of other YouTube channels at the time, would sit in the pub and rant about politics every day. We'd talk about the latest content creator we'd discovered and recommend channels to each other. One day my friend told me I should start a channel of my own, considering I have a background in video production and an endless supply of obnoxious opinions on the world. I kept making excuses not to do it though as I was still pursuing various things in my “real life”, and I knew starting a channel of that nature could jeopardize those ambitions. Well, to make a long story short, those other plans fell flat on their arse, and suddenly I had nothing to lose. I started making videos slowly and enjoyed the feeling of finally being able to get so much off my chest, as there was nobody in my life (other than my mate) who aligned with me politically, and I always felt as though I needed to keep my head down and mouth shut for fear of social exclusion. Soon enough, an audience began to grow, and here we are.

RS: What's the purpose of 'The Iconoclast' as a name? Why not go public?

I knew I'd be discussing controversial topics on my channel, so I felt having an internet moniker was the safest way to go. Also, just from a production standpoint, having my face on screen wouldn't really add anything to the content. I know a lot of people enjoy getting to know the personalities behind the YouTube channel, and there will be a day where I appear as myself, but I didn't want to make my channel about me. Plus, The Iconoclast is just a cool name in general.

RS: White genocide is real. How do you see the next 30 years or so playing out? Is there a way back for The West?

Despite the depressing nature of the topics I cover in my videos, deep down I am an optimist. Hard to believe, but it's true. Sometimes my optimism gets severely tested (most days) but I truly think the European people have the will to survive. I don't think this survival process is going to be pretty though- I think we're in for some really rough times, but that was always going to be the case when you have a political class who routinely ignore and talk down to the people they're supposed to represent. Eventually, the populations of Europe will have no choice but to take matters into their own hands, and in some respects, they're already starting to do so. The dramatic rise of populist movements across the continent, as well as street protest groups, signals a Europe-wide mentality shift. If our leaders don't take this seriously, they will be replaced.

youtube

RS: Your channel has exploded in popularity. Any ideas why that is?

Authenticity. I think people can see that I'm just a normal person trying to make sense of what's going on and they identify with that. I don't try to put on a performance with my videos, I just present the information and give my opinion. Pretty simple. Of course, I try to keep my production standards high, which is part of the reason why I'm not an every day uploader, but I believe in quality over quantity. I'll never make a video where I talk down to my audience, and I'll freely admit when I'm unsure on something. Some YouTubers go out of their way to let you know how many books they're currently reading, or which online course they're taking in an attempt to paint themselves as some sort of expert – I'm not interested in that. I also stay away from YouTube “drama”, and I know my audience appreciates it.

Or subscribe to me instead. https://t.co/CenDlM5ARe

— The Iconoclast (@IconoclastPig) February 14, 2018

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

RS: Brexit is going ahead -slowly. Do you think the British political elite are capable of delivering on their obligations?

I think they're capable but it's clear they don't want to. Like I said earlier, our political class regularly ignores the concerns of the public, and even when we had a majority of the country vote to leave the EU, they're still trying to derail the process. It's quite amazing actually, these people constantly blow hot air when they talk about “British values”, but here they are blatantly trying to reverse democracy. Not all of our politicians are bad, however, I'm a big fan of Jacob Rees-Mogg, and I hope he takes some inspiration from House Of Cards and positions himself as the new Prime Minister pretty soon. But the fact remains, the majority of our elected officials hold the British people in contempt. Brexit is up in the air right now. I think we'll end up completely crumbling and getting some bullshit half-in half-out sort of deal with the EU, which would mean we'd effectively still be inside it. But you never know, we may be pleasantly surprised (although I doubt it).

youtube

RS: Is there a peaceful way to resolve the problems (rape gangs, jihad, Islamisation) posed by large Muslim communities in the United Kingdom?

Unfortunately, I don't think so. Ten years ago, maybe. Now we've allowed things to go too far. Our immigration system is broken, our police are cowards, and our left-wing press tries desperately to cover up crimes committed by certain demographics. After every terror attack the narrative is “Don't be Islamophobic!”, after every new rape gang that's discovered it's “White people rape girls too!”, instead of tackling the problem of jihad we should really be concerned with “far-right terrorism” etc. To be honest I'm shocked things haven't kicked off already! After the Rotherham scandal was made public, I thought for sure people were going to lose their cool. Maybe it's the typical British attitude of rolling with the punches, or that stupid slogan “Keep calm and carry on”, but there's only so much people can take. If the government are really so concerned about revenge attacks against UK Muslims, they need to sort out the core problems associated with it - end Islamic immigration, deport those who don't have legal rights to be here, end foreign funding of mosques, and police Muslim neighbourhoods properly. But like I said, as of now things are looking grim. Purely from a demographics standpoint, many cities across the UK will be majority Muslim in the near future. Most of the school kids in Birmingham are Islamic. Even my small town in the north is starting to experience Muslim immigration. My local city recently had a rape gang scandal hit the news. Things are bad. Of course we'd all like to avoid blood running through the streets, but the way successive British governments have continuously brushed this problem under the rug, a boiling point is simply unavoidable.

RS: America is seeing a growth of motivated and often violent leftist groups in response to Donald Trump. Have you noticed anything similar in the UK post-Brexit vote?

They exist but they're nowhere near the level of ANTIFA in the US. Our leftists spend more time crying on the floor than punching people. Although recently we had a small group of them crash a Jacob Rees-Mogg speaking event at a university, but the only thing that happened there was a bit of shoving and pushing. If you're asking me whether the potential is there for these groups to grow and get violent, I'd say definitely, but as of now, they're relatively tame.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

RS: You've made the decision to publish a magazine to accompany your YouTube Channel- what led to that?

To put it simply, The Iconoclast magazine is a platform for regular people to express themselves politically. It's an open-submission format where I encourage people to come out of their shell and talk about what's on their mind. I don't agree with all the opinions I decide to publish, but I think that's important. There were a few reasons why I started it.

As amazing as the internet is, I've always sort of resented it for damaging physical media. One of my favorite things to do when I was younger was to spend my Friday nights at the video rental store picking a selection of films to watch, then I'd go next door to order a pizza, and my night was all set. I know these days you can fire up Netflix at the touch of a button, but to me, that only means you can discard media just as quickly as you can acquire it. Back in the day you had to commit to your choices because you had to invest so much more time and effort. I wanted to bring a sense of that back. Having something “real” you can hold in your hands creates a sense of legitimacy. I also didn't want to get trapped in a small little corner of YouTube, because in the grand scheme of things it's actually not that influential. There are so many people out there who are just as politically frustrated as the rest of us, but they have no connection to the YouTube sphere at all. We need to reach these people, and I've found one of the best ways to do so is by putting physical media out into the world. So The Iconoclast magazine aims to bring a wide range of political and cultural essays to people in a different format. I get a lot of messages from readers who tell me they've let older family members borrow the magazine and they now watch my content (and others) on YouTube. The writers and contributors to the mag are normal people from all over the world who desperately want to express themselves, but aren't comfortable with video production, or prefer the pure anonymity and freedom writing can provide. If a magazine like The Iconoclast was around before I started my own channel, I think I would have contributed to it myself.

youtube

Sometimes I look at other YouTubers who have 10 times my audience, and I imagine to myself “God if I had that many subscribers I'd have done this, this and this”. I don't think people are taking enough risks. YouTube provides a false sense of comfort and security for a lot of creators and they stop pushing themselves. I wanted to try new things, get into different mediums, and actually try to influence things and people in the “real world”. Whether my magazine does that effectively in the future, I'll have to wait and see, but it's a start. The enthusiasm from my audience for the first edition was off the charts, and I only hope the project continues to grow and I can build something really impressive and exciting.

RS: Best of luck with your career- keep fighting the good fight. Thanks for your time.

The next issue of Iconoclast Magazine will be released in early March and will be available to buy in physical form as well as digital. You can subscribe to The Iconoclast YouTube channel here.

Thank you for reading Republic Standard. We publish this magazine and the Freebird Forum because we believe in free speech- but it doesn't come cheap! We are currently under sustained attack on our revenue sources. Will you make a small donation towards our running costs? You can make a difference by clicking here.

from Republic Standard | Conservative Thought & Culture Magazine http://ift.tt/2EY4DDT via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Republic Standard | Conservative Thought & Culture Magazine

0 notes