#AND AVA AND JULIA ENCOURAGED IT

[survivorraccooncity2]

Episode 4: "I should have chosen someone I am cool voting out for" ~ Ariel

LINKS:

Tribe Swap: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/survivorraccooncity2/686622951422984192?source=share

Challenge: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/survivorraccooncity2/686623306875633664?source=share

Results: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/survivorraccooncity2/686806904467570688?source=share

Tribal Council: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/survivorraccooncity2/686892449070776320?source=share

~

CONFESSIONALS:

Ariel

I was kinda expecting thaaat. Ok. First of all, I got all the people I wanted to play with. Now, the problem is if in case we lost a challenge, I don't know who to vote for. I have an alliance with Dominique and Adeline, so if I betray Dom, that would not look good. I really like Julia and, Ava so I don't think I can vote for them. Also, I feel like Ava might be a trustworthy ally. And Clefford of course is my number one. I know Navi is nkt going to pick him, that's why I wanted Navi to go first so I don't have to choose Clefford cause I don't want our alliance to be known. 80Idk. Idk. Idk. Somehow I feel like I fucked this up. I should have chosen someone I am cool voting out for. I don't really want to vote Julia, but t she's the least person I had talk to. Areghhh idk. Bye amping. 

Cliftone

Three Tribals in a row and I've managed to escape each one! Now to get through this Tribe swap phase untouched and make it back to my alliance!

Adeline

Best tribe ever made up of Els, Zukiswa, jinx, MJ, and i, literally sucks so bad if we go to tribal though because i want all of these people in an alliance 

Julia

I feel like Ive been dropped into a wormhole. Time is shrinking and expanding at the same time. Deadlines, challenges, confessions, voting, worrying, anxiety... round and round at both a dizzying and lethargic pace... im in a new tribe, with a new weird name... Golp something or other... i cant even say it.. where is everyone? Each challenge gets tougher to accomplish while attending to my tasks and other obligations. I miss my former tribe even tho most werent talking to me, id gotten used to them; analyzed them; felt i knew their shady asses... today, i became a warrior princess, fighting off demons with the magic of my mighty amulet... but can I link up telepathically with my new tribe members to vanquish our common enemy......TBC

Navi

So I’m not as sleep deprived as I was last round lol. The twist at the end of last tribal ended up being the tribe swap, and the MAN alliance basically had full control of who went where, which was pretty sweet. For the first round, we picked from old Tricell first. Since I was last in the draft, I ended up with Cliftone. That worked out since I’m aligned with him and I already trust Els enough to navigate the swap on their own. Plus this give us a chance to bond a bit more so that I have another option aside from Els should I need to get rid of them down the line and visa versa. I picked DJ next because we got along well enough via the one world twist. Plus we’re both Indian so that’s something we bonded on immediately, even though we grew up in different countries. He also seems like someone who has a good head in his shoulder and is willing to collaborate. He mentioned to me that he felt the most comfortable with me, and that in his old tribe he was working with Ariel and Adeline. I’m currently working with Ariel as well and Adeline seems cool based off the few interactions I’ve had with them. I encouraged DJ to try to get to know and get closer to Cliftone and to align with him so that if we have to go to tribal, we can target the other two in the tribe and Cliftone and I can keep him safe. I picked Hunter next since he mentioned earlier in the game that I was one of the few people to reach out to him right off the bat. Obviously time has passed since then, but I’m hoping that he keeps that in mind since I tried to come across as enthusiastic to have him in the game that first round. He also expressed concern that he may be the first boot in his o.g. tribe, so hopefully this gave him some confidence. He could also be bullshitting me but oh well I already made the decision 🤷🏽‍♀️. Finally, I had the choice between Clefford and Evangelina. I went with Evangelina since Clefford is a bit of a shit stirrer from what I understand. I remember Els telling me in the last round that their trio agreed to ally, but then Clefford immediately told Els that he was going to vote betray lol. That in turn led to Els also picking betray. Plus they mentioned that Clefford very early on in the game, like I don’t even think a day had even passed yet, twas very into wanting to work with them (I’m assuming he laid it on thick lol), which made them sus of him. So I didn’t want to deal with that, I have enough on my plate as is, Ariel can deal with him 🫠. As for this challenge… Look I tried. Acting is just not for me, folks 😭 Also I keep forgetting that I have coins and that I can spend them on shit fml 😭

Ariel

Ok, so I don't know if I have submitted a confessional for this round already, but anyway here we are. Nothing really is going on right now. I'm feeling good with this new tribe, I should be because I am the one who picked this. Lol. Anyway, right now I still don't think who to vote for in case if we lose the challenge. I hope not because Clefford really work hard on this. Anyway I'm just hoping that we win. It would be interesting to see what will happen to the other tribe of they lose.

Well well well, look who's back? Me. Cause I just got a coin. As I said, I don't really care about these coins, cause I don't want to rely on these advantages, but it definitely feels good to receive a coin. Lol. I'm not sure if it comes from MJ or Ava tho, probably MJ, I am much closer to MJ than Ava. Anyway that's it. Bye.

Evangelina

https://youtu.be/WwIaQzd91Js (pt 1) https://youtu.be/R88moN_VIiU (pt 2)

DJ

I was hoping we would at lest be safe and some other tribe would be a train wreck. Turns out, we were the train wrecks. The Black widow brigade literally killed me haha DJ Khaleed 😂

Zukiswa

This was a perfect challenge. I got to know my new tribe mates. I'm just sad to part with Clefford! I enjoyed playing with him. I'm vibing also with my new tribe mates. I'm loving Els and Jinx is a vibe! Adelinr and MJ are my people.

Cliftone

Twas the day of Tribal and my nerves are bad. Since I offered to edit the video for the immunity challenge, I fear that may open me up for votes. However, with an inactive Tribemate, anything is possible!

Navi

So I’m going to tribal again, what a shock! It seems like I always end up on a tribe that can’t get its shit together when it comes to the challenges lol. I’m also being extorted, so that’s fun 🤩! The extorter want my ten coins, otherwise I don’t get to vote this tribal. I’m planning on refusing and would rather navigate this round without a vote. Ideally I’d like to target and get out Hunter since he contributed the least to the challenge and doesn’t seem to be as active as the other members. I think Cliftone and DJ would be down, but I’m not sure Evangelina would be since she and Hunter were both on the same starting tribe. I’d like to have her on board as well so that it doesn’t matter if I don’t have a vote. But that’s gonna involve work so I better go and do that lol. So yeah the goal of this vote is to make it 3-1 against Hunter.

DJ

The game is stressing me out. I'm getting anxious and paranoid. The 3.30 am (6 pm EST) tribal time is making my sleep cycle twisted. I am meditating and trying to have a good time IRL, but then there is a little bug of worry about the game in the back of my mind constantly... I underestimated how taxing this game could be for me... Going to tribal is no fun at all!

Dom

This week has been rough for me IRL and I haven't been able to talk with my new tribe. Something so necessary in games like this. I'm hoping we have done well in the challenge and my alliance can stay strong through tribal lines.

Ava

https://youtu.be/PmhzikFixdo

Jinx

https://youtu.be/fmQUzyV4iyI

Els

So, MJ told me that in case we go to tribal she wants me to be in a trio with her and Zukiswa to ensure our safety and ofc I said yep! Adeline and I are both trying to get coins to buy one of the more expensive items, we have a total of 10 between us rn!

Hunter

Alone and not talking to anyone bc oh guess what im superior 

MJ

Sigh* LOL It’s been going well but I’m also getting a bit nervous. This is my first time playing an ORG. Here are my major highlights since the last time I confessed. 1. Because I get to sit out at the last challenge, I was able to control how some voted(ally or betray) because I knew who I was saving. It all went as planned but the other trio grouped allied which resulted in a general tribal. I controlled Ava’s vote to betray and send jinx to tribal because I wanted more people at tribal since I was saving Els and Clefford in their trio group. Prior to that, Ava and Navi told me Jinx said they don’t mind going to tribal and they also don’t mind allying (kinda indecisive) so I decided it’s okay we send more people to tribal since we wanted more people at tribal though. When Raffy read the result, Jinx went so hard on Ava immediately. They even sent a voice note to the general group talking about how Ava betrayed and all that. (It was at that point I knew I’ll have to get jinx out or someone else gets them out) 2. General tribal went well and we were able to get Tony out even though I didn’t vote, I was able to control the process too. We were swapped and placed in a totally new tribe. I picked Zukiswa first before Clefford because I have seen how she’s been calm to handle things in the midst of chaos and that’s been working for me. I wasn’t happy when Jinx was placed in my tribe because I wasn’t just vibing with them after how they went hard on Ava privately and publicly. They reached out to me a day before in my private chat saying they find me smart and wise. We joked a little and they made a statement saying “you are a politician and I’ll vote you out” they were joking though, but that wasn’t no joke to me! 3. Our first immunity challenge kicked off as a new group and the first thing I did was to strategize. We are a team of 5 and all I need is a 3 against 2 alliance and I’m good, at least assured of a place in merge. I and Zukiswa are very strong and allied, so I only needed one extra person to this tyrant trio alliance. I remember how Clefford and Els worked together in the trio and we were able to build Els trust in us ( I and Clefford). I leveraged that immediately and told Zukiswa to reach out to Els. So far now, we’re the strong 3 (hopefully Els is solid on this) no alliance chat yet because we don’t wanna seem so desperate to her. The reason why I didn’t consider Adeline was that, Ariel told me before that Adeline and Jinx are super close. Since Jinx is my target, I can’t be friends with Adeline for now. I was encouraged and happy on how my tribe pulled off the trailer challenge and won. I love Adeline more but then I know this is only a game. My strategy is still intact. 4. Another highlight, was loosing my coins 😂😂 I lost 6 coins because I shopped a useless jacket 😂 but yea I’ve been able to get three coins after that. We have done four immunity challenge so far and this is my 4th win literally 😭🥹❤️ So that earned me a coin. I was chosen for summit and I had 3 coins to share. My tribe looks tight and I don’t want to pass a wrong message so I wanted everyone to have a coin even though I needed extra badly. I knew I had to give jinx a coin to make them so relaxed with me so they don’t sense I have my eyes on them. Luckily at summit we did the public sharing of coin and to my surprise , the sweet Clifftone offered to give Els a coin. Ava offered to give Adeline a coin too. And now I only have two other people to settle. I gave Zukiswa 2 coins and jinx one. I told Zukiswa I lost some coins and asked her to give me the extra one. She wasn’t happy I purchased an item without telling her. She says her coins are my coins 😂😂😂❤️ But this is survivor, you don’t even trust your best friend 😁😹 5. I’m guessing who might be voted out at the next tribal from the loosing tribe. I’m hoping hunter 😹 but he’ll be very useful at merge. Looks like he has no strategy. That’ll be all for now! Bye ❤️ I have a question for Raffy or Amy. Is it still allowed to create an alliance chat? With tribe members. I don’t want you answering this question in the tribe that. Bc If you do, you’ll be shooting me in the leg and our unity may be discorded. I’ll appreciate an answer in my host chat because I don’t want anyone sensing there’s an alliance chat without them already. 

Continuation Lol So there’s this perception about Els, she’s so loving and sweet and she wants nobody out from our tribe 😁😹 as much as that is a beautiful thought, this is survivor and there can be only one winner. It appears to me she’s doesn’t like blindsiding. I also don’t like it and that’s why I’m avoiding talking so much with jinx but also keeping my neutral cool with her. I’m not promising jinx friendship so when I vote them out they won’t feel betrayed. Els loves the tribe so much and hopes we never loose. I do too! But I need her to be firm in thoughts and decision. More reason I haven’t created the alliance chat yet. I hope we don’t loose but if we do, someone has to go. I love the tribe but I’m also open to loosing tribe members (just two or one hopefully at most)

Clefford

Doing a challenge with my swapped tribemates was fun because it tested we really wanted to stay and make new bonds and also to prove our worth in the challenge. Directing and doing a film is one of my dream someday. I was really happy with the challenge this round, because I can showcase my skills in this certain challenge. I worked very well together. I expected us to win, but Tyrant did great so we came in second. I used my Extortion Advantage to Navi. I have to know her position in her new tribe. But, I felt like the advantage was a waste on using it to her. Was it the right move? 

~

NOTES:

Tribe swap occurred

MJ, Ava, and Cliftone were chosen as Summit leaders at random

Clefford wants to use the Extortion Advantage against someone on the losing tribe to get more tribes or impact tribal council

Julia gets frustrated with the lack of activity on her tribe in regards to the challenge

Mj gave Zukiswa 2 coins and Jinx 1 coin. Ava gave Julia, Clifford, Ariel, and Adeline 1 coin. Cliftone gave Els, Navi, and Julia 1 coin.

Clifford extorts Navi for 10 coins because he figured that Navi had more coins. They can easily vote out DJ, but he also thought that DJ is a swing vote. In that case, every vote is important, so choosing her is also good. He just hopes that Hunter and Evan stick together.

Navi refuses to pay it, choosing to navigating an easy vote without her vote.

Els wants to vote out Zukiswa, but MJ wants to work with her and Els wants to work with MJ. Els is having a hard time envisioning if they could vote out anyone since they want to work with everyone on their tribe

~

EDGIC:

Clefford: MORM3 Ariel: MORP3 Dominique: UTRP2 MJ: MORP3 Zukiswa: UTRP3 Ava: MORM3 Julia: UTRM2 Adeline: MORP4 Els: MORP4 DJ: MORP3 Cliftone: MORP3 Evangelina: MORM3 Navi: CPP4 Jinx: CPP4 Hunter: INVN2

Raffy’s Winner Picks

Els Jinx MJ Adeline

Amy’s Winner Picks

Jinx Adeline MJ Zukiswa

~

POWER RANKINGS:

Tyrant

1. Els 2. MJ 3. Adeline 4. Zukiswa 5. Jinx

Progenitor

1. Navi 2. Evangelina 3. Cliftone 4. DJ 5. Hunter

Golgotha

1. Ariel 2. Clefford 3. Ava 4. Dom 5. Julia

[rogerdvies]

léo’s 1k follower celebration. yaay. another celebration !! i just finished the last one omg. first off, it’s absolutely insane that there are 1k of you souls following me?? my mother is most definitely paying you fml instead of buying me friends she could be buying me food so i don’t starve buuut. on a more serious note (yes i’m capable thank you very much), i know that 1k (1,000 holy hell) doesn’t sound like much compared to some blogs, but to me that means that there are 1,000 people out there who think my blog is worth following. worth having on their dash every day. worth putting up with my shitposts for. and that... is really touching to me. it means a lot to me. siriusly. to those of you who i interact with often and those of you who i have never interacted with before, thank you for being on the journey of running this blog with me. from the bottom of my heart -- sincerely -- thank you. omh i’m getting sappy it’s time to move on. 

“so... 1k... léo, congrats and all, that’s great, but what are you going to do for us followers to celebrate it and show how much you appreciate us?” oh, i am so glad you asked. it involves confetti (ominous, right?). confetti? what does that mean? well... confetti, it’s obviously a... wedding ??  

as many of you know (or are very quickly about to learn), gregory goyle is the love of my life. the stars in my sky. the light of my universe. i love headcanons about him, i love aesthetics, i just love him. alright? alright. and i’d like to celebrate my (imaginary) wedding to gregory goyle with all of you followers! and also get to know you a bit better. so how am i sending out invitations to my wedding, you ask? well, through a birthday page, of course! name, birth month and day, and, of course, your guest (favorite harry potter character) are all i need to make the reservations !! so come on over and celebrate this joyous occasion with me !! let’s have fun with this, shall we ??

of course everyone is invited to the wedding, but the list of vips (friends) and special guests (link to blogroll) are below the read more!

RULES TO JOIN

must be following our lord and dragon savior

reblog this post (likes don’t count)

send me an ask with: your name + your birthday and month + your favorite harry potter character

also you better send me a congratulations on getting married or else i will be offended this is my wedding after all. jk. i’m kidding. though if you want to have fun with this please do. it’s literally a shitpost celebration but let’s have fun.

if this doesn’t get 20 notes then it never happened.

PERKS OF JOINING

on your birthday (or during the month of) i will make you one of the following related to the character you sent in: a moodboard, a playlist, a name aesthetic, an edit, a headcanon list, etc.

OR 

i will make you an url edit, url moodboard, name aesthetic, solo blog promo, or something of the sort. 

OR

if i get really swamped that month i will do group promos.

either way, you will get a surprise gift sometime during the month of your birthday if i can’t get it to you on the exact day.

PLEASE BE AWARE i know i’ve said this already but  these may not be published on your exact birthday date. something in life might come up and i may not be able to publish it exactly on the day, but i will post one of the above things sometime during your birthday month. as a full-time university student who also works two jobs, i do tend to get very busy.

THE PASTOR.

@unspeaxables. everyone, you have pastor alexis to thank for this wedding. she not only encouraged me to make my 1k follower celebration wedding-themed (because i’m a dork like that), she also helped me plan my wedding with wedding questions and excitement and all-around fun. besides helping me with the wedding preparations, there are some things you should know about alexis. she is a lot of fun. she is great at cheering people up. she’s super sweet. she’s open-minded, and willing to engage in any conversation or talk about any topic. her passion for the harry potter characters is contagious.. i am going to say this lots, but i don’t know what i did to deserve such good friends on tumblr - she’s truly a sweetheart; an angel with a kind soul, and i am grateful to have met her.

alexis also helped me come up with the name for my first son: achilleo. ignore the fact that both gregory and i are male and cannot have children shhh what is logic. 

MAID(S) OF HONOUR.

@hermioneganger. AVA. MY LOVELY AVA. THE AVA WHO RULES MY DRAGON KINGDOM NEXT TO ME. there is so much to say about ava. ava was the first person i spoke to on when i made this tumblr, and she was so kind and welcoming and she’s been beside me ever since as a friend and that was a stroke of luck on my part to meet her so soon and be lucky enough to get along with her. she’s always positive and kind and excited and it always pumps me up for everything too. ava is an honest-to-god blessing, a tumblr angel. she’s always willing to look over my stuff and then get me pumped up and proud of it by being supportive and telling me her honest opinion of it. honestly, i don’t know what i would do without ava’s constant support. well, i do: i probably would never post anything. 

@nviles. julia deserves all the love. honestly. she’s so sweet and precious and such a kind soul -- she’s always brightening my day with these cute little thoughtful messages that she leaves me and these headcanons about character and these beautiful edits and these interesting stories about her life. she’s also, like, super open-minded about new ideas and that’s so cool. and she lets me sneak into the ravenclaw dorm; we have a niffler named nev and a bowtruckle named noot together and they are best friends and she makes sure that i don’t accidentally kill my bowtruckle noot because i’m horrible with plants. she also supports my marriage to gregory goyle. enough said. ♥

BRIDESMAIDS / GROOMS.

@auroremus. @delacouvr. @starrylovegood. @aurrorevans. @rvvenclaws. @siruisblack. @vveirdsisters. @holy-snitch. @howlingremus. @chrlieweasleys. these are my very-special mention blogs. all of these blogs are aesthetically gorgeous and top-notch, but on top of that (and more importantly, to me) all of these bloggers are super sweet and super kind and just phenomenal human beings to interact with. like, let’s go in order.

bruna is hilarious and thoughtful and adorable, claire is a total doll who can always make me smile even if she doesn’t know it, alex can make me laugh at anytime and she also inspires me, joanna is willing to go on wild headcanon rides with me and she definitely pushes me to be more creative and think outside the box and develop my ideas further, rae encourages me to broaden my horizons with amazing book recommendations and this intellectual conversation not just harry-potter based (though she’s afk right now and i miss her), charlie surprises me a lot with random shit and makes me laugh, teresa’s creativity pushes me to develop myself and my own creativity more and also spurs my passion for things i love that i sometimes feel insecure about, nana is super sweet and even though we haven’t spoken much she’s another one of those people who pushes me to actually develop my ideas and put things into action instead of just thinking about them, and sandhya is another one of those bloggers that i haven’t spoken to as much as i would like but from what i have she’s super sweet and supportive and funny and her blog is to die for and was one of the first i followed when i joined. all of these people are just... ahhh. then there’s vaan, the cool dragon uncle who is a total sweetheart and hilarious in the percyprotectionnet chat and so friendly and sweet and who also pushes me to expand my creativity from just “thinking” to actually “doing”. they are just great, and they make my experience with this blog so much more alive and personal and fun.

BLOGROLL.

i started off writing each and every url here... but i soon realized that i follow a lot of amazing souls, and i don’t want to leave a single one of them out. so please, check them all out here !!

#follower celebration #1k celebration #confetti its a... wedding? #confetti its a... wedding? (1k celebration) #OKAY BUT WHAT TYPE OF CELEBRATION EVEN IS THIS #I BLAME THIS ON ALEXIS SHE GOT THE IDEA IN MY HEAD #AND AVA AND JULIA ENCOURAGED IT #AND NOW LOOK AT ME #BEING A GIANT FUCKING DORK #SERIOUSLY #A WEDDING #TO A FICTIONAL CHARACTER #SURE LEO THIS IS A GOOD IDEA #how are there 1k of you following me look what i have done #RIP

[afairmaiden]

The Untethering

My submission for the @inklings-challenge. A bit of a slow start, probably could have done more with the theme, and I had planned to add another scene to give it a bit of a neater ending, but I think it will have to stand as it is. *** When did it start? I’ve been asking that question almost since the beginning. I think it happened slowly, then suddenly, so that I was in the middle before I even knew I’d begun. But then, I guess it’s always been like that.

I didn’t have many friends growing up. I never understood how people could just jump into a conversation or insert themselves into a group. I met Marti freshman year of high school, and she always seemed so confident and outgoing, it never occurred to me that she might feel the same way. We had a few classes together and talked occasionally, but it wasn’t until senior year when she invited me to her birthday party that I realized we were actually friends.

*** Martha Merritt was tired. Tired beyond words. Not because she’d had a particularly difficult week at work, or because her mother had kept her on the phone late the night before, or even because she had woken up at five-thirty on a Saturday to finish preparing for a Bible study later that morning, though that certainly hadn’t helped. But if that was all it was, two cups of coffee should have done the job.

It was the first Saturday in October, a gray and windy morning with frost in the air, and it had been with great reluctance that she’d left the comfort of her warm bed, turned on the coffeemaker, and settled down in her usual place, an oversized armchair by the living room window, with a lamp and a side table where she could set her books. With a thick fleece blanket, a hot drink, and a good view of the changing leaves outside, it might have been a pleasant, cozy scene, if she’d had time to enjoy it, but time was short, and she soon found it was far too comfortable for getting any serious work done. Thus she had moved to the kitchen table, where the hard wooden chair and harsh lighting would be less conducive to daydreaming or falling back asleep.

She had gone through her usual devotions mechanically, and immediately felt guilty when on their completion, she could hardly recall either what she had read or said in prayer. She briefly considered starting over, but reasoned there was no time, and thus proceeded to open to the section she needed to study.

She had already read and reread the opening of the book of Romans, copied the first twelve verses in her notebook, and diagrammed each sentence meticulously. Now she meditated on each phase, highlighting and underlining in multiple colors, looking up cross-references, and making note of Greek words. She concluded with a list of what she knew would be practical applications for the passage and the book as a whole, with a particular emphasis on holiness and obedience and encouraging each other in the faith.

Now it was a quarter to nine, the others would be arriving soon, and though studying the Bible usually left her refreshed and invigorated, she was still tired in a way she could not entirely explain, and the usual pride of a job well done was tainted by the feeling that she had been thinking too much of herself, and overestimating the importance of her contributions to the group.

After all, she thought as she closed her notebook and began putting things away, it wasn’t just her study, though it was her house, and her idea, and she usually took the lead in their discussions, and it was only natural she should want to do a good job. But Julia put in just as much work into her studies, and Emma always came up with good questions, and even Ava was starting to get more involved. And Hannah—

The thought was interrupted by the sound of a car coming up the drive. She looked out the window to see Julia’s silver sports car and set out two more mugs and a plate of blueberry muffins. A few moments later she heard the side door open and Julia’s relaxed “morning, Marti,” followed by Emma’s more enthusiastic “how’s it going?”

Upon entering, Emma went straight for the coffeemaker while Julia set her things down in her usual place and grabbed a muffin. “Ava can’t make it. She texted me last night that she wasn’t feeling well. Is Hannah up yet?”

Marti looked at her roommate’s door and then back at the clock with a slight frown, then shook her head.

“Hannah,” she called.

“I’m up, just a sec,” came the muffled reply, and presently Hannah emerged from her room, dressed but slightly disheveled, with an embarrassed smile and a wave to their guests before ducking into the bathroom.

Marti stared at the closed door for a moment, wondering if it would even be worth it to spend any of her already limited energy trying to get Hannah to participate this week. She didn’t doubt that her roommate knew the Bible and could be surprisingly insightful, and she knew that even before she started working nights, she had never been a morning person, and yet she couldn’t help feeling that she at least used to make more of an effort, and that lately her enthusiasm for Bible study had waned somewhat. She was rarely prepared and often distracted, regularly falling behind or jumping ahead of the others’ conversation and often looking things up on her phone while others were speaking only to say, when asked, that it wasn’t exactly related to the verse currently under discussion. And after a few interesting, yet fairly irrelevant rabbit trails, Marti generally thought it best not to ask her to elaborate.

Today, she found, was no different. Hannah’s phone had remained off for the most part, but she had a new toy in its place, a fountain pen with purple ink. While Julia and Emma had no trouble making up for Ava’s absence with a lively discussion on the importance of supporting missions, she followed their conversation in silence, offering little more than the occasional nod as she spent most of her time drawing curlicues and flourishes on a piece of scrap paper.

“You must have something to add,” Marti said at last, trying not to let irritation slip into her voice.

Hannah shrugged. “Not much beyond what’s already been said.”

Marti raised an eyebrow and continued to wait. Hannah shifted in her seat and crossed her arms. Her face grew red, but when she spoke, her tone was flippant, almost sarcastic.

“I mean, I don’t know, we are in the book of Romans. Like, the Romans Road? ‘All have sinned,’ ‘the wages of sin is death,’ ‘while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’ Seems like a pretty straightforward message.”

“Yes, but we can’t just talk about the gospel all the time,” Marti pressed.

“Paul did.”

“Be serious. How does this text apply to you, personally?”

“Jesus died for my sins.”

Marti gave an exasperated sigh, Emma giggled, and Julia broke in, “Why don’t we move on to the next verse?” Hannah said little for the rest of the study. ***

We probably would have lost touch after graduation if she hadn’t invited me to her church. It wasn’t my first time. Actually, I’ve been a Christian for as long as I can remember, though my family stopped attending services not long after my sister was christened. But I learned about different Bible stories and memorized the Lord’s Prayer and pondered the vastness of eternity. I read the New Testament, believed it, listed all the sins I could think of and prayed for forgiveness. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know anything.

But Marti’s family went to church and listened to Christian radio and prayed before meals, and she wore Christian t-shirts and WWJD bracelets and argued with teachers about abortion and evolution. She was fluent in a language I barely knew, a native of the culture I wished to join. In a word, she was cool. I both admired and envied her.

Sometimes I miss her. *** God, thank you for knowing just what I needed to hear.

Marti stood with her eyes closed and palms uplifted, swaying slightly to the music. The pastor had taught on the end of Hebrews 5, and he seemed to be speaking directly to her as he’d focused on the importance of spiritual growth and maturity and pressing on in spite of obstacles, on spiritual warfare and rewards in heaven. His final exhortation, combined with the closing song, left her feeling as if she could face any trial the devil might throw at her in the coming week.

The feeling lasted only until she glanced over at Hannah, who stood looking entirely unmoved. On the contrary, her voice was flat, her expression stoic, and she herself was looking at the clock on the wall. *** I used to love Sundays. The music, the people, the sense of belonging. Sometimes I miss that, but I also know I can never really go back.

When it started, before I understood, I knew there was something, not exactly wrong, but also not quite right. At first I thought it was just me. My fault I wasn’t hearing from God, my fault I couldn’t figure out His will for my life, my fault I didn’t feel what I was supposed to be feeling. And then I found the others.

It started with a video, which led to a podcast, which led to another podcast, and another, and another, and suddenly a whole community of people all raising questions I’d never even considered and confirming what I already knew: It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Some were more measured in their critiques, others unapologetically acerbic, and there were times I resisted and pulled back, when the revelations came too quickly, but they were honest, and many knew from experience how to dismantle the errors I had simply taken for granted for so long, and the truth always won out in the end.

Some call it deconstruction. I prefer untethering. The fact that it’s necessary doesn’t make it any less painful, or lonely, as you disconnect from things you never thought you could stand to lose.

Still, there’s no going back. Not when the songs that used to seem so deep and meaningful feel repetitive and sentimental, the worship leaders’ spontaneity feels rehearsed, and for all the pastor’s passion, there’s something conspicuously absent from his teaching which leaves you feeling empty.

Of course, no one else seems to notice, being as blind to these things as a fish is to the water it swims in. They preach against the zeitgeist, the spirit of this age, when the truth is, they’re as trapped by it as anyone.

It’s all so drearily contemporary. *** Not again.

The words had echoed in Marti’s mind all during the drive home. The tiredness of the previous day had come back in full force, along with a headache, and though she tried to pray, her thoughts raced and her words jumbled together until all that remained was one single plea: Please, God, not again.

“You want something to eat?” Hannah called from the kitchen as she took off her shoes and hung her coat by the door.

“I’m not hungry,” she mumbled in reply, heading straight for her room.

“Tea?”

“Maybe later.”

She closed the door behind her and immediately buried her face in her hands and sunk down against the wall. There she sat for some time, overwhelmed by fear and grief and self-blame as she contemplated, with a deep sense of dread, what now seemed to be inevitable.

She had lost friends before. Friends from high school and college, friends she’d gone to church and youth group and Bible studies with, friends she’d prayed with and gone on mission trips with, friends she could have sworn believed, until suddenly they didn’t. And she’d never even seen it coming until it was too late. *** Sunday afternoons follow a certain routine. Every day has a routine, but it’s especially important Sundays. That’s when it usually happens, and it helps to be properly prepared.

After lunch, I do the dishes, water the plants, start a load of laundry, and go for a walk. Then come in, move the laundry to the dryer, brush my teeth, and change into something comfortable. Make a pot of tea, catch up on Tumblr, and settle in. *** She had to talk to her. She had spent some time going back and forth between the Bible and prayer, and now, as night was falling, the only thing that was clear was that they needed to talk.

Her door was open just a crack, through which Marti could see that a light was on. She took a breath, braced herself, and knocked lightly.

“Hannah?”

She waited, but there was no response. After a moment, she pushed the door open just enough to poke her head inside, and was surprised to find the room empty. There was Hannah’s bed, neatly made, with two totes underneath that she used instead of a dresser, then a small side table where her phone was charging, and opposite the bed a plain wooden desk with an old-fashioned lamp, illuminating a glass teapot, tea cup, and saucer beside a number of open books. But Hannah herself was nowhere to be seen.

Marti stood in the doorway perplexed. She could see through the window Hannah’s car still in the driveway, and she was sure she hadn’t heard her go out a second time. At the same moment—she felt guilty at the thought—but it occurred to her that this might be her best, and perhaps only, opportunity to find out the truth, or at least, some clue as to what had happened. And then—

Does it even matter? You’re going to lose her anyway. It can’t hurt just to look…

The conflict lasted only a moment, and presently she was standing at the desk, inspecting the books before her. She found, to her surprise, a well-worn paperback study Bible she had never seen before, with bits of ribbon marking different sections, a daily prayer book, a gold-edged hymnal, a small, thick book of what appeared to be various theological texts, two collections of lectures, one simply a stack of papers, printed off and held together with small binder clips, on the subject of revival, the other a large burgundy hardcover with a number of theses on properly understanding the Bible, and finally, a leather journal with Hannah’s new pen resting beside it. At first glance, its contents appeared largely indecipherable, a jumble of abbreviations followed by a list of theological terms interspersed with Latin phrases.

7 TDP – :20 BOC – :30 DOW readings/psalms – :45 3yr lect. – :55 GO // 3:30 StP/L4T?/KV/RS – 5:30 SC/NC/AC/hymns – 6:30 ?

CF? L+G? — Keswick theology – pietism? simul justus et peccator coram deo/coram mundo magisterial vs. ministerial use of reason Heb. 5:13 — 1Pet. 2:2

She quickly decided against trying to read further, and being drawn instead to the lectures, she picked up the first book and began to read.

Suddenly the light changed as if someone had pulled back the curtains to reveal broad daylight, and she jumped and dropped the book as the air was filled with noise, the sound of a large crowd all talking at once.

Looking up she found herself no longer in Hannah’s room but standing at the back of a mid-sized, traditional-looking church where there was indeed a large crowd gathered, the pews full of men and women in old-fashioned clothes.

“This can’t be real.”

If anyone heard her, or thought there was anything peculiar about her clothes, they paid no attention.

At the pulpit stood a tall, balding man with a dark beard, piercing eyes, and a sharp, professional appearance. Directly in front of him, some space had been cleared and a bench had been placed, and it was primarily to the few people seated there, all of whom seemed to be particularly affected, that he seemed to be directing most of his attention. He was speaking rapidly, with great passion, and she could not at first understand what he was saying, but in a moment it became clear.

“Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.”

He spoke at length on the need for self-examination, on the sins of ingratitude, a lack of love for God, neglect of Bible reading and prayer and church attendance, and the proper manner and motives with which these duties ought to be performed. He spoke of lack of love for one’s fellow man, the need to watch for their souls, and the great need for self-denial for the sake of the Gospel. He spoke against all forms of worldliness and pride and robbing God by misspent time and money and energy.*

Every so often, when he saw that his words had struck home with the people, he would stop and call on one or two to pray that the Lord would hold them in that conviction before proceeding further. The bench before him also began filling up, as some came of their own accord and others were escorted by friends who perceived that they were in the proper state of mind, and it became the subject of much prayer that they would be truly converted.

Though they were undoubtedly experiencing deep conviction and suffering a great deal of grief over their sins, he did not relent or soften his tone as he addressed them sternly:

“No doubt you have heard that anxious sinners must pray for a new heart, but this is only an evasion of present duty, and trying to throw the responsibility of conversion upon God. No, God is willing, but you are unwilling. Present faith and repentance, present and instant submission to His will, present and instant acceptance of Christ, that is what God requires of you, and all else is nothing but hypocrisy and delusion.”

He continued to testify to the immortality of the soul, the vanity of all earthly good, the satisfying nature of religion, the guilt and danger of sinners, the reality of hell, the love of Christ, the necessity of a holy life, self-denial, meekness, heavenly mindedness, humility, integrity, and an entire renovation of life and character.

It could hardly be said that Marti liked this sort of preaching, as it left her, along with the rest of his audience, fairly teetering on the brink of despair, but at the same time, she felt that she should like it, as he seemed to her a sort of nineteenth-century John the Baptist, breaking up the fallow ground of dead religion by calling all people to repent. And here were gathered young and old, rich and poor, evidently doing just that. Certainly all that he said was right and true, and the violent rebellion of her heart only confirmed that up to that point, she had not really been serious about watching and putting to death the desires of her flesh. Still, as the meeting went on and night fell outside, she began to feel much of the initial excitement wearing off as fatigue quickly set in.

Then suddenly, the scene changed, the noise faded, and she found herself in an auditorium where gas lamps were burning and a number of young men were just coming in and taking their seats.

Outside, it was once again evening, and this seemed to be a less formal sort of class, with a good deal of talking and joking while they waited for it to begin. Again, Marti’s presence went unnoticed as she took a seat beside one of the more studious among them, who was at this moment reviewing his notes, and leaning over, she began to read:

Only he is an orthodox teacher who not only presents all articles of faith in accordance with Scripture, but also rightly distinguishes from each other the Law and the Gospel… [This distinction] is not only a glorious light, affording the correct understanding of the entire Holy Scriptures, but without this knowledge Scripture is and remains a sealed book.**

This struck her at once as an overly simplistic explanation, but before she could consider it further, he turned the page, and she continued reading:

4. The Word of God is not rightly divided when the Law is preached to those who are already in terror on account of their sins, or the Gospel to those who live securely in their sins.

5. The Word of God is not rightly divided when sinners who have been struck down and terrified by the Law are directed, not to the Word and the Sacraments, but to their own prayers and wrestlings with God… when they are told to keep on praying and struggling until they feel that God has received them into grace.

She bristled at the word Sacraments and glanced around her with instant distrust, which was only heightened when the man turned to the next page.

9. The Word of God is not rightly divided when one makes an appeal to believe in a manner as if a person could make himself believe or at least help towards that end, instead of preaching faith into a person’s heart by laying the Gospel promises before him.

Now she could hardly help feeling annoyed as she thought that if this was all the depth a seminary education had to offer, it was no wonder the church had been ineffective for so long. Here was a religion which seemed to demand nothing of anyone, but presumed God would do it all, with no need for any sort of personal responsibility or commitment or even a conscious decision.

As she considered this, the door opened and there entered a thin, energetic man carrying a few pages of notes. He too was balding and bearded, but where the first man might have been a lawyer or a politician, he had a more rustic look to him, his hair slightly wilder, his sideburns more pronounced, and a pleasant, slightly comical expression on his face.

Taking his place at his desk, he began to speak of the work of a minister and the necessity of genuine zeal according to knowledge, as opposed to the carnal zeal of hypocrites and fanatics. There was no showmanship in his presentation, but he spoke loudly enough to be heard throughout the whole room, and his tone was, on the whole, conversational, yet with a certain gravity and conviction which seemed to inspire the same in his hearers.

This turned out to be only an introduction to his main thesis:

“The Word of God is not rightly divided when an attempt is made by means of the demands or threats of the Law to induce the unregenerate to put away their sins and engage in good works and thus become godly; or when a endeavor is made, by means of the commands of the Law rather than by the admonitions of the Gospel, to urge the regenerate to do good.”

He quoted from memory a passage from Jeremiah and spoke of the Law being written on men’s hearts, the purpose of the commandments, the worthlessness of forced obedience, and the promises of the new covenant, in which hearts and minds were renewed and made truly willing by the forgiveness of sins.

“How foolish, then,” he declared, “is a preacher who thinks that conditions in his congregation will improve if he thunders at his people with the Law and paints hell and damnation for them. That will not at all improve the people. Indeed, there is a time for such preaching of the law in order to alarm secure sinners and make them contrite, but a change of heart and love of God and one’s fellow-men is not produced by the Law.”

He went on to warn of rationalistic preachers and others who considered the preaching of the Gospel to be dangerous as well as foolish, as they supposed it would only encourage people to be lazy and secure in their sins, and instead consistently preached ethics with the view of improving people’s behavior, without producing any inward change.

He read also from a commentary on the first part of Romans 12:1: “Paul does not say: I command you; for he is preaching to such as are already Christians and godly by faith, in newness of life. These must not be coerced by means of commandments, but admonished to do willingly what has to be done with the old sinful man in them. For any person who does not do this willingly, simply in answer to kind admonitions, is not a Christian; and any person who wants to achieve this result by force applied to such as are unwilling is not a Christian preacher or ruler, but a worldly jailer.”

All this was undoubtedly true, and Marti knew that however suspect his other doctrines might be, she could not, on biblical grounds, contradict him on this point. Indeed, she thought she would have liked to agree with him, and yet there was something there that made her hesitate.

She recalled her pastor’s words from just that morning:

“Death, burial, resurrection,” he’d said. “Growing up in church, all I heard, week in and week out, was death, burial, resurrection. And I saw people who’d been there for twenty years and never made any progress in their spiritual walks. Now, church, the gospel is important, but let’s hear what Paul is saying here: we need to grow up. If we want to reach spiritual maturity, we’ve gotta get past the basics.”

The professor was still speaking. Though there was no condescension in his tone, and she knew he couldn’t see her any more than the others could, she realized she nevertheless felt irritated, even insulted, as she did whenever she had to listen to someone explain something she already knew perfectly well.

She found herself suddenly wishing she could go home, or at least step outside for a breath of air. She stood and looked to the door only to freeze when she found there a familiar face.

“Marti?” *** “You alright?”

She knew before she asked that it was a stupid question, as Marti suddenly looked like she was about to pass out.

“Fine—sorry—I just…never mind.”

With that, she all but ran out of the room, leaving Hannah looking from the door to the book she had dropped. She briefly considered following her, but just as quickly decided against it. She would need time to think. They both would.

She sighed, picked up the book and put its back in its place, then after a moment’s thought, sat down at her desk, picked up her pen, and turned to a fresh page.

I don’t expect you to understand. Not yet, at least. I know I didn’t. Maybe when you’re ready we can talk about it.

It’s different, for sure. Some differences are obvious, others less so, but when you really look at them, you realize just how deep they are. They’re not the kind of issues you can just set aside and ignore, though I tried. I’d like to say it was out of loyalty, but if I’m being honest, I was just too proud to admit I was wrong, and it wasn’t really humility that kept me from speaking for so long.

She paused a moment, then continued.

I thought I knew a lot about church history. I thought we were pretty traditional, and that we were doing church the way they’d done it in the book of Acts, when things were still pure and simple, before the Catholic church took over and complicated everything with their religion. And then I went back to Germany in the early 1500s…

*** Resources for Aspiring Time Travelers: Untethering and Beyond:

Survey of Historical Heresies, Phil Johnson

Judaizers

Gnosticism

Arianism / Part 2

Pelagianism

Socinianism

History of Pietism, Daniel Van Voorhis

Christianity in America, Daniel Van Voorhis

Introduction and Puritans in the New World

Rationalism and Revivalism

19th Century Romantics and Radicals

The Rise of Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism and Modernism

West Coast Christianity

“On the Reading of Old Books”, C. S. Lewis’ introduction to Athanasius’ On the Incarnation

The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel, C. F. W. Walther

The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services, Prophecy and History in Relation to the Messiah, and Sketches of Jewish Social Life, Alfred Edershiem

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs

*** *Adapted from Charles Finney’s Revival Lectures, Lecture III: How to Promote a Revival and Lecture IX: Means to be Used with Sinners, and Testimonial of Revivals, Chapter VI: Revival at Evans’ Mills and its Results

**From C. F. W. Walther’s The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel, 1929

#inklings challenge #team tolkien #genre: time travel #theme: humility #story: complete #though i might still add an update sometime #i’m thinking it would take place about a month later #but no definite plans

[ahouseoflies]

The Best Films of 2020

I can’t tell you anything novel or insightful about this year that has been stolen from our lives. I watched zero of these films in a theater, and I watched most of them half-asleep in moments that I stole from my children. Don’t worry, there are some jokes below.

GARBAGE

93. Capone (Josh Trank)- What is the point of this dinner theater trash? It takes place in the last year of Capone's life, when he was released from prison due to failing health and suffered a stroke in his Florida home. So it covers...none of the things that make Al Capone interesting? It's not historically accurate, which I have no problem with, but if you steer away from accuracy, then do something daring and exciting. Don't give me endless scenes of "Phonse"--as if the movie is running from the very person it's about--drawing bags of money that promise intrigue, then deliver nothing in return.

That being said, best "titular character shits himself" scene since The Judge.

92. Ammonite (Francis Lee)- I would say that this is the Antz to Portrait of a Lady on Fire's A Bug's Life, but it's actually more like the Cars 3 to Portrait of a Lady on Fire's Toy Story 1.

91. Ava (Tate Taylor)- Despite the mystery and inscrutability that usually surround assassins, what if we made a hitman movie but cared a lot about her personal life? Except neither the assassin stuff nor the family stuff is interesting?

90. Wonder Woman 1984 (Patty Jenkins)- What a miscalculation of what audiences loved about the first and wanted from the sequel. WW84 is silly and weightless in all of the ways that the first was elegant and confident. If the return of Pine is just a sort of phantom representation of Diana's desires, then why can he fly a real plane? If he is taking over another man's soul, then, uh, what ends up happening to that guy? For that matter, why is it not 1984 enough for Ronald Reagan to be president, but it is 1984 enough for the president to have so many Ronald Reagan signifiers that it's confusing? Why not just make a decision?

On paper, the me-first values of the '80s lend themselves to the monkey's paw wish logic of this plot. You could actually do something with the Star Wars program or the oil crisis. But not if the setting is played for only laughs and the screenplay explains only what it feels like.

89. Babyteeth (Shannon Murphy)- In this type of movie, there has to be a period of the Ben Mendelsohn character looking around befuddled about the new arrangement and going, "What's this now--he's going to be...living with us? The guy who tried to steal our medication? This is crazy!" But that's usually ten minutes, and in this movie it's an hour. I was so worn out by the end.

88. You Should Have Left (David Koepp)- David Koepp wrote Jurassic Park, so he's never going to hell, but how dare he start caring about his own mystery at the hour mark. There's a forty-five minute version of this movie that could get an extra star from me, and there's a three-hour version of Amanda Seyfried walking around in athleisure that would get four stars from me. What we actually get? No thanks.

87. Black Is King (Beyonce, et al.)- End your association with The Lion King, Bey. It has resulted in zero bops.

  ADMIRABLE FAILURES

86. Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (Cathy Yan)- There's nothing too dysfunctional in the storytelling or performances, but Birds of Prey also doesn't do a single thing well. I would prefer something alive and wild, even if it were flawed, to whatever tame belt-level formula this is.

85. The Turning (Floria Sigismondi)- This update of The Turn of the Screw pumps the age of Miles up to high school, which creates some horny creepiness that I liked. But the age of the character also prevents the ending of the novel from happening in favor of a truly terrible shrug. I began to think that all of the patience that the film showed earlier was just hesitance for its own awful ending.

I watched The Turning as a Mackenzie Davis Movie Star heat check, and while I'm not sure she has the magnetism I was looking for, she does have a great teacher voice, chastening but maternal.

84. Bloodshot (David Wilson)- A whole lot of Vin Diesel saying he's going to get revenge and kill a bunch of dudes; not a whole lot of Vin Diesel actually getting revenge and killing a bunch of dudes.

83. Downhill (Nat Faxon and Jim Rash)- I was an English major in college, which means I ended up locking myself into literary theories that, halfway through the writing of an essay, I realized were flawed. But rather than throw out the work that I had already proposed, I would just keep going and see if I could will the idea to success.

So let's say you have a theory that you can take Force Majeure by Ruben Ostlund, one of the best films of its year, and remake it so that its statement about familial anxiety could apply to Americans of the same age and class too...if it hadn't already. And maybe in the first paragraph you mess up by casting Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, people we are conditioned to laugh at, when maybe this isn't that kind of comedy at all. Well, don't throw it away. You can quote more--fill up the pages that way--take an exact shot or scene from the original. Does that help? Maybe you can make the writing more vigorous and distinctive by adding a character. Is that going to make this baby stand out? Maybe you could make it more personal by adding a conclusion that is slightly more clever than the rest of the paper?

Or perhaps this is one you're just not going to get an A on.

82. Hillbilly Elegy (Ron Howard)- I watched this melodrama at my mother's encouragement, and, though I have been trying to pin down her taste for decades, I think her idea of a successful film just boils down to "a lot of stuff happens." So in that way, Ron Howard's loss is my gain, I guess.

There is no such thing as a "neutral Terminator."

81. Relic (Natalie Erika James)- The star of the film is Vanessa Cerne's set decoration, but the inert music and slow pace cancel out a house that seems neglected slowly over decades.

80. Buffaloed (Tanya Wexler)- Despite a breathless pace, Buffaloed can't quite congeal. In trying to split the difference between local color hijinks and Moneyballed treatise on debt collection, it doesn't commit enough to either one.

Especially since Zoey Deutch produced this one in addition to starring, I'm getting kind of worried about boo's taste. Lot of Two If by Seas; not enough While You Were Sleepings.

79. Like a Boss (Miguel Arteta)- I chuckled a few times at a game supporting cast that is doing heavy lifting. But Like a Boss is contrived from the premise itself--Yeah, what if people in their thirties fell out of friendship? Do y'all need a creative consultant?--to the escalation of most scenes--Why did they have to hide on the roof? Why do they have to jump into the pool?

The movie is lean, but that brevity hurts just as much as it helps. The screenplay knows which scenes are crucial to the development of the friendship, but all of those feel perfunctory, in a different gear from the setpieces.  

To pile on a bit: Studio comedies are so bare bones now that they look like Lifetime movies. Arteta brought Chuck & Buck to Sundance twenty years ago, and, shot on Mini-DV for $250,000, it was seen as a DIY call-to-bootstraps. I guarantee that has more setups and locations and shooting days than this.

78. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (David Dobkin)- Add Dan Stevens to the list of supporting players who have bodied Will Ferrell in his own movie--one that he cared enough to write himself.  

Like Downhill, Ferrell's other 2020 release, this isn't exactly bad. It's just workmanlike and, aside from the joke about Demi Lovato's "uninformed" ghost, frustratingly conventional.

77. The Traitor (Marco Bellochio)- Played with weary commitment by Pierfrancesco Favino, Tomasso Buscetta is "credited" as the first informant of La Cosa Nostra. And that sounds like an interesting subject for a "based on a true story" crime epic, right? Especially when you find out that Buscetta became a rat out of principle: He believed that the mafia to which he had pledged his life had lost its code to the point that it was a different organization altogether.  

At no point does Buscetta waver or even seem to struggle with his decision though, so what we get is less conflicted than that description might suggest. None of these Italian mob movies glorify the lifestyle, so I wasn't expecting that. But if the crime doesn't seem enticing, and snitching on the crime seems like forlorn duty, and everything is pitched with such underhanded matter-of-factness that you can't even be sure when Buscetta has flipped, then what are we left with? It was interesting seeing how Italian courts work, I guess?

76. Kajillionaire (Miranda July)- This is another movie so intent on building atmosphere and lore that it takes too long to declare what it is. When the protagonist hits a breaking point and has to act, she has only a third of a film to grow. So whispery too.

Gina Rodriguez is the one to inject life into it. As soon as her motormouth winds up, the film slips into a different gear. The atmosphere and lore that I mentioned reeks of artifice, but her character is believably specific. Beneath a basic exterior is someone who is authentically caring but still morally compromised, beholden to the world that the other characters are suspicious of.

75. Scoob! (Tony Cervone)- The first half is sometimes clever, but it hammers home the importance of friendship while separating the friends.

The second half has some positive messaging, but your kids' movie might have a problem with scale if it involves Alexander the Great unlocking the gates of the Underworld.

My daughter loved it.

74. The Lovebirds (Michael Showalter)- If I start talking too much about this perfectly fine movie, I end up in that unfair stance of reviewing the movie I wanted, not what is actually there.* As a fan of hang-out comedies, I kind of resent that any comedy being made now has to be rolled into something more "exciting," whether it's a wrongfully accused or mistaken identity thriller or some other genre. Such is the post-Game Night world. There's a purposefully anti-climactic note that I wish The Lovebirds had ended on, but of course we have another stretch of hiding behind boats and shooting guns. Nanjiani and Rae are really charming leads though.

*- As a New Orleanian, I was totally distracted by the fake aspects of the setting too. "Oh, they walked to Jefferson from downtown? Really?" You probably won't be bothered by the locations.

73. Sonic the Hedgehog (Jeff Fowler)- In some ways the storytelling is ambitious. (I'm speaking for only myself, but I'm fine with "He's a hedgehog, and he's really fast" instead of the owl mother, teleportation backstory. Not everything has to be Tolkien.) But that ambition doesn't match the lack of ambition in the comedy, which depends upon really hackneyed setups and structures. Guiding Jim Carrey to full alrighty-then mode was the best choice anyone made.

72. Malcolm & Marie (Sam Levinson)- The stars move through these long scenes with agility and charisma, but the degree of difficulty is just too high for this movie to reach what it's going for.

Levinson is trying to capture an epic fight between a couple, and he can harness the theatrical intensity of such a thing, but he sacrifices almost all of the nuance. In real life, these knock-down-drag-outs can be circular and indirect and sad in a way that this couple's manipulation rarely is. If that emotional truth is all this movie is trying to achieve, I feel okay about being harsh in my judgment of how well it does that.

71. Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov)- Elusive in how it refuses to declare itself, forthright in how punishing it is. The whole thing might be worth it for a late dinner scene, but I'm getting a bit old to put myself through this kind of misery.

70. The Burnt Orange Heresy (Giuseppe Capotondi)- Silly in good ways until it's silly in bad ways. Elizabeth Debicki remains 6'3".

69. Everybody’s Everything (Sebastian Jones and Ramez Silyan)- As a person who listened to Lil Peep's music, I can confidently say that this documentary is overstating his greatness. His death was a significant loss, as the interview subjects will all acknowledge, but the documentary is more useful as a portrait of a certain unfocused, rapacious segment of a generation that is high and online at all times.

68. The Witches (Robert Zemeckis)- Robert Zemeckis, Kenya Barris, and Guillermo Del Toro are the credited screenwriters, and in a fascinating way, you can see the imprint of each figure on the final product. Adapting a very European story to the old wives' tales of the American South is an interesting choice. Like the Nicolas Roeg try at this material, Zemeckis is not afraid to veer into the terrifying, and Octavia Spencer's pseudo witch doctor character only sells the supernatural. From a storytelling standpoint though, it seems as if the obstacles are overcome too easily, as if there's a whole leg of the film that has been excised. The framing device and the careful myth-making of the flashback make promises that the hotel half of the film, including the abrupt ending, can't live up to.

If nothing else, Anne Hathaway is a real contender for Most On-One Performance of the year.

67. Irresistible (Jon Stewart)- Despite a sort of imaginative ending, Jon Stewart's screenplay feels more like the declarative screenplay that would get you hired for a good movie, not a good screenplay itself. It's provocative enough, but it's clumsy in some basic ways and never evades the easy joke.

For example, the Topher Grace character is introduced as a sort of assistant, then is re-introduced an hour later as a polling expert, then is shown coaching the candidate on presentation a few scenes later. At some point, Stewart combined characters into one role, but nothing got smoothed out.

ENDEARING CURIOSITIES WITH BIG FLAWS

66. Yes, God, Yes (Karen Maine)- Most people who are Catholic, including me, are conflicted about it. Most people who make movies about being Catholic hate it and have an axe to grind. This film is capable of such knowing wit and nuance when it comes to the lived-in details of attending a high school retreat, but it's more concerned with taking aim at hypocrisy in the broad way that we've seen a million times. By the end, the film is surprisingly all-or-nothing when Christian teenagers actually contain multitudes.

Part of the problem is that Karen Maine's screenplay doesn't know how naive to make the Alice character. Sometimes she's reasonably naive for a high school senior in 2001; sometimes she's comically naive so that the plot can work; and sometimes she's stupid, which isn't the same as naive.

65. Bad Boys for Life (Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah)- This might be the first buddy cop movie in which the vets make peace with the tech-comm youngs who use new techniques. If that's the only novelty on display here--and it is--then maybe that's enough. I laughed maybe once. Not that the mistaken identity subplot of Bad Boys 1 is genius or anything, but this entry felt like it needed just one more layer to keep it from feeling as basic as it does. Speaking of layers though, it's almost impossible to watch any Will Smith movie now without viewing it through the meta-narrative of "What is Will Smith actually saying about his own status at this point in his career?" He's serving it up to us.

I derived an inordinate amount of pleasure from seeing the old school Simpson/Bruckheimer logo.

64. The Gentlemen (Guy Ritchie)- Look, I'm not going to be too negative on a movie whose crime slang is so byzantine that it has to be explained with subtitles. That's just me. I'm a simple man. But I can tell you that I tuned out pretty hard after seven or eight double-crosses.

The bloom is off the rose a bit for Ritchie, but he can still nail a music cue. I've been waiting for someone to hit "That's Entertainment" the way he does on the end credits.

63. Bad Hair (Justin Simien)- In Bad Hair, an African-American woman is told by her boss at a music video channel in 1989 that straightening her hair is the way to get ahead; however, her weave ends up having a murderous mind of its own. Compared to that charged, witty logline, the execution of the plot itself feels like a laborious, foregone conclusion. I'm glad that Simien, a genuinely talented writer, is making movies again though. Drop the skin-care routine, Van Der Beek!

62. Greyhound (Aaron Schneider)- "If this is the type of role that Tom Hanks writes for himself, then he understands his status as America's dad--'wise as the serpent, harmless as the dove'--even better than I thought." "America's Dad! Aye aye, sir!" "At least half of the dialogue is there for texture and authenticity, not there to be understood by the audience." "Fifty percent, Captain!" "The environment looks as fake as possible, but I eventually came around to the idea that the movie is completely devoid of subtext." "No subtext to be found, sir!"

  61. Mank (David Fincher)- About ten years ago, the Creative Screenwriting podcast spent an hour or so with James Vanderbilt, the writer of Zodiac and nothing else that comes close, as he relayed the creative paces that David Fincher pushed him through. Hundreds of drafts and years of collaborative work eventuated in the blueprint for Fincher's most exacting, personal film, which he didn't get a writing credit on only because he didn't seek one.

Something tells me that Fincher didn't ask for rewrites from his dead father. No matter what visuals and performances the director can coax from the script--and, to be clear, these are the worst visuals and performances of his career--they are limited by the muddy lightweight pages. There are plenty of pleasures, like the slippery election night montage or the shakily platonic relationship between Mank and Marion. But Fincher hadn't made a film in six years, and he came back serving someone else's master.

60. Tesla (Michael Almereyda)- "You live inside your head." "Doesn't everybody?"

As usual, Almereyda's deconstructions are invigorating. (No other moment can match the first time Eve Hewson's Anne fact-checks something with her anachronistic laptop.) But they don't add up to anything satisfying because Tesla himself is such an opaque figure. Driven by the whims of his curiosity without a clear finish line, the character gives Hawke something enigmatic to play as he reaches deep into a baritone. But he's too inward to lend himself to drama. Tesla feels of a piece with Almereyda's The Experimenter, and that's the one I would recommend.

59. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)- I can't oversell how delicately beautiful this film is visually. There's a scene in which Vitalina lugs a lantern into a church, but we get several seconds of total darkness before that one light source carves through it and takes over part of the frame. Each composition is as intricate as it is overpowering, achieving a balance between stark and mannered.

That being said, most of the film is people entering or exiting doors. I felt very little of the haunting loss that I think I was supposed to.

58. The Rhythm Section (Reed Morano)- Call it the Timothy Hutton in The General's Daughter Corollary: If a name-actor isn't in the movie much but gets third billing, then, despite whom he sends the protagonist to kill, he is the Actual Bad Guy.  

Even if the movie serves up a lot of cliche, the action and sound design are visceral. I would like to see more from Morano.

57. Red, White and Blue (Steve McQueen)- Well-made and heartfelt even if it goes step-for-step where you think it will.

Here's what I want to know though: In the academy training sequence, the police cadets have to subdue a "berserker"; that is, a wildman who swings at their riot gear with a sledgehammer. Then they get him under control, and he shakes their hands, like, "Good angle you took on me there, mate." Who is that guy and where is his movie? Is this full-time work? Is he a police officer or an independent contractor? What would happen if this exercise didn't go exactly as planned?

56. Wolfwalkers (Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart)- The visuals have an unfinished quality that reminded me of The Tale of Princess Kaguya--the center of a flame is undrawn white, and fog is just negative space. There's an underlying symmetry to the film, and its color palette changes with mood.

Narratively, it's pro forma and drawn-out. Was Riley in Inside Out the last animated protagonist to get two parents? My daughter stuck with it, but she needed a lot of context for the religious atmosphere of 17th century Ireland.

55. What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael (Rob Garver)- The film does little more than one might expect; it's limited in the way that any visual medium is when trying to sum up a woman of letters. But as far as education for Kael's partnership with Warren Beatty or the idea of The New Yorker paying her for only six months out of the year, it was useful for me.  

Although Garver isn't afraid to point to the work that made Kael divisive, it would have been nice to have one or two interview subjects who questioned her greatness, rather than the crew of Paulettes who, even when they do say something like, "Sometimes I radically disagreed with her," do it without being able to point to any specifics.

54. Beastie Boys Story (Spike Jonze)- As far as this Spike Jonze completist is concerned, this is more of a Powerpoint presentation than a movie, Beastie Boys Story still warmed my heart, making me want to fire up Paul's Boutique again and take more pictures of my buddies.

53. Tenet (Christopher Nolan)- Cool and cold, tantalizing and frustrating, loud and indistinct, Tenet comes close to Nolan self-parody, right down to the brutalist architecture and multiple characters styled like him. The setpieces grabbed me, I'll admit.

Nolan's previous film, which is maybe his best, was "about" a lot and just happened to play with time; Tenet is only about playing with time.

PRETTY GOOD MOVIES

52. Shithouse (Cooper Raiff)- "Death is ass."

There's such a thing as too naturalistic. If I wanted to hear how college freshmen really talked, I would hang out with college freshmen. But you have to take the good verisimilitude with the bad, and good verisimilitude is the mother's Pod Save America t-shirt.

There are some poignant moments (and a gonzo performance from Logan Miller) in this auspicious debut from Cooper Raiff, the writer/director/editor/star. But the second party sequence kills some of the momentum, and at a crucial point, the characters spell out some motivation that should have stayed implied.

51. Totally Under Control (Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, Suzanne Hillinger)- As dense and informative as any other Gibney documentary with the added flex of making it during the pandemic it is investigating.

But yeah, why am I watching this right now? I don't need more reasons to be angry with Trump, whom this film calmly eviscerates. The directors analyze Trump's narcissism first through his contradictions of medical expertise in order to protect the economy that could win him re-election. Then it takes aim at his hiring based on loyalty instead of experience. But you already knew that, which is the problem with the film, at least for now.

50. Happiest Season (Clea Duvall)- I was in the perfect mood to watch something this frothy and bouncy. Every secondary character receives a moment in the sun, and Daniel Levy gets a speech that kind of saves the film at a tipping point.

I must say though: I wanted to punch Harper in her stupid face. She is a terrible romantic partner, abandoning or betraying Abby throughout the film and dissembling her entire identity to everyone else in a way that seems absurd for a grown woman in 2020. Run away, Kristen. Perhaps with Aubrey Plaza, whom you have more chemistry with. But there I go shipping and aligning myself with characters, which only proves that this is an effective romantic comedy.

49. The Way Back (Gavin O’Connor)- Patient but misshapen, The Way Back does just enough to overcome the cliches that are sort of unavoidable considering the genre. (I can't get enough of the parent character who, for no good reason, doesn't take his son's success seriously. "Scholarship? What he's gotta do is put his nose in them books! That's why I don't go to his games. [continues moving boxes while not looking at the other character] Now if you'll excuse me while I wait four scenes before showing up at a game to prove that I'm proud of him after all...")

What the movie gets really right or really wrong in the details about coaching and addiction is a total crap-shoot. But maybe I've said too much already.

48. The Whistlers (Corneliu Porumboiu)- Porumboiu is a real artist who seems to be interpreting how much surveillance we're willing to acknowledge and accept, but I won't pretend to have understood much of the plot, the chapters or which are told out of order. Sometimes the structure works--the beguiling, contextless "high-class hooker" sequence--but I often wondered if the film was impenetrable in the way that Porumboiu wanted it to be or impenetrable in the way he didn't.

To tell you the truth, the experience kind of depressed me because I know that, in my younger days, this film is the type of thing that I would re-watch, possibly with the chronology righted, knowing that it is worth understanding fully. But I have two small children, and I'm exhausted all the time, and I kind of thought I should get some credit for still trying to catch up with Romanian crime movies in the first place.

47. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner)- I laughed too much to get overly critical, but the film is so episodic and contrived that it's kind of exhausting by the end--even though it's achieving most of its goals. Maybe Borat hasn't changed, but the way our citizens own their ugliness has.

46. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt)- Despite how little happens in the first forty minutes, First Cow is a thoughtful capitalism parable. Even though it takes about forty minutes to get going, the friendship between Cookie and King-Lu is natural and incisive. Like Reichardt's other work, the film's modest premise unfolds quite gracefully, except for in the first forty minutes, which are uneventful.

45. Les Miserables (Ladj Ly)- I loved parts of the film--the disorienting, claustrophobic opening or the quick look at the police officers' home lives, for example. But I'm not sure that it does anything very well. The needle the film tries to thread between realism and theater didn't gel for me. The ending, which is ambiguous in all of the wrong ways, chooses the theatrical. (If I'm being honest, my expectations were built up by Les Miserables' Jury Prize at Cannes, and it's a bit superficial to be in that company.)

If nothing else, it's always helpful to see how another country's worst case scenario in law enforcement would look pretty good over here.

44. Bad Education (Cory Finley)- The film feels too locked-down and small at the beginning, so intent on developing the protagonist neutrally that even the audience isn't aware of his secrets. So when he faces consequences for those secrets, there's a disconnect. Part of tragedy is seeing the doom coming, right?

When it opens up, however, it's empathetic and subtle, full of a dry irony that Finley is already specializing in after only one other feature. Geraldine Viswanathan and Allison Janney get across a lot of interiority that is not on the page.

43. The Trip to Greece (Michael Winterbottom)- By the fourth installment, you know whether you're on board with the franchise. If you're asking "Is this all there is?" to Coogan and Brydon's bickering and impressions as they're served exotic food in picturesque settings, then this one won't sway you. If you're asking "Is this all there is?" about life, like they are, then I don't need to convince you.  

I will say that The Trip to Spain seemed like an enervated inflection point, at which the squad could have packed it in. The Trip to Greece proves that they probably need to keep doing this until one of them dies, which has been the subtext all along.

42. Feels Good Man (Arthur Jones)- This documentary centers on innocent artist Matt Furie's helplessness as his Pepe the Frog character gets hijacked by the alt-right. It gets the hard things right. It's able to, quite comprehensively, trace a connection from 4Chan's use of Pepe the Frog to Donald Trump's near-assuming of Pepe's ironic deniability. Director Arthur Jones seems to understand the machinations of the alt-right, and he articulates them chillingly.

The easy thing, making us connect to Furie, is less successful. The film spends way too much time setting up his story, and it makes him look naive as it pits him against Alex Jones in the final third. Still, the film is a quick ninety-two minutes, and the highs are pretty high.

41. The Old Guard (Gina Prince-Bythewood)- Some of the world-building and backstory are handled quite elegantly. The relationships actually do feel centuries old through specific details, and the immortal conceit comes together for an innovative final action sequence.

Visually and musically though, the film feels flat in a way that Prince-Bythewood's other films do not. I blame Netflix specs. KiKi Layne, who tanked If Beale Street Could Talk for me, nearly ruins this too with the child-actory way that she stresses one word per line. Especially in relief with one of our more effortless actresses, Layne is distracting.

40. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin)- Whenever Sacha Baron Cohen's Abbie Hoffman opens his mouth, the other defendants brace themselves for his dismissive vulgarity. Even when it's going to hurt him, he can't help but shoot off at the mouth. Of course, he reveals his passionate and intelligent depths as the trial goes on. The character is the one that Sorkin's screenplay seems the most endeared to: In the same way that Hoffman can't help but be Hoffman, Sorkin can't help but be Sorkin. Maybe we don't need a speech there; maybe we don't have to stretch past two hours; maybe a bon mot diffuses the tension. But we know exactly what to expect by now. The film is relevant, astute, witty, benevolent, and, of course, in love with itself. There are a handful of scenes here that are perfect, so I feel bad for qualifying so much.

A smaller point: Daniel Pemberton has done great work in the past (Motherless Brooklyn, King Arthur, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), but the first sequence is especially marred by his sterile soft-rock approach.

  GOOD MOVIES

39. Time (Garrett Bradley)- The key to Time is that it provides very little context. Why the patriarch of this family is serving sixty years in prison is sort of besides the point philosophically. His wife and sons have to move on without him, and the tragedy baked into that fact eclipses any notion of what he "deserved." Feeling the weight of time as we switch back and forth between a kid talking about his first day of kindergarten and that same kid graduating from dentistry school is all the context we need. Time's presentation can be quite sumptuous: The drone shot of Angola makes its buildings look like crosses. Or is it X's?

At the same time, I need some context. When director Garrett Bradley withholds the reason Robert's in prison, and when she really withholds that Fox took a plea and served twelve years, you start to see the strings a bit. You could argue that knowing so little about why, all of a sudden, Robert can be on parole puts you into the same confused shoes as the family, but it feels manipulative to me. The film is preaching to the choir as far as criminal justice goes, which is fine, but I want it to have the confidence to tell its story above board.

38. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (Turner Ross and Bill Ross IV)- I have a barfly friend whom I see maybe once a year. When we first set up a time to meet, I kind of dread it and wonder what we'll have to talk about. Once we do get together, we trip on each other's words a bit, fumbling around with the rhythm of conversation that we mastered decades ago. He makes some kind of joke that could have been appropriate then but isn't now.

By the end of the day, hours later, we're hugging and maybe crying as we promise each other that we won't wait as long next time.

That's the exact same journey that I went on with this film.

37. Underwater (William Eubank)- Underwater is a story that you've seen before, but it's told with great confidence and economy. I looked up at twelve minutes and couldn't believe the whole table had been set. Kristen plays Ripley and projects a smart, benevolent poise.

36. The Lodge (Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala)- I prefer the grounded, manicured first half to the more fantastic second half. The craziness of the latter is only possible through the hard work of the former though. As with Fiala and Franz's previous feature, the visual rhymes and motifs get incorporated into the soup so carefully that you don't realize it until they overwhelm you in their bleak glory.

Small note: Alicia Silverstone, the male lead's first wife, and Riley Keough, his new partner, look sort of similar. I always think that's a nice note: "I could see how he would go for her."

35. Miss Americana (Lana Wilson)- I liked it when I saw it as a portrait of a person whose life is largely decided for her but is trying to carve out personal spaces within that hamster wheel. I loved it when I realized that describes most successful people in their twenties.

34. Sound of Metal (Darius Marder)- Riz Ahmed is showing up on all of the best performances of the year lists, but Sound of Metal isn't in anyone's top ten films of the year. That's about right. Ahmed's is a quiet, stubborn performance that I wish was in service of more than the straight line that we've seen before.

In two big scenes, there's this trick that Ahmed does, a piecing together of consequences with his eyes, as if he's moving through a flow chart in real time. In both cases, the character seems locked out and a little slower than he should be, which is, of course, why he's facing the consequences in the first place. To be charitable to a film that was a bit of a grind, it did make me notice a thing a guy did with his eyes.

33. Pieces of a Woman (Kornel Mundruczo)- Usually when I leave acting showcases like this, I imagine the film without the Oscar-baiting speeches, but this is a movie that specializes in speeches. Pieces of a Woman is being judged, deservedly so, by the harrowing twenty-minute take that opens the film, which is as indulgent as it is necessary. But if the unbroken take provides the "what," then the speeches provide the "why."

This is a film about reclaiming one's body when it rebels against you and when other people seek ownership of it. Without the Ellen Burstyn "lift your head" speech or the Vanessa Kirby show-stopper in the courtroom, I'm not sure any of that comes across.

I do think the film lets us off the hook a bit with the LaBoeuf character, in the sense that it gives us reasons to dislike him when it would be more compelling if he had done nothing wrong. Does his half-remembering of the White Stripes count as a speech?

32. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (George C. Wolfe)- This is such a play, not only in the locked-down location but also through nearly every storytelling convention: "Where are the two most interesting characters? Oh, running late? They'll enter separately in animated fashion?" But, to use the type of phrase that the characters might, "Don't hate the player; hate the game."

Perhaps the most theatrical note in this treatise on the commodification of expression is the way that, two or three times, the proceedings stop in their tracks for the piece to declare loudly what it's about. In one of those clear-outs, Boseman, who looks distractingly sick, delivers an unforgettable monologue that transports the audience into his character's fragile, haunted mind. He and Viola Davis are so good that the film sort of buckles under their weight, unsure of how to transition out of those spotlight moments and pretend that the story can start back up. Whatever they're doing is more interesting than what's being achieved overall.

31. Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg)- It's definitely the film that Vinterberg wanted to make, but despite what I think is a quietly shattering performance from Mikkelsen, Another Round moves in a bit too much of a straight line to grab me fully. The joyous final minutes hint at where it could have gone, as do pockets of Vinterberg's filmography, which seems newly tethered to realism in a way that I don't like. The best sequences are the wildest ones, like the uproarious trip to the grocery store for fresh cod, so I don't know why so much of it takes place in tiny hallways at magic hour. I give the inevitable American remake* permission to use these notes.

*- Just spitballing here. Martin: Will Ferrell, Nikolaj (Nick): Ben Stiller, Tommy: Owen Wilson, Peter: Craig Robinson

30. The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell)- Exactly what I wanted. Exactly what I needed.

I think a less conclusive finale would have been better, but what a model of high-concept escalation. This is the movie people convinced me Whannell's Upgrade was.

29. On the Rocks (Sofia Coppola)- Slight until the Mexican sojourn, which expands the scope and makes the film even more psychosexual than before. At times it feels as if Coppola is actively simplifying, rather than diving into the race and privilege questions that the Murray character all but demands.

As for Murray, is the film 50% worse without him? 70%? I don't know if you can run in supporting categories if you're the whole reason the film exists.

28. Mangrove (Steve McQueen)- The first part of the film seemed repetitive and broad to me. But once it settled in as a courtroom drama, the characterization became more shaded, and the filmmaking itself seemed more fluid. I ended up being quite outraged and inspired.

27. Shirley (Josephine Decker)- Josephine Decker emerges as a real stylist here, changing her foggy, impressionistic approach not one bit with a little more budget. Period piece and established actors be damned--this is still as much of a reeling fever dream as Madeline's Madeline. Both pieces are a bit too repetitive and nasty for my taste, but I respect the technique.

Here's my mandatory "Elisabeth Moss is the best" paragraph. While watching her performance as Shirley Jackson, I thought about her most famous role as Peggy on Mad Men, whose inertia and need to prove herself tied her into confidence knots. Shirley is almost the opposite: paralyzed by her worldview, certain of her talent, rejecting any empathy. If Moss can inhabit both characters so convincingly, she can do anything.

26. An American Pickle (Brandon Trost)- An American Pickle is the rare comedy that could actually use five or ten extra minutes, but it's a surprisingly heartfelt and wholesome stretch for Rogen, who is earnest in the lead roles.

25. The King of Staten Island (Judd Apatow)- At two hours and fifteen minutes, The King of Staten Island is probably the first Judd Apatow film that feels like the exact right length. For example, the baggy date scene between a gracious Bill Burr and a faux-dowdy Marisa Tomei is essential, the sort of widening of perspective that something like Trainwreck was missing.

It's Pete Davidson's movie, however, and though he has never been my cup of tea, I think he's actually quite powerful in his quiet moments. The movie probes some rare territory--a mentally ill man's suspicion that he is unlovable, a family's strategic myth-making out of respect for the dead. And when Davidson shows up at the firehouse an hour and fifteen minutes in, it feels as if we've built to a last resort.

24. Swallow (Carlo Mirabella-Davis)- The tricky part of this film is communicating Hunter's despair, letting her isolation mount, but still keeping her opaque. It takes a lot of visual discipline to do that, and Claudio Mirabella-Davis is up to the task. This ends up being a much more sympathetic, expressive movie than the plot description might suggest.

(In the tie dispute, Hunter and Richie are both wrong. That type of silk--I couldn't tell how pebbled it was, but it's probably a barathea weave-- shouldn't be ironed directly, but it doesn't have to be steamed. On a low setting, you could iron the back of the tie and be fine.)

23. The Vast of Night (Andrew Patterson)- I wanted a bit more "there" there; The film goes exactly where I thought it would, and there isn't enough humor for my taste. (The predictability might be a feature, not a bug, since the film is positioned as an episode of a well-worn Twilight Zone-esque show.)

But from a directorial standpoint, this is quite a promising debut. Patterson knows when to lock down or use silence--he even cuts to black to force us to listen more closely to a monologue. But he also knows when to fill the silence. There's a minute or so when Everett is spooling tape, and he and Fay make small talk about their hopes for the future, developing the characters' personalities in what could have been just mechanics. It's also a refreshingly earnest film. No one is winking at the '50s setting.

I'm tempted to write, "If Andrew Patterson can make this with $1 million, just imagine what he can do with $30 million." But maybe people like Shane Carruth have taught us that Patterson is better off pinching pennies in Texas and following his own muse.

22. Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)- At first this film, adapted from a picaresque novel by Jack London, seemed as if it was hitting the marks of the genre. "He's going from job to job and meeting dudes who are shaping his worldview now." But the film, shot in lustrous Super 16, won me over as it owned the trappings of this type of story, forming a character who is a product of his environment even as he transcends it. By the end, I really felt the weight of time.

You want to talk about something that works better in novels than films though? When a passionate, independent protagonist insists that a woman is the love of his life, despite the fact that she's whatever Italians call a wet blanket. She's rich, but Martin doesn't care about her money. He hates her family and friends, and she refuses to accept him or his life pursuits. She's pretty but not even as pretty as the waitress they discuss. Tell me what I'm missing here. There's archetype, and there's incoherence.

21. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles)- Certain images from this adventurous film will stick with me, but I got worn out after the hard reset halfway through. As entranced as I was by the mystery of the first half, I think this blood-soaked ensemble is better at asking questions than it is at answering them.

20. Let Them All Talk (Steven Soderbergh)- The initial appeal of this movie might be "Look at these wonderful actresses in their seventies getting a movie all to themselves." And the film is an interesting portrait of ladies taking stock of relationships that have spanned decades. But Soderbergh and Eisenberg handle the twentysomething Lucas Hedges character with the same openness and empathy. His early reasoning for going on the trip is that he wants to learn from older women, and Hedges nails the puppy-dog quality of a young man who would believe that. Especially in the scenes of aspirational romance, he's sweet and earnest as he brushes his hair out of his face.

Streep plays Alice Hughes, a serious author of literary fiction, and she crosses paths with Kelvin Kranz, a grinder of airport thrillers. In all of the right ways, Let Them All Talk toes the line between those two stances as an entertaining, jaunty experiment that also shoulders subtextual weight. If nothing else, it's easy to see why a cruise ship's counterfeit opulence, its straight lines at a lean, would be visually engaging to Soderbergh. You can't have a return to form if your form is constantly evolving.

19. Dick Johnson Is Dead (Kirsten Johnson)- Understandably, I don't find the subject as interesting as his own daughter does, and large swaths of this film are unsure of what they're trying to say. But that's sort of the point, and the active wrestling that the film engages in with death ultimately pays off in a transcendent moment. The jaw-dropping ending is something that only non-fiction film can achieve, and Johnson's whole career is about the search for that sort of serendipity.

18. Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee)- Delroy Lindo is a live-wire, but his character is the only one of the principals who is examined with the psychological depth I was hoping for. The first half, with all of its present-tense flourishes, promises more than the gunfights of the second half can deliver. When the film is cooking though, it's chock full of surprises, provocations, and pride.

17. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittmann)- Very quickly, Eliza Hittmann has established herself as an astute, empathetic director with an eye for discovering new talent. I hope that she gets to make fifty more movies in which she objectively follows laconic young people. But I wanted to like this one more than I did. The approach is so neutral that it's almost flat to me, lacking the arc and catharsis of her previous film, Beach Rats. I still appreciate her restraint though.

GREAT MOVIES

16. Young Ahmed (Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne)- I don't think the Dardennes have made a bad movie yet, and I'm glad they turned away from the slight genre dipping of The Unknown Girl, the closest to bad that they got. Young Ahmed is a lean, daring return to form.

Instead of following an average person, as they normally do, the Dardenne Brothers follow an extremist, and the objectivity that usually generates pathos now serves to present ambiguity. Ahmed says that he is changing, that he regrets his actions, but we never know how much of his stance is a put-on. I found myself wanting him to reform, more involved than I usually am in these slices of life. Part of it is that Idir Ben Addi looks like such a normal, young kid, and the Ahmed character has most of the qualities that we say we want in young people: principles, commitment, self-worth, reflection. So it's that much more destructive when those qualities are used against him and against his fellow man.

15. World of Tomorrow Episode Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime (Don Hertzfeldt)- My dad, a man whom I love but will never understand, has dismissed modern music before by claiming that there are only so many combinations of chords. To him, it's almost impossible to do something new. Of course, this is the type of thing that an uncreative person would say--a person not only incapable of hearing the chords that combine notes but also unwilling to hear the space between the notes. (And obviously, that's the take of a person who doesn't understand that, originality be damned, some people just have to create.)

  Anyway, that attitude creeps into my own thinking more than I would like, but then I watch something as wholly original as World of Tomorrow Episode Three. The series has always been a way to pile sci-fi ideas on top of each other to prove the essential truths of being and loving. And this one, even though it achieves less of a sense of yearning than its predecessor, offers even more devices to chew on. Take, for example, the idea that Emily sends her message from the future, so David's primitive technology can barely handle it. In order to move forward with its sophistication, he has to delete any extraneous skills for the sake of computer memory. So out of trust for this person who loves him, he has to weigh whether his own breathing or walking can be uninstalled as a sacrifice for her. I thought that we might have been done describing love, but there it is, a new metaphor. Mixing futurism with stick figures to get at the most pure drive possible gave us something new. It's called art, Dad.

14. On the Record (Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering)- We don't call subjects of documentaries "stars" for obvious reasons, but Drew Dixon kind of is one. Her honesty and wisdom tell a complete story of the #MeToo movement. Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering take their time developing her background at first, not because we need to "gain sympathy" or "establish credibility" for a victim of sexual abuse, but because showing her talent and enthusiasm for hip-hop A&R makes it that much more tragic when her passion is extinguished. Hell, I just like the woman, so spending a half-hour on her rise was pleasurable in and of itself.

  This is a gut-wrenching, fearless entry in what is becoming Dick and Ziering's raison d'etre, but its greatest quality is Dixon's composed reflection. She helped to establish a pattern of Russell Simmons's behavior, but she explains what happened to her in ways I had never heard before.

13. David Byrne’s American Utopia (Spike Lee)- I'm often impressed by the achievements that puzzle me: How did they pull that off? But I know exactly how David Byrne pulled off the impish but direct precision of American Utopia: a lot of hard work.

I can't blame Spike Lee for stealing a page from Demme's Stop Making Sense: He denies us a close-up of any audience members until two-thirds of the way through, when we get someone in absolute rapture.

12. One Night in Miami... (Regina King)- We've all cringed when a person of color is put into the position of speaking on behalf of his or her entire race. But the characters in One Night in Miami... live in that condition all the time and are constantly negotiating it. As Black public figures in 1964, they know that the consequences of their actions are different, bigger, than everyone else's. The charged conversations between Malcolm X and Sam Cooke are not about whether they can live normal lives. They're way past that. The stakes are closer to Sam Cooke arguing that his life's purpose aligns with the protection and elevation of African-Americans while Malcolm X argues that those pursuits should be the same thing. Late in the movie, Cassius Clay leaves the other men, a private conversation, to talk to reporters, a public conversation. But the film argues that everything these men do is always already public. They're the most powerful African-Americans in the country, but their lives are not their own. Or not only their own.

It's true that the first act has the clunkiness and artifice of a TV movie, but once the film settles into the motel room location and lets the characters feed off one another, it's gripping. It's kind of unfair for a movie to get this many scenes of Leslie Odom Jr. singing, but I'll take it.

11. Saint Frances (Alex Thompson)- Rilke wrote, "Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us." The characters' behavior in Saint Frances--all of these fully formed characters' behavior--made me think of that quotation. When they lash out at one another, even at their nastiest, the viewer has a window into how they're expressing pain they can't verbalize. The film is uneven in its subtlety, but it's a real showcase for screenwriter and star Kelly O'Sullivan, who is unflinching and dynamic in one of the best performances of the year. Somebody give her some of the attention we gave to Zach Braff for God's sake.

10. Boys State (Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine)- This documentary is kind of a miracle from a logistical standpoint. From casting interviews beforehand, lots of editing afterwards, or sly note-taking once the conference began, McBaine and Moss happened to select the four principals who mattered the most at the convention, then found them in rooms full of dudes wearing the same tucked-in t-shirt. By the way, all of the action took place over the course of one week, and by definition, the important events are carved in half.

To call Boys State a microcosm of American politics is incorrect. These guys are forming platforms and voting in elections. What they're doing is American politics, so when they make the same compromises and mistakes that active politicians do, it produces dread and disappointment. So many of the boys are mimicking the political theater that they see on TV, and that sweaty sort of performance is going to make a Billy Mitchell out of this kid Ben Feinstein, and we'll be forced to reckon with how much we allow him to evolve as a person. This film is so precise, but what it proves is undeniably messy. Luckily, some of these seventeen-year-olds usher in hope for us all.

If nothing else, the film reveals the level to which we're all speaking in code.

9. The Nest (Sean Durkin)- In the first ten minutes or so of The Nest, the only real happy minutes, father and son are playing soccer in their quaint backyard, and the father cheats to score on a children's net before sliding on the grass to rub in his victory. An hour later, the son kicks the ball around by himself near a regulation goal on the family's massive property. The contrast is stark and obvious, as is the symbolism of the dead horse, but that doesn't mean it's not visually powerful or resonant.

Like Sean Durkin's earlier film, Martha Marcy May Marlene, the whole of The Nest is told with detail of novelistic scope and an elevation of the moment. A snippet of radio that mentions Ronald Reagan sets the time period, rather than a dateline. One kid saying "Thanks, Dad" and another kid saying, "Thanks, Rory" establishes a stepchild more elegantly than any other exposition might.

But this is also a movie that does not hide what it means. Characters usually say exactly what is on their minds, and motivations are always clear. For example, Allison smokes like a chimney, so her daughter's way of acting out is leaving butts on the window sill for her mother to find. (And mother and daughter both definitely "act out" their feelings.) On the other hand, Ben, Rory's biological son, is the character least like him, so these relationships aren't too directly parallel. Regardless, Durkin uses these trajectories to cast a pall of familial doom.

8. Sorry We Missed You (Sean Durkin)- Another precisely calibrated empathy machine from Ken Loach. The overwhelmed matriarch, Abby, is a caretaker, and she has to break up a Saturday dinner to rescue one of her clients, who wet herself because no one came to help her to the bathroom. The lady is embarrassed, and Abby calms her down by saying, "You mean more to me than you know." We know enough about Abby's circumstances to realize that it's sort of a lie, but it's a beautiful lie, told by a person who cares deeply but is not cared for.

Loach's central point is that the health of a family, something we think of as immutable and timeless, is directly dependent upon the modern industry that we use to destroy ourselves. He doesn't have to be "proven" relevant, and he didn't plan for Covid-19 to point to the fragility of the gig economy, but when you're right, you're right.

7. Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen)- swear to you I thought: "This is an impeccable depiction of a great house party. The only thing it's missing is the volatile dude who scares away all the girls." And then the volatile dude who scares away all the girls shows up.

In a year short on magic, there are two or three transcendent moments, but none of them can equal the whole crowd singing along to "Silly Games" way after the song has ended. Nothing else crystallizes the film's note of celebration: of music, of community, of safe spaces, of Black skin. I remember moments like that at house parties, and like all celebrations, they eventually make me sad.

6. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (Nicole Newnham and James Lebrecht)- I held off on this movie because I thought that I knew what it was. The setup was what I expected: A summer camp for the disabled in the late '60s takes on the spirit of the time and becomes a haven for people who have not felt agency, self-worth, or community anywhere else. But that's the right-place-right-time start of a story that takes these figures into the '80s as they fight for their rights.

If you're anything like my dumb ass, you know about 504 accommodations from the line on a college syllabus that promises equal treatment. If 2020 has taught us anything though, it's that rights are seized, not given, and this is the inspiring story of people who unified to demand what they deserved. Judy Heumann is a civil rights giant, but I'm ashamed to say I didn't know who she was before this film. If it were just a history lesson that wasn't taught in school, Crip Camp would still be valuable, but it's way more than that.

5. Palm Springs (Max Barbakow)- When explaining what is happening to them, Andy Samberg's Nyles twirls his hand at Cristin Milioti's Sara and says, "It's one of those infinite time-loop scenarios." Yeah, one of those. Armed with only a handful of fictional examples, she and the audience know exactly what he means, and the continually inventive screenplay by Andy Siara doesn't have to do any more explaining. In record time, the film accelerates into its premise, involves her, and sets up the conflict while avoiding the claustrophobia of even Groundhog Day. That economy is the strength that allows it to be as funny as it is. By being thrifty with the setup, the savings can go to, say, the couple crashing a plane into a fiery heap with no consequences.

In some accidental ways, this is, of course, a quarantine romance as well. Nyles and Sara frustratingly navigate the tedious wedding as if they are play-acting--which they sort of are--then they push through that sameness to grow for each other, realizing that dependency is not weakness. The best relationships are doing the same thing right now.

  Although pointedly superficial--part of the point of why the couple is such a match--and secular--I think the notion of an afterlife would come up at least once--Palm Springs earns the sincerity that it gets around to. And for a movie ironic enough to have a character beg to be impaled so that he doesn't have to sit in traffic, that's no small feat.

  4. The Assistant (Kitty Green)- A wonder of Bressonian objectivity and rich observation, The Assistant is the rare film that deals exclusively with emotional depth while not once explaining any emotions. One at a time, the scrape of the Kleenex box might not be so grating, the long hallway trek to the delivery guy might not be so tiring, but this movie gets at the details of how a job can destroy you in ways that add up until you can't even explain them.

3. Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell)- In her most incendiary and modern role, Carey Mulligan plays Cassie, which is short for Cassandra, that figure doomed to tell truths that no one else believes. The web-belted boogeyman who ruined her life is Al, short for Alexander, another Greek who is known for his conquests. The revenge story being told here--funny in its darkest moments, dark in its funniest moments--is tight on its surface levels, but it feels as if it's telling a story more archetypal and expansive than that too.

  An exciting feature debut for its writer-director Emerald Fennell, the film goes wherever it dares. Its hero has a clear purpose, and it's not surprising that the script is willing to extinguish her anger halfway through. What is surprising is the way it renews and muddies her purpose as she comes into contact with half-a-dozen brilliant one- or two-scene performances. (Do you think Alfred Molina can pull off a lawyer who hates himself so much that he can't sleep? You would be right.)

Promising Young Woman delivers as an interrogation of double standards and rape culture, but in quiet ways it's also about our outsized trust in professionals and the notion that some trauma cannot be overcome.

INSTANT CLASSICS

2. Soul (Pete Docter)- When Pete Docter's Up came out, it represented a sort of coronation for Pixar: This was the one that adults could like unabashedly. The one with wordless sequences and dead children and Ed Asner in the lead. But watching it again this week with my daughter, I was surprised by how high-concept and cloying it could be. We choose not to remember the middle part with the goofy dog stuff.

Soul is what Up was supposed to be: honest, mature, stirring. And I don't mean to imply that a family film shouldn't make any concessions to children. But Soul, down to the title, never compromises its own ambition. Besides Coco, it's probably the most credible character study that Pixar has ever made, with all of Joe's growth earned the hard way. Besides Inside Out, it's probably the wittiest comedy that Pixar has ever made, bursting with unforced energy.

There's a twitter fascination going around about Dez, the pigeon-figured barber character whose scene has people gushing, "Crush my windpipe, king" or whatever. Maybe that's what twitter does now, but no one fantasized about any characters in Up. And I count that as progress.

1. I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman)- After hearing that our name-shifting protagonist moonlights as an artist, a no-nonsense David Thewlis offers, "I hope you're not an abstract artist." He prefers "paintings that look like photographs" over non-representational mumbo-jumbo. And as Jessie Buckley squirms to try to think of a polite way to talk back, you can tell that Charlie Kaufman has been in the crosshairs of this same conversation. This morose, scary, inscrutable, expressionist rumination is not what the Netflix description says it is at all, and it's going to bother nice people looking for a fun night in. Thank God.

The story goes that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, when constructing Raiders of the Lost Ark, sought to craft a movie that was "only the good parts" with little of the clunky setup that distracted from action. What we have here is a Charlie Kaufman movie with only the Charlie Kaufman moments, less interested than ever before at holding one's hand. The biting humor is here, sometimes aimed at philistines like the David Thewlis character above, sometimes at the niceties that we insist upon. The lonely horror of everyday life is here, in the form of missed calls from oneself or the interruption of an inner monologue. Of course, communicating the overwhelming crush of time, both unknowable and familiar, is the raison d'etre.

A new pet motif seems to be the way that we don't even own our own knowledge. The Young Woman recites "Bonedog" by Eva H.D., which she claims/thinks she wrote, only to find Jake's book open to that page, next to a Pauline Kael book that contains a Woman Under the Influence review that she seems to have internalized later. When Jake muses about Wordsworth's "Lucy Poems," it starts as a way to pass the time, then it becomes a way to lord his education over her, then it becomes a compliment because the subject resembles her, then it becomes a way to let her know that, in the grand scheme of things, she isn't that special at all. This film jerks the viewer through a similar wintry cycle and leaves him with his own thoughts. It's not a pretty picture, but it doesn't look like anything else.

[ask-the-layers]

Master post for like, rules and characters!

(It's quite long)

- i do not accept nsfw questions for the tiny gang under any circumstances

- Rp is allowed and even encouraged ! But please if it doesn't go your way dont get mad and lets work it out in dms !

- If you are less than 18 it's fine, I'll tag everything apropriately, the rest is at your charge

- This blog is LGBTQ+ friendly, assume every character is bisexual to start with and are all asexual to a certain degree

-All these characters are self insert, so I'm sorry for the lack of inclusivity when it comes to impaired people, poc, or body types. I just think it'd be weird as a white guy to make a self insert that's not my skin color or suffer from smthg i know nothing about

The characters you can interact with ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

Tiny gang (under 18) 35/89

Carillon (layer #0 any world)

Clover/ Myrrh Zogratis (layer #6 Black Clover)

Far/Marie Seed (layer #8 Fc5)

Shynnie/ Margot Lumin (layer #10 Radiant)

Dolly/Kira (layer #12 Dolly Kill Kill)

Stud/Julia (layer #14 Assassination Classroom)

Sni/Evelyn Barrow (layer #15 Hogwarts Mysteries)

Blue/Kamilia Light (layer #20 Blue Exorcist)*

Alch/Dalia Mustang (layer #23 FMAB)

Wat/Amy (layer #24 Overwatch)

Tah/Lallys (layer #31 Witch Hat Atelier)

Ùll (layer #34 Helsing Ultimate)

Ava (layer #37 ATLA)

Isch (layer #42 God Of Highschool)

Myr (layer #46 La passe miroir)

Bas Soma (layer #48 Fruit Basket)

Ise Heisenberg (layer #50bis RE8)

Iruko Romm (layer #52 Mieruko chan)

Elzy/Nemuri Kanzaki (layer #53 Beelzebub)

Tem (layer #56 Team Fortress)

Ress (layer #56 bis)

Pako Mcgraw (layer #61 Oksa Polock)

Dee (layer #64 The walking dead)*

Aby Soma (layer #66 Gakuen Babysitter)

Sham (layer #69 Shaman King)

Bale (layer #70 Bleach)

Lif (layer #71 Fantasy Life)

Pine (layer #73 Perfect Crime)

Oden Agriche (layer #74 The way to save the female lead's older brother)

Nina (layer #78 Saint Seiya)*

Theva (layer #80 Ever Oasis)

Dan (layer #81 Danganronpa)

Sonia Allen (layer #82 Professor Layton)

Lou (layer #83 Tokyo Ghoul)

Tear (Layer #84 Kingdom Hearts)

Tanya Archangelo (layer #86 Gangsta)

Ellie/Eli (layers #87 Pokemon)

Amber (layer #88 Ember Knight)

Misty (layer #90 The Misterious cities of gold)

Fanny (layer #91 Spy x Family)

----- layer #94 The Owl House----

Petra Jung (layer #98 Omniscient Reader Viewpoint)

The adults/young adults 54/89

Léanne Lenoir (layer #99 ATSV)

Cob Volaju (layer #102 Cowboy Bebop)

Ollie (layer #103 Percy Jackson)

Zain (layer #104 Hazbin Hotel)

Hugo (layer #105 Dungeon Meshi)

First/Alice Meyer (layer #1)

Sass/Kelly Miles (layer #2 assassin's creed)

Helpy/Dilthen Lòth Greenleaf (layer #3 TLOTR/The hobbit)*

Pandora Baskerville (layer #4 Pandora Hearts)

Rain/Lilia Barnes (layer #4 MCU)*

Cry/Camille (layer #7 Fc5)

Ghost (layer 8bis)

Detroit/Clarice Anderson(layer #9 D:BH)

Wanda Grindewald (layer #11 Harry Potter)*

Rim (layer #13 Skyrim)

Blay Kavar (layer #13 bis Oblivion)*

Games/Lyssia Stark (layer #16 GoT)*

Seas/Galia (layer #17 Story Of Season)

Hero/Kiho Aizawa (layer #18 BNHA)

Shin/Axel (layer #19 Black Butler)

Icy/Torvi (layer #21 God of War)

Mons (layer #22 Undertale)

Vic (layer #25 VampYr)

//Layilus layer #26 undertale au//

Dun (layer #27 D&D)

Red/Læticia Mildred Sinclair (layer #28 Red dead Redemption)*

Odd/Aude (layer #29 American Gods)

West (layer #30 WestWorld)

Nat (layer #32 Supernatural)*

Nev (layer #33 The Promised Neverland)

Cas (layer #35 Castlevania the show)

Lev (layer #36 Solo Leveling)

Serk (layer #38 Berserk)

Ven (layer #39 Seven Deadly Sins)

Ary (layer #40 Marie's Grave)

Etho (layer #41 Sweet Home)

Pwetty/Célemence Monaghan (layer #43 Death Stranding)

Erf (layer #44 The Witcher)

Orwho (layer #45 Doctor Who)

Hunter (layer #47 HxH)

Edi/Lacie Afton (layer #49 FNaF)*

Evi/Fey (layer #50 Resident Evil)

Cana Morgasdotir (layer #51 The Arcana visual novel)

Eym Marian ( layer #54 D-Grey Man)

Rea (Layer #55 Great Priest Imophtept)

Mag (layer #57 The Magnus Archives)

Easter (Layer #58 I'm The Grim Reaper)

Deam (Layer #59 Ava's Demons)

Cath (Layer #60 Call of Cthlhu)

Noce (Layer#62 The second coming of Gluttony)

Neo Dracule (Layer#63 One Piece)*

Ace Armando (layer #65 Ace Attorney)

Juju Sukuna (layer #67 Jujutsu Kaisen)*

Van Em Moire (layer #68 The case study of Vanitas)

Tai (layer #69 bis, worldless)

Sai (layer #72 Doctor Stone)

Echo (layer #75 Records of Ragnarock)

Marcie Lombardie (layer #76 I'll be the matriatch in this life)

Dia (layer #77 Tomb Raider King)

Tally (layer #79 Fairy Tail)

Taka (layer #85 SNK)

Durian of the Sand (layer #89 Naruto)

Fuka (layer #92 Wakfu)

Amaris (layer #93 Candy Love)

Syllas (layer #95 Style Boutique)

Mashi (layer #96 Chainsaw Man)

Mother, the creator

Azurre (layer #97 Star Wars)*

Caïn (layer #101 Winx Club)

Even More !!

Slayer, the annoying 'uncle'

Helg Odinson (God of War oc)

Mun - Me !

* these layers have alternates. If not specified, i'll assume you're talking to the main one

#the layers #long post #the Egoes #this shit is long man #master post #am i going to tag all the fandoms ? #probably #i regzrt it already #let's just put those I'm currently in #blue exorcist oc #black clover oc #saint seiya oc #bnha oc #jjk oc #the arcana oc #tomb raider king oc #doctor stone oc

[betsypaige22]

This is such a great interview....god, I miss Bobby. I’ve posted this because otherwise you need to be a subscriber...

I have to be honest, picturing Bobby doing this particular yoga pose makes me need to take a cold shower, lol. The part about his kids asking if he’s going to leave them is heartbreaking ....😭😭. I do love that he’s still baking...

************************

Every Sunday morning the actor Robert Carlyle grabs his mat and heads off for a session of “restorative yoga” in the Canadian port city of Vancouver, where he lives. There is one particular pose — called a “chest-opener”; you lie back, arms supported by bolsters, and release stress and feelings through the abdomen — that has produced remarkable results.

“You hold the pose for up to nine minutes and it releases emotions,” he says. “Out of nowhere I remembered this old lady leading me through the streets of Drumchapel in Glasgow when I was about seven years old, to go to see some wrestling. I hadn’t remembered her since I was a kid. I just lay there crying.”

Carlyle was brought up by his father, Joe, after his mother, Elizabeth, walked out to be with another man when he was four. His father was a painter and decorator, and the pair lived an itinerant existence around the UK in communes, shared houses and even tents. They lived in almost 100 homes. The old woman was his grandmother, Jean, who stepped in to help sometimes.

“That’s what set me off,” Carlyle says. “The realisation that this old woman was my dad’s mum, born in 1895 and survivor of two world wars. And here she was in her seventies, looking out for me when my dad was struggling to get to work.”

Carlyle left school at 16 and followed his father into painting and decorating. Aged 22, he discovered acting and, without formal training, appeared in The Hard Man, Tom McGrath’s play about the notorious Glasgow gangster Jimmy Boyle. After this he was encouraged to enrol at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland).

In the early 1990s he made a name for himself in the ITV detective series Cracker, as well as playing Begbie, the charismatic psycho in the screen adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel Trainspotting. Carlyle was lauded as a raw talent able to articulate a new “dirty realism”, although it was his role in the 1997 stripper comedy The Full Monty and as James Bond’s ex-KGB nemesis Renard in the 1999 film The World is Not Enough that catapulted him to international stardom.

“I went through a stage of being very angry about my mother, and that helped to fuel some of those roles,” he says. “As for Begbie in Trainspotting, that was partly me and partly the odd genuine psycho I had encountered in Glasgow.”

At the height of his fame in the 1990s Carlyle was at the centre of Cool Britannia and simultaneously friends with Damon Albarn from Blur and Noel Gallagher, then in Oasis (Carlyle appeared in the video for the single Little By Little). Tony Blair even recommended him for an OBE in the 1998 new year’s honours list. And yet, while at drama school Carlyle feared he might never get work because he wasn’t “posh”.

Now he has come full circle because he is about to play the fictional British prime minister Robert Sutherland in the new six-part Sky drama series Cobra. “Before I opened the script, I actually thought it was about a snake,” he says. “That’s what living away from home does to you.”

Cobra in fact refers to the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms, the government’s crisis centre where national emergencies from terrorist attacks to natural disasters are handled. In this case the threat comes from a geomagnetic storm resulting from a solar flare that is threatening the worldwide electrical infrastructure. Kettles stop boiling. Cities go dark. Planes drop from the sky.

Carlyle is rigorous in his preparation for roles. When cast as a bus driver in Ken Loach’s 1996 film Carla’s Song he qualified as one. “For a working-class guy from Glasgow, being a prime minister was always going to be challenging,” he says. “I listened to tapes of posh Scottish MPs like [the former foreign secretary] Sir Malcolm Rifkind. He’ll sound like a Scot most of the time, but there are certain turns of phrase when you think, ‘Are you sure this guy is for real?’”

Keen-eyed viewers will have seen Carlyle in the BBC’s adaptation of HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds as the “potentially gay” astronomer Ogilvy. But perhaps only true aficionados will have spotted him as John Lennon in the Beatles tribute film Yesterday. He appeared as a counterfactual, 78-year-old Lennon enjoying his dotage in a bungalow by the sea. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr approved, but Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono wasn’t happy. “She didn’t like the idea of people seeing John get old, which I understand, but [the director] Danny Boyle argued that John is revered public property,” Carlyle says.

Carlyle wouldn’t accept a credit for the role. “That felt like too much. The chance to play a hero was enough. I don’t think it hurts to occasionally do things for love.”

Lennon’s relationship with his mother, Julia, was fractured too of course, and after a turbulent adolescence and having reached the top of his professional game, Carlyle came to yearn for a family. “I could go anywhere and have anything. [The 1990s] were an extraordinary time. But even then, I was quite a shy person, and I wanted kids and a home and a wife. Every day I am thankful that I found the most fantastic woman to do that with.”

Carlyle met his wife, the make-up artist Anastasia Shirley, while working on Cracker, and they have three children: Ava, 17, Harvey, 15, and Pearce, 13. After ten years in Vancouver, where Carlyle was making the US series Once Upon a Time, his children consider themselves Canadian. Sometimes they ask about his upbringing, an era referred to as his “black and white years”. “‘Dad, tell us about the black and white years,’ they say. It’s pretty heavy telling children about your mother leaving because they look frightened and say, ‘Are you going to bugger off as well?’ When I’ve reassured them, they just look sad. So I say to them, ‘Don’t be sad for me, I got all the love I ever needed. I don’t feel angry or aggrieved. It was her that missed out.’”

Carlyle’s father died of a heart attack in 2006, and in an attempt to work through his grief Carlyle embarked on a tour of the homes they shared together. “That tour was about confirming I had lived that life,” he says. “I’ve been honoured at Buckingham Palace. I’ve done a Bond movie. But I’ve also slept rough with my old man under Brighton pier. It can mess with your head. Going back reminded me where I’m from. I sat in the car weeping.”

For now the family remain in Canada while the children complete their schooling. At weekends he takes them to football, bakes bread (Carlyle taught himself after discovering that Lennon was an accomplished home baker) and the family sometimes go for walks in a local forest.

He celebrated New Year’s Eve in Scotland with his old friend Robert del Naja from Massive Attack and, sooner or later, the family will return for good. It’s striking that Carlyle has not lost his accent. “You don’t lose the accent unless you want to,” he says with a smile. “I love our life in Canada. It’s a beautiful country with beautiful people. But I only have to do a couple of yoga poses to know I’ve got a lot of Britain still inside of me.”

All episodes of Cobra are available from January 17 on Sky One and NOW TV

ROBERT CARLYLE’S PERFECT WEEKEND

Trainspotting or stamp collecting?

Neither — football

Independence or unity?

Unity and collaboration, always

Glasgow or Sheffield?

Glasgow

Green juice for breakfast or the full monty?

Full monty

Night in or night out?

Night in

Last film you saw?

Joker

Country walk or personal trainer?

Country walk

How many unread emails in your inbox?

Around 2,000

What’s your signature dish?

Pasta

I couldn’t get through my weekend without . . .

Football

#robert carlyle

[pinchtheprincess]

Every Sunday morning the actor Robert Carlyle grabs his mat and heads off for a session of “restorative yoga” in the Canadian port city of Vancouver, where he lives. There is one particular pose — called a “chest-opener”; you lie back, arms supported by bolsters, and release stress and feelings through the abdomen — that has produced remarkable results.

“You hold the pose for up to nine minutes and it releases emotions,” he says. “Out of nowhere I remembered this old lady leading me through the streets of Drumchapel in Glasgow when I was about seven years old, to go to see some wrestling. I hadn’t remembered her since I was a kid. I just lay there crying.”

Carlyle was brought up by his father, Joe, after his mother, Elizabeth, walked out to be with another man when he was four. His father was a painter and decorator, and the pair lived an itinerant existence around the UK in communes, shared houses and even tents. They lived in almost 100 homes. The old woman was his grandmother, Jean, who stepped in to help sometimes.

“That’s what set me off,” Carlyle says. “The realisation that this old woman was my dad’s mum, born in 1895 and survivor of two world wars. And here she was in her seventies, looking out for me when my dad was struggling to get to work.”

Carlyle left school at 16 and followed his father into painting and decorating. Aged 22, he discovered acting and, without formal training, appeared in The Hard Man, Tom McGrath’s play about the notorious Glasgow gangster Jimmy Boyle. After this he was encouraged to enrol at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland).

In the early 1990s he made a name for himself in the ITV detective series Cracker, as well as playing Begbie, the charismatic psycho in the screen adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel Trainspotting. Carlyle was lauded as a raw talent able to articulate a new “dirty realism”, although it was his role in the 1997 stripper comedy The Full Monty and as James Bond’s ex-KGB nemesis Renard in the 1999 film The World is Not Enough that catapulted him to international stardom.

“I went through a stage of being very angry about my mother, and that helped to fuel some of those roles,” he says. “As for Begbie in Trainspotting, that was partly me and partly the odd genuine psycho I had encountered in Glasgow.”

At the height of his fame in the 1990s Carlyle was at the centre of Cool Britannia and simultaneously friends with Damon Albarn from Blur and Noel Gallagher, then in Oasis (Carlyle appeared in the video for the single Little By Little). Tony Blair even recommended him for an OBE in the 1998 new year’s honours list. And yet, while at drama school Carlyle feared he might never get work because he wasn’t “posh”.

Now he has come full circle because he is about to play the fictional British prime minister Robert Sutherland in the new six-part Sky drama series Cobra. “Before I opened the script, I actually thought it was about a snake,” he says. “That’s what living away from home does to you.”

Cobra in fact refers to the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms, the government’s crisis centre where national emergencies from terrorist attacks to natural disasters are handled. In this case the threat comes from a geomagnetic storm resulting from a solar flare that is threatening the worldwide electrical infrastructure. Kettles stop boiling. Cities go dark. Planes drop from the sky.

Carlyle is rigorous in his preparation for roles. When cast as a bus driver in Ken Loach’s 1996 film Carla’s Song he qualified as one. “For a working-class guy from Glasgow, being a prime minister was always going to be challenging,” he says. “I listened to tapes of posh Scottish MPs like [the former foreign secretary] Sir Malcolm Rifkind. He’ll sound like a Scot most of the time, but there are certain turns of phrase when you think, ‘Are you sure this guy is for real?’”

Keen-eyed viewers will have seen Carlyle in the BBC’s adaptation of HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds as the “potentially gay” astronomer Ogilvy. But perhaps only true aficionados will have spotted him as John Lennon in the Beatles tribute film Yesterday. He appeared as a counterfactual, 78-year-old Lennon enjoying his dotage in a bungalow by the sea. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr approved, but Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono wasn’t happy. “She didn’t like the idea of people seeing John get old, which I understand, but [the director] Danny Boyle argued that John is revered public property,” Carlyle says.

Carlyle wouldn’t accept a credit for the role. “That felt like too much. The chance to play a hero was enough. I don’t think it hurts to occasionally do things for love.”

Lennon’s relationship with his mother, Julia, was fractured too of course, and after a turbulent adolescence and having reached the top of his professional game, Carlyle came to yearn for a family. “I could go anywhere and have anything. [The 1990s] were an extraordinary time. But even then, I was quite a shy person, and I wanted kids and a home and a wife. Every day I am thankful that I found the most fantastic woman to do that with.”

Carlyle met his wife, the make-up artist Anastasia Shirley, while working on Cracker, and they have three children: Ava, 17, Harvey, 15, and Pearce, 13. After ten years in Vancouver, where Carlyle was making the US series Once Upon a Time, his children consider themselves Canadian. Sometimes they ask about his upbringing, an era referred to as his “black and white years”. “‘Dad, tell us about the black and white years,’ they say. It’s pretty heavy telling children about your mother leaving because they look frightened and say, ‘Are you going to bugger off as well?’ When I’ve reassured them, they just look sad. So I say to them, ‘Don’t be sad for me, I got all the love I ever needed. I don’t feel angry or aggrieved. It was her that missed out.’”

Carlyle’s father died of a heart attack in 2006, and in an attempt to work through his grief Carlyle embarked on a tour of the homes they shared together. “That tour was about confirming I had lived that life,” he says. “I’ve been honoured at Buckingham Palace. I’ve done a Bond movie. But I’ve also slept rough with my old man under Brighton pier. It can mess with your head. Going back reminded me where I’m from. I sat in the car weeping.”

For now the family remain in Canada while the children complete their schooling. At weekends he takes them to football, bakes bread (Carlyle taught himself after discovering that Lennon was an accomplished home baker) and the family sometimes go for walks in a local forest.

He celebrated New Year’s Eve in Scotland with his old friend Robert del Naja from Massive Attack and, sooner or later, the family will return for good. It’s striking that Carlyle has not lost his accent. “You don’t lose the accent unless you want to,” he says with a smile. “I love our life in Canada. It’s a beautiful country with beautiful people. But I only have to do a couple of yoga poses to know I’ve got a lot of Britain still inside of me.”

All episodes of Cobra are available from January 17 on Sky One and NOW TV

ROBERT CARLYLE’S PERFECT WEEKEND

Trainspotting or stamp collecting?

Neither — football

Independence or unity?

Unity and collaboration, always

Glasgow or Sheffield?

Glasgow

Green juice for breakfast or the full monty?

Full monty

Night in or night out?

Night in

Last film you saw?

Joker

Country walk or personal trainer?

Country walk

How many unread emails in your inbox?

Around 2,000

What’s your signature dish?

Pasta

I couldn’t get through my weekend without . . .

Football

#robert carlyle #rc interviews #yoga #vancouver #family #rc photoshoots #GODS HE LOOKS SO GOOD #love that jacket

[yanceyrenee-blog]

Chapter 39 A Christmas Pageant

It is two weeks before Christmas and life is insane. The kids at the center are bouncing off the walls with excitement. I have just finished finals for first quarter so I have a month off. We put a tree up in Sarah's Place and a nativity set. The tree has lights on it and the kids are making ornaments. The children also play nativity using dress up clothes. They dress up like Mary and Joseph. The center will be closed from Monday of next week until the first of the year. Two weeks. My gift for my husband this Christmas is a week of that time in the honeymoon cabin. Just relaxing. " Miss Sarah. Come see." Kevin calls out from the table where he sits molding a manger out of playdoo. " Very good Kevin." I encourage him. At the other table Ava and Grace are rolling out ornaments that we will bake for them and them have them decorate. Meghan and Michael sit decorating some that are already done. Jason helps Kevin with the playdoo nativity. When they are all done and are resting, I lead Josiah into the officecomitell him about a phone call I recieved from Julia. " She called to tell me she is pregnant." I tell him. " That is wonderful for them." He is enthusiastic until he sees my face." Oh baby. I am sorry." He opens his arms to me and I climb into his lap like one of the kids. " I am happy for them." I say through ny tears," I just wish it could be us." " Me too," he whispers in my ear," Do you want to start the adoption paperwork?" We had discussed this before. We had talked about waiting until I was done with school. But my heart aches to hold my own child. I nod my head against his chest and say, " Yes." " Okay baby, right after Christmas." I sigh and we just hold each other until it is time to get the kids up. Friday that week is the last day the children will be there until after the new year. Their parents are coming in early to watch the Nativity play they are putting on. They have put it together all on their own. There is also gifts to hand out. Candy canes are sneaked off the tree. We give each child a gift from us. A New Testament in either pink or blue as well as a toy based on what we have seen them play with the most. They also recieve a bag of candy that is handed to their parents. They give their parents an ornament that they have made for their family tree, cookies they have helped make and decorate, and a ton of finger painting and other art projects. We sit the parents down on their children's tiny seats. Mary and Joseph, played by Grace and Kevin enter from the kitchen, and seat on the floor. Mary cradles her favorite baby doll as Jesus. Ava and Meghan then enter with fairy wings from the dress up box and stand behind them watching over the Holy Family. Lastly, Michael and Jason come in carrying sticks from the backyard and stuffed animal lambs. They stop in front of the family and drop to their knees. No one speaks a word but they tell the story. It is a holy moment. Sarah leans up against me crying. I see no dry eye in the entire room. They, these wiggle worm children, keep their poses for ten minutes and you could hear a pin drop in the room. When they break their poses and stand and bow, we give them a standing ovation. " They really thought to do that all on their own?" asks Meghan's daddy wiping tears off his face. " Yes sir they really did. Costumes and all." The children come to their parents for hugs and congratulations. They then come to Sarah and I and Josh and Kate. We all hug them tight telling them to be good, say their prayers, and that we would miss them. As the last child leaves, we collapse on the floor, laughing and crying as we recall the last two months. We clean up and close down the center for the next two weeks. I give Josh and Kate presents from Sarah and I and hugs and thanks for all the work they have done. Sarah and I then head home for much needed rest.

[theechosas]

2019 Season 2 APAC Recaps

           Table Tennis

Courtesy of Athletic Council 

It was all cheers and shouts when Daniel Kwan hit the game-ending shot that not only won him the match, but also his school’s second APAC table tennis title in a row. “It was a great relief since everyone was stressed from losing a doubles match that was very close and was pretty thrown off their game,” said Kwan. “I was pretty stressed too,” he added. The boy’s table tennis team threaded the needle against HKIS at WAB, winning by a narrow one point. An unconventional tournament format meant that the six members on the APAC squad had to be split into two teams of three, playing other teams of three towards an aggregate school score in a best of five format. There was no bracket play, rather, teams accrued points by winning matches – one point per win and none for a loss. As the tournament approached its eleventh hour, the combined SASPX teams had a one-point lead on HKIS. Playing against their Pudong counterparts, the team had to win at least one of their final two matches if they wanted to retain their APAC title. The team lost a reportedly pugnacious, and close, doubles match in which three players were given yellow cards for bad sportsmanship. It was up to Daniel to deliver the team their victory, and they were ecstatic when he did. “It is really hard to describe how excited I was when we won,” said Jon Shih, a junior on the team. “Especially after that toxic doubles match, I’m just so glad we won.” That was the team event. There were also singles and doubles brackets, but this year’s team didn’t excel in either of those. Chris Shih and Myles Zhou, both seniors, finished sixth in the doubles rankings, and they “didn’t expect much more,” said Chris. Nonetheless, the team shifted the tides to work in their favor, even against better individual players. “We do not have players with the best individual skill,” said Chris, who also is this year’s captain. “We are strongest as a team, and I think our win for the school really shows that.”   The rest of the tournament typified a good experience for Chris. “Super performance from everyone on the team, it was much better than the coach’s expectations,” he said. “There was also a lot of laughter and positivity, and I will miss it next year for sure.” 

Courtesy of Athletic Council

The girl’s APAC followed an identical tournament format. In the team event they placed third, and they had some well-deserved singles and doubles results. Aily Nishioka, the senior captain of the team, had a remarkable fourth place finish in the singles event. In a surprising twist, all six of the players made it past their preliminary rounds in the doubles event, effectively making almost forty percent of the final playoff bracket SASPX. “It was really exciting when all six of our players made it into the championship bracket for doubles,” said Shannon Ooi, a sophomore. “It turned out to be our strongest event.”

While they were not as successful as the boys in the team event, by no means did they not perform well. “Everyone tried their best and played at their finest level, said Chu Chuan Wu, a senior. “Aily was also constantly there leading the team and motivating the players.” When they weren’t ping ponging balls across the net, the team glued well and spent the majority of their free time with each other. “We definitely had a lot of team bonding during the event,” said Chu Chuan. “During lunch, dinner, bus rides, and in the room.”

Leonard Lee

Forensics

Courtesy of Athletic Council

      On Thursday, January 24th, SAS Puxi hosted the opening ceremony of APAC Forensics, kicking off a week of exciting debates, impassioned performances, and speeches that touched, provoked, and impacted. SAS Puxi went into the event with heavy expectations on their shoulders, being the defending APAC champions for the fourth year in a row. Moreover, the team went in with a certain degree of trepidation – the team lost 6 seniors last year, all of whom were experts in their field of performance.

"We had no idea what to expect going into APAC. In previous years, our team had been about equally strong across the board, but our team composition this year was almost entirely new," remarks senior Matt Song, with senior Marcus Khoo adding that "[they] stood on the shoulders of giants" in past years, but now had to face an uncertain competition without the alumni.

In spite of this, however, the Puxi Forensics team practiced endlessly and adapted, walking out of the tournament as champions for the 5th year in a row! Remarkably, the young team achieved great success with "at least one finalist in every category, and all three speakers broke to finals for Extemporaneous and Impromptu speaking," according to Matt Song. This was particularly impressive given that despite most members in impromptu being new to APAC forensics, all got into finals. These points were all fundamental in allowing Puxi to edge past Concordia to claim the championship title.

Particularly, junior Ted Chang shone, with him managing to place in Solo Acting despite having been "put out of his comfort zone" in an event completely new to him, according to Marcus Khoo. He also placed in the finals of Debate, and as 2nd best individual speaker in each event. Additional individual highlights include Marcus Khoo winning debate and placing second in impromptu, Annelise Vella placing in finals for both Original Oratory and Solo Acting, and Matt Song placing 3rd in Impromptu and winning the title of champion and best speaker in debate.

Marcus Khoo and Matt Song jointly swept through the debate tournament, winning the vote of every judge they presented to. In addition to these stand out performances though, Matt Song also remarks that "we retained consistency across other events as well, and every single one of our speakers had cause for pride in this tournament.” Although the team will be losing two seniors, (Matt and Marcus), this year's APAC has proven that the juniors and underclassmen have what it takes to continue to Puxi legacy of winning APAC. "It's a really really great thing to see the that the younger members of the team are rising up to the occasion, especially given that we lost a lot of specialists in events over the last couple of years," remarks Marcus. If this year's performances are anything to go by, we can be sure that SAS Puxi Forensics will continue to harness words and emotions to delight, entertain, and ultimately compete.

Evian Chai

SAS SWIM TEAM FINISHES STRONG AT APAC:

BOYS 3RD, GIRLS 4TH OVERALL

The SAS swim team delivered an impressive performance at this year’s APAC Swimming Championships, held at WAB. There were new records, top-place finishes, and personal bests abound on both the boys’ and girls’ teams.

The boy’s team finished strong in 3rd place. Freshman Rafael Gu delivered a truly outstanding performance, smashing previous APAC records in all five of his events; he currently holds the APAC swimming records for 100 free (49.79 seconds), 50 back (26.28), 100 IM (57.68), 100 back (57.03), and 200 free (1:49.49). “I felt like there were parts of my race that needed a little more polishing,” Gu remarks, “but overall I am proud of my times and performance.” Gu and juniors Nolan Liu, and Barron Han, and Brian Lung also broke the previous APAC record in the boys’ 4x50 medley relay, placing second behind the ISB team. “We all swam personal bests,” says Han. “ISB just beat us for the gold.” Other highlights include Liu’s first place finishes in 100 and 50 fly, as well as Liu and Han placing second and third respectively in 200 IM.

Courtesy of Athletic Council

The girl’s team also delivered a solid performance, placing 4th overall. Sophomore Annalie Yu broke her own APAC record for 50 back during the prelims, and went on to place second in the official event. Yu also placed second for 50 free and third for the 100 back event. In addition, sophomore Ava Romanelli, junior Jacqueline Cheng, and seniors Renee Pearce and Meilee Sharan came in third place for the 200 free relay. “We went beyond our expectations,” says Cheng. Other notable finishes include sophomore Emelie Edberg placing third for 50 breast and Yu, Sharan, Edberg, and senior Annie Chen’s combined 4th place finish in the 200 medley relay.

Beyond their times and placements, the SAS swim team is connected by their shared grit and perseverance, which has taken them far in their own performances as well as their support of each other. “When we’re walking to the blocks we can see and hear our teammates in the stands cheering us on,” says Cheng, adding: “I’m proud of the resilience of our team. Sometimes we do run into challenges…but we have the ability to reunite and encourage each other.” Gu agrees: “Even though our team was struggling to get a high ranking, we didn't give up and we kept on trying our best.”

Lydia Ying

Super APAC Basketball

Varsity Girls Takes 3rd Place, and Varsity Boys Finishes 7th

This year, Super APAC basketball took place at HKIS for boys and Concordia for girls, and both teams fought admirably in tough games to end the season.

Despite a finishing second in their group after the initial round robin, the Varsity Girls advanced to the semifinals with tough wins against worthy competition. In the first round of elimination, the team came out with a 46-45 win over SFS behind an explosive 15-point quarter from Alice Qin. In the quarterfinals, the Varsity Girls upset the defending APAC champions, SAS Pudong, after tremendous shooting performances from Kaitlyn Shi (5 threes) and Julia Markmann. Unfortunately, the team fell to Brent in the semifinals after Brent was able to pull away late in the 4th quarter. Even with the tough loss, they redeemed themselves in a 37-31 win against AISG to secure a third place finish. 

Julia Markmann also became the all-time leading scorer for the SASPX Girls Basketball program, breaking alumni Candice Choi’s record after the third game of the tournament.

Although it was an imperfect finish to the season, the growth that the team underwent outweighed the end results. “Even though we started the season with many losses— at one point having a 7-game losing streak— we came back and didn’t stop playing.” Julia Markmann said. “The whole team improved and stepped up their game.”

“We lost in the semifinals, but we finished with a huge win” Julia concluded. “I’m glad to have been able to experience our mass improvement from the first game to the last game we played.”

Courtesy of Athletic Council 

The Varsity boys started the tournament with an impressive 48-31 win over ISB in the round robin game, but fell to Brent to finish as a second seed in their group. After blowing out UNIS in a 55-24 win in the first round of elimination, the team unfortunately fell to HKIS in a 5-point loss in the quarter finals. The team had another tough 10-point loss against SFS to drop to the 7/8 game, but finished with a 27-point win against WAB to place 7th in the tournament.  

The team obviously fell short of its goals, but it continued to play its hardest. “We kept on playing strong and finished each game with all our efforts.” Lucas Meyring said. “We went into each game with a positive mindset thinking that we are not going to back down from any challenge.”

The tournament was also an event that extended beyond the activities on the court. “Other than basketball, APAC was the perfect opportunity for team bonding.” Lucas explained. “I learned a lot about my teammates, not just as basketball players, but as people off the court, and hopefully our relationship will carry on through the future.”

The JV teams also experienced success in their end-of-season tournament. The JV boys finished first in JAPAC while the JV girls finished third.

Alice Qin

#@Alice Qin #@Evian Chai #@LydiaYing #@Athletic Council #school

[wallpaperpainting]

13 Various Ways To Do Benjamin Moore Beach Plum | benjamin moore beach plum

NEW CANAAN, CT — Hundreds of aggressive New Canaan High Academy acceptance accomplished third division High Honors and Honors status, academy admiral announced.

To accomplish High Honors status, a apprentice charge advance a 90 boilerplate during the quarter, according to academy officials. To accomplish Honors status, they charge advance an 85 average.

Below is the abounding account of names, alphabetically by grade. Congratulations to all the students:

Grade 12 High HonorsRiana Afshar, Fallon Arnone, Maria Estelle Asker, Alexis Axon, Brooke Barber, Claire Batchelor, Ryan Benevento, Audrey Bloom, Olivia Bognon, Caitlin Bradley, Claire Brunner, Alexandra Budnick, Brian Campe, Jackson Camporin, Alexandra Carlson, Isabelle Carpenter, Christopher Carratu, Mario Castaldo, Tara Chugh, Naomi Cimino, Bartholomew Codd, Helen Culpepper, Sophie Curcio, Elise Curren, Leila Dann, William Dantini, Griffen Dayton, Elizabeth DeMarino, Vivian Ding, Heather Doherty, Elizabeth Dolan, Emma Dunlap, Katherine Dunn, Mia Fedeli, Tessa Fieldman, Kiera Joanne Finnerty, Taylor Frame, Charlotte Gardner, Paula Graham, Liam Griffiths, Drew Guida, Amanda Hall, Alexandra Harte, Brian Hartz, Grace Higgins, Elizabeth Hirai, Nicholas Hoge, Steven Hoge, Sofia Ippolito, Andrew Jameson, Alyssa Khoo, Emily Knight, Cella Kove, Elizabeth Kuchinski, Zachary LaPolice, Allison Leopold, Katherine Lisecky, Natalie Lopez, Ryan Lytle, Thomas Marshall, Jordan McDonald, Anna Thérѐse Mehra, Alexander Meintzer, Andrew Mihailoff, Andrew Morse, Hudson Neleman, Theodore Nelson, Teresa Oliveira, Bennett Ong, Sophia Palamenti, Cortland Parrott, Dylan Pescatore, Martina Pincione, Alexa Pittaro, Lucy Potter, Sophie Potter, Olivia Prazenka Moor, Kristen Raffaele, John Renda, Charles Richardson, Megan Rigione, Skyler Risom, Colin Russo, Karoline Sauan Gregorian, Luciana Savini, Riley Seelert, Katharine Shaughnessy, Mark Silber, Fiona Stevens, Georgia Stewart, Maggie Streinger, Hannah Suthons, Thomas Suthons, Andrew Symon, Isha Teredesai, Caroline Tuffy, Michael Turiano, Emma Uzgiris, Dustin Valenti, Sofia Vallejo Luna, Colin Vetterli, Meredith Waldron, Thomas Welch, Justin Wietfeldt, Eric Wills, Sophia Yee, Emma Youngman

Grade 11 High HonorsAshley Abate, Chloe Adams, Pahal Ahuja, Saimanish Akavaramu, Alexis Angermueller, Harrison Appelt, Oliver Arrix, Matthew Balkun, Julia Bazata, Evan Beiles, Matthew Benevento, William Besgen, Gabriella Bisesi, Aidan Blair, Charles Borthwick, William Bozzella, Gavin Bramwit, Caroline Brooks, Charles Brossy, Reid Brown, Blaine Burke, Nicolas Butler, Colin Byrne, Emma Caione, Ryan Caione, Bryce Campbell, Christopher Canet, Henry Cannon, Steven Capelo, Julia Carpi, Alexa Carrillo, Darby Carroll, Christian Carson, Annabelle Catlin, John Catlin, Alexandra Cioffi, Benjamin Clay, Wesley Cloud, Lydon Cooney, Ryan Corbett, Gretchen Crane, Daisy Crystal, James Dathan, John Dayton, Edmund DeClue, Sarah DiCosmo, Hannah Doka, Noah Dorfsman, Mason Dorman, Demetria Dresser, John Eccleston, Marina Forni, Charlotte Frank, Andrew Frederick, William Galvan, Boden Gammill, Charlotte Gelhaus, Edward Gentner, Eren Geray, Emma Gibbens, Riley Gibbons, Alexandra Gillespie, Ava Gjertsen, John Goetz, Benjamin Graham, Andrea Gravereaux, Madison Grenauer, Meghan Griffiths, William Grigsby, Elyssa Grogan, Jack Grogan, William Haddad, Maddie Haley, Lindsay Hall, Addison Hanrattie, McKenna Harden, Oliver Harris, John Harrison, Sophie Havens, Fiona Hickey, Anna Higgins, Shea Hobbs, Annika Holmberg, Colton Howe, William Hynes, Samuel Ives, Ethan Jones, Shannon Jordan, Sophia Karimnejad, August Kelliher, Dylan Kortman, Neya Krishnan, Alexandra Kurz, Dhiraj Kuttichirayil,

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[salmenzo]

Weekly Update - Monday, June 4, 2018

Empathize – Embrace – Empower 

“Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news.  The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish!  

And what your potential is!”

Anne Frank

 Good Morning,

What an amazing weekend filled with unexpectedly beautiful weather.  As we have known the case to be in the past, the weather forecasters initially had Saturday being a washout.  What a wonderful surprise to have two sun-soaked days with warm temperatures. I have already put my order in for similar weather on Friday, June 22, 2018.

This week, like last, is filled with events honoring students.  From the CNA pinning this evening to the Rotary Club Leadership Luncheon later in the week, this is the time of year where we all get to take a moment to appreciate the hard work and accomplishments of our students.  In hearing of the scholastic and extracurricular achievements of so many students, I do not want staff to forget the role each plays in providing these opportunities and outcomes for students.  Thank you for your efforts in the classroom as well as on the field and stage!

At the end of last week, 7 students represented Wallingford at the National Invention Conventions in in Dearborn, Michigan!

Pictured above are Ella Cranmer, Thomas Barron, Patrick Giamettei, Katie Russell, Grace Moriarty, Ty Holloway, and Audrey Larson. We are very proud of all of their accomplishments.  

Below is a link to a New Yorker article on Audrey Larson’s most recent invention.  Audrey won 2nd place in the 9th grade category.  She also won the United Technologies Award for Durability, and she won the Patent Award for the second year in a row! 

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-fourteen-year-old-inventor-trying-to-protect-other-children-from-being-shot-at-school

Thank you to all of the families and staff for this support as they continue their inventing journey.

In the arts last week, at the 15th Annual Halo Awards Tuesday evening, Sheehan High School students Eliana Tolentino won the Best Up and Coming Award for her portrayal of Rosie Alvarez in Bye Bye Birdie and Ava Julia won Best Supporting Actress in a Classical Musical for her portrayal of Kim MacAfee in Bye Bye Birdie. What incredible achievements!  On Friday evening, Lyman Hall High School held the 25th Annual Pops Concert. Again, this was an amazing display of student talent.  

On the field, Lyman Hall High School and Sheehan High School girls’ softball teams had a successful run in the recent state tournament.  They exceeded expectations and represented our district into the quarterfinals.  Last week, Moran Middle School boys track and field team won the 25th Annual Middle School State Championship at Manchester High School.  The Moran Middle School girls’ team finished second.  This week, there are several other events going on in which our students are competing.  

Needless to say, there is a lot to be proud of in Wallingford!

Empathize – Embrace – Empower

As the year draws to a close, I want to encourage everyone to continue to focus on this year’s three words - Empathize – Embrace – Empower.  Over the years, the end of the year can be very challenging for many of us.  For students, parents, and staff, the end of the year, while exciting on one hand, can be very unnerving on the other. Nervousness about the uncertainty of the summer and/or next year, can impact how people act, what people say, and how people feel.  I just ask that we all be mindful of this.  

What you can do to help will be based on the individual.  It may be space that is needed, or it may be a kind word of encouragement.  Whatever is suited for the person and situation, I know it will be greatly appreciated.  Thank you for considering these thoughts as we continue to work to empathize, embrace, and empower all members of our learning community.

 Make it a great week! 

 Sal 

 Dr. Salvatore F. Menzo 

Superintendent 

Email - [email protected] 

Twitter - @SalMenzo 

Instagram - @Dr.SalMenzo 

Wallingford Public School District 

 Wallingford Public School System Mission 

To inspire through innovative and engaging experiences that lead all learners to pursue and discover their personal best. 

 THE INFORMATION IN THIS TRANSMISSION IS PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL AND INTENDED ONLY FOR THE RECIPIENT LISTED ABOVE.  If you have received this transmission in error, please NOTIFY ME IMMEDIATELY BY E-MAIL AND DELETE THE ORIGINAL MESSAGE. Responses provided by this E-Mail are SIMILAR to ordinary telephone or face-to-face conversations. 

[ladiesbodyperfume059-blog]

Ladies Body Perfume Poll Of The Day

Things Ladies with Perfect Skin Do

Everybody recognizes at the very least one lady with relatively ideal skin. Whenever you see her radiant face, you believe, seriously, exactly how does she do it? What type of enchanting treatments is she obtaining? Which pricey lotions is she utilizing? Right here are things: Her trick is easy-- she has perfect skin since she's toenailed the most effective everyday regimen.

1. She utilizes the appropriate cleanser for her skin kind.

“For oily or acne vulnerable skin, a salicylic gel or benzoyl peroxide laundry functions fantastic," states Dr. Ava Shamban, a skin specialist in Santa Monica. "For completely dry fully grown skin, usage either a hydrating glycolic or milklike cleanser. For skin with brownish places or melasma, make use of a lightening up clean, such as an alpha hydroxy acid cleanser."

2. She consumes alcohol the ideal fluids.

Though it's alluring to order a coffee the min you awaken, Joanna Vargas, a skin care facialist in New York City, states selecting the best drinks can be a video game changer. "Consume alcohol a shot of chlorophyll every early morning to lighten up, oxygenate, and also moisturize your skin. Consuming alcohol chlorophyll additionally assists drainpipe puffiness by promoting the lymphatic system, so it's likewise great for cellulite." If you're not keen on downing a shot of right stuff, chlorophyll supplements can be located at numerous pharmacies as well as organic food shops. She likewise encouraged alcohol consumption environment-friendly juices with great deals of https://mciancio.com/topfemaleperfumes973/11-ways-to-completely-revamp-your-top-ladies-fragrances/ veggies in them: "It will certainly change your skin in an issue of days-- as well as it aids oxygenate the skin and also boosts lymphatic drain, so it's de-puffing, as well."

3. She keeps a healthy and balanced diet plan.

"Your skin has an all-natural obstacle to maintain dampness, as well as vital to that is omega-3 fat," Joanna Vargas encourages. "Flax seeds on your salad or perhaps walnuts will certainly be an instantaneous increase to your omega-3, therefore enhancing your skin's capability to keep wetness." As well as make sure to consume a diet regimen reduced in foods with a high glycemic index (straightforward as well as complicated carbs).

4. She hydrates each day and also evening.

"The most effective times to hydrate are right after you leave the shower as well as right before you go to sleep," discussed Dr. Janet Prystowsky MD, an NYC-based skin specialist. Stay clear of creams with hefty scents as well as be seen to it you discover a cream mild sufficient for every single day utilize with no inflammation.

5. Her fingers never touch her face.

Dr. Julia Tzu, and NYC-based skin doctor, claims this is extremely important. It does not simply spread out microorganisms as well as trigger outbreaks-- it could result in scarring, a boost increases, as well as influenza.

6. She does not utilize a lot of items.

Utilizing greater than 1 or 2 simultaneously is a huge no-no, claims Dr. Tzu. It can be severe on the skin, causing even more outbreaks and also clogged up pores.

7. She puts on sunblock 365 days a year-- rain or shine.

"Lots of people feel they have to secure themselves on warm days or when seeing the coastline," states Dr. Debbie Palmer, a New York City skin specialist. "Yet the reality is that we should secure our skin also when we're driving a vehicle, flying in a plane, or running duties. It's the everyday UV direct exposure that adds to the noticeable indicators of aging." What sort of sunblock is ideal? Pick a broad-spectrum sunblock with an SPF of 30 or better-- and also keep in mind that it should be reapplied every 2 hrs.

8. She moistens-- in every method feasible.

Every skin professional we talked to stressed the significance of hydration. "An absence of water suggests much less brilliance as well as even more droop," claims Dr. Mona Gohara, a skin doctor in Connecticut. She recommends selecting items (cleaning, hydrating, as well as anti-aging) that have hydrating solutions. As well as, obviously, consume around eight glasses of water a day.

9. She prevents straight warmth direct exposure.

Do not simply look out for the sunlight-- obtaining also near to heating units as well as fireplaces could additionally ruin your skin. "It triggers swelling \ and also collagen failure. I advise remaining at the very least 10 feet away," describes Dr. Palmer. So following time you're roasting chestnuts or s'mores over an open fire, take a go back.

10. She scrubs a couple of times each week.

"We shed 50 million skin cells a day, and also without a little-added push, they could spend time leaving the skin looking sullen," claims Dr. Gohara. To eliminate this, you need to "select an item that is pH neutral, so it does not completely dry as it scrubs." As well as do not simply quit with your face-- the skin on your body requires peeling, also.

11. She does not simply consume her vitamins.

A well-balanced diet regimen is necessary. However there are greater than one means to offer your skin vitamins. There are additionally topical anti-oxidants, which are lotions as well as lotions which contain active ingredients that nurture the skin. "These could assist to fix the skin from sunlight damages and also they likewise have all-natural sunblock residential or commercial properties," states Dr. Palmer. The very best time to use them is right after cleaning, or they can be layered under your sunblock for included defense.

12. She cleanses her makeup brushes on a regular basis.

To eliminate infection and also clogged up pores, Dr. Prystowsky suggests cleaning concealer and also structure brushes as soon as a week. For brushes you utilize around your eyes, she suggests two times monthly, and also for other brushes, as soon as a month is great. Right here's just how: Place a decline of a light hair shampoo right into the hand of your hand. Damp the bristles with warm water. After that, massage therapy the bristles right into your hand to disperse the hair shampoo right into the brush. Prevent obtaining the steel part of the brush wet/or the base of the brush hairs since the adhesive can soften as well as the bristles can befall. Wash the hair shampoo out and also eject the water with a towel. Lay the brushes on their side with the bristles hanging off the side of the counter to completely dry.

[womensbodyperfume025-blog]

How To Sell Best Female Perfume To A Skeptic

Things Ladies with Perfect Skin Do

Everybody recognizes at the very least one lady with relatively ideal skin. Whenever you see her radiant face, you believe, seriously, exactly how does she do it? What type of enchanting treatments is she obtaining? Which pricey lotions is she utilizing? Right here are things: Her trick is easy-- she has perfect skin since she's toenailed the most effective everyday regimen.

1. She utilizes the appropriate cleanser for her skin kind.

“For oily or acne vulnerable skin, a salicylic gel or benzoyl peroxide laundry functions fantastic," states Dr. Ava Shamban, a skin specialist in Santa Monica. "For completely dry fully grown skin, usage either a hydrating glycolic or milklike cleanser. For skin with brownish places or melasma, make use of a lightening up clean, such as an alpha hydroxy acid cleanser."

2. She consumes alcohol the ideal fluids.

Though it's alluring to order a coffee the min you awaken, Joanna Vargas, a skin care facialist in New York City, states selecting the best drinks can be a video game changer. "Consume alcohol a shot of chlorophyll every early morning to lighten up, oxygenate, and also moisturize your skin. Consuming alcohol chlorophyll additionally assists drainpipe puffiness by promoting the lymphatic system, so it's likewise great for cellulite." If you're not keen on downing a shot of right stuff, chlorophyll supplements can be located at numerous pharmacies as well as organic food shops. She likewise encouraged alcohol consumption environment-friendly juices with great deals of veggies in them: "It will certainly change your skin in an issue of days-- as well as it aids oxygenate the skin and also boosts lymphatic drain, so it's de-puffing, as well."

3. She keeps a healthy and balanced diet plan.

"Your skin has an all-natural obstacle to maintain dampness, as well as vital to that is omega-3 fat," Joanna Vargas encourages. "Flax seeds on your salad or perhaps walnuts will certainly be an instantaneous increase to your omega-3, therefore enhancing your skin's capability to keep wetness." As well as make sure to consume a diet regimen reduced in foods with a high glycemic index (straightforward as well as complicated carbs).

4. She hydrates each day and also evening.

"The most effective times to hydrate are right after you leave the shower as well as right before you go to sleep," discussed Dr. Janet Prystowsky MD, an NYC-based skin specialist. Stay clear of creams with hefty scents as well as be seen to it you discover a cream mild sufficient for every single day utilize with no inflammation.

5. Her fingers never touch her face.

Dr. Julia Tzu, and NYC-based skin doctor, claims this is extremely important. It does not simply spread out microorganisms as well as trigger outbreaks-- it could result in scarring, a boost increases, as well as influenza.

6. She does not utilize a lot of items.

Utilizing greater than 1 or 2 simultaneously is a huge no-no, claims Dr. Tzu. It can be severe on the skin, causing even more outbreaks and also clogged up pores.

7. She puts on sunblock 365 days a year-- rain or shine.

"Lots of people feel they have to secure themselves on warm days or when seeing the coastline," states Dr. Debbie Palmer, a New York City skin specialist. "Yet the reality is that we should secure our skin also when we're driving a vehicle, flying in a plane, or running duties. It's the everyday UV direct exposure that adds to the noticeable indicators of aging." What sort of sunblock is ideal? Pick a broad-spectrum sunblock with an SPF of 30 or better-- and also keep in mind that it should be reapplied every 2 hrs.

8. She moistens-- in every method feasible.

Every skin professional we talked to stressed the significance of hydration. "An absence of water suggests much less brilliance as well as even more droop," claims Dr. Mona Gohara, a skin doctor in Connecticut. She recommends selecting items (cleaning, hydrating, as well as anti-aging) that have hydrating solutions. As well as, obviously, consume around eight glasses of water a day.

9. She prevents straight warmth direct exposure.

Do not simply look out for the sunlight-- obtaining also near to heating units as well as fireplaces could additionally ruin your skin. "It triggers swelling \ and also collagen failure. I advise remaining at the very least 10 http://www.avroyshlain.co.za/index.php/mens-fragrance feet away," describes Dr. Palmer. So following time you're roasting chestnuts or s'mores over an open fire, take a go back.

10. She scrubs a couple of times each week.

"We shed 50 million skin cells a day, and also without a little-added push, they could spend time leaving the skin looking sullen," claims Dr. Gohara. To eliminate this, you need to "select an item that is pH neutral, so it does not completely dry as it scrubs." As well as do not simply quit with your face-- the skin on your body requires peeling, also.

11. She does not simply consume her vitamins.

A well-balanced diet regimen is necessary. However there are greater than one means to offer your skin vitamins. There are additionally topical anti-oxidants, which are lotions as well as lotions which contain active ingredients that nurture the skin. "These could assist to fix the skin from sunlight damages and also they likewise have all-natural sunblock residential or commercial properties," states Dr. Palmer. The very best time to use them is right after cleaning, or they can be layered under your sunblock for included defense.

12. She cleanses her makeup brushes on a regular basis.

To eliminate infection and also clogged up pores, Dr. Prystowsky suggests cleaning concealer and also structure brushes as soon as a week. For brushes you utilize around your eyes, she suggests two times monthly, and also for other brushes, as soon as a month is great. Right here's just how: Place a decline of a light hair shampoo right into the hand of your hand. Damp the bristles with warm water. After that, massage therapy the bristles right into your hand to disperse the hair shampoo right into the brush. Prevent obtaining the steel part of the brush wet/or the base of the brush hairs since the adhesive can soften as well as the bristles can befall. Wash the hair shampoo out and also eject the water with a towel. Lay the brushes on their side with the bristles hanging off the side of the counter to completely dry.

[techjobwall]

Women of Europe: Connect and Learn from 100 Successful Female Founders - Germany Startup Jobs

http://www.germanystartupjobs.com/women-europe-connect-learn-100-successful-female-founders/

Women of Europe: Connect and Learn from 100 Successful Female Founders

“People respond well to those that are sure of what they want.” — Anna Wintour, editor-in-Chief, American Vogue The saying goes well with today’s scenario of entrepreneurship. Women entrepreneurs are spreading their wings and achieving their dreams in an exceptional way throughout the world. But, if we look at the present circumstances in Europe, only 15% of businesses are owned by women entrepreneurs. The number is still less as the females are underestimated clearly in the real world of business.

More initiative must be taken to celebrate their existence and emergence in the entrepreneurial world. The reasons are questioned often as to why women entrepreneurs should be given a chance to bring up their identity. So, the simple answer is -the diverse thinking process they possess. The difference in defiance towards a particular angle make a woman more ostentatious and outstanding. And if given a chance to prove her worth, she will definitely have an unforgettable impression on the world.

The encouragement given from the world will push them to associate with industries that profoundly lacks personnel with varied gender frameworks. A recent start-up in Berlin, named The Hundert, has highlighted all the famous women in power across Europe. It’s digital-centred periodical’s eight edition covers a list of 100 popular European woman initiators. The version is all about women of different ages and lifestyles controls some of the newest syndicates.

Not only young women, but the list includes the single, new mothers, family leaders, as well as failed business owners who try again to achieve their goals. The whole edition will throw light on how these different women have established them successfully in various sectors. Many women readers who are still in dilemma of their life, will surely get experience and motivation to take up new challenges in life.

So, below is the list of top Women of Europe who has surpassed all the barriers and got recognition in the tough entrepreneurial world. So let’s highlight their work and get inspiration from them.

  Avid Larizadeh Duggan

Bottica.com-is a London-based tycoon who co-founded Bottica.com, an online opulence bazaar of fashion accoutrements, and is now General Partner at Google Ventures.

Alix de Sagazan

AB Tasty- She is the Paris-based co-founder of AB Tasty – a top European optimization stage for e-marketers which allows them to transform their website without technical acquaintance through AB Testing & personalization.

Alice Bentinck

Entrepreneur First- she is a London-based businessperson who co-founded Entrepreneur First, one of the world’s primary corporation producers, as well as Code First:Girls, a free part-time program for female apprentices.

Andrea Pfundmeier

Boxcryptor- she is a CEO at Boxcryptor which is a safekeeping service for your cloud. It offers End-to-end encryption “Made in Germany” for Dropbox & Co

Barbara Labate

Risparmio Super – she is the initiator of RisparmioSUper, an online shopping store for all the home products at cheap prices.

Basak Taspinar Degim

Armut -she is the founder of Amrut which is a service providing establishment in Europe.

Chiara Burberi

Redooc -she is a founder of the biggest math gym in Italy. The firm offers all fundamental, middle, higher and university programs.

Colette Ballou

Ballou PR—she is the founder of Ballou PR, a European public relations organization that works with high-growth technology and technology-enabled concerns, as well as technology financiers.

Delia Fischer

WestWing- she is a Munich-based magnate who co-founded Westwing, a leading online platform for interior design products.

Dörte Höppner

Invest Europe- she is the previous CEO of Invest Europe and represented Europe’s private equity & venture capital region. Today, she’s the COO of the Riverside Europe Fund, which finances in developing businesses esteemed at up to $400 million.

Fausta Pavesio

Talent Garden Milano-she is a Milan-based impresario, board member and advisor who was named IBAN Business Angel of the Year 2015. In addition, Fausta is the Independent Director of the coworking space Talent Garden Milano.

Jessica Stark

SUP 46, Sweden’s startup – she is a co-founder and board member of SUP 46, Sweden’s startup hub and membership-based communal. She’s also the CEO of StyrelseAkademi, Sweden’s principal conference for the specialized growth of board members.

Julia Bösch

Outfittery- is a Berlin-based industrialist who co-founded Outfittery, one of Europe’s leading e-commerce startups which aims to transform the shopping experience for men.

Karen Boers

Startups.be- is the co-founder and Managing Director of Startups.be – a unique association which funds startups in Belgium. Karen is also a board member and CEO of the European Startup Network.

Edyta Kocyk

SiDLY -is a Co-founder of Sidly. For her accomplishments she has received about 30 awards at national and international level.

Emmanuelle Vin

AMIA Systems – Founder and CEO of AMIA Systems. With her PhD in engineering science and her degree in management from the Ecole Centrale of Paris, she is the intellect behind SIMOGGA.

Filipa Neto

Chic by Choice -Co -Founder and Managing Director at Chic by Choice, the fashion souk that lets European women to hire first-rate designer costumes at a fraction of retail price.

Genna Elvin

TaDaweb –Co-founder of TaDaweb and was a instituting member of the first startup created to bring solar energy to the underprivileged Marshall Islands.

Gina Tost

Geenapp -Journalist and Tech Mentor. Journalist with broad experience, emphasise on Mobile, Technology, Startups and Video Games. Worked for TV channels,newspapers, websites, and radio stations globally.

Gioia Pistola

Atooma -she is an Entrepreneur, Startup Advisor, Chief Marketing, ATooma & Mind the Bridge. Enthusiastic about digital products and business development.

Karoli Hindriks

Jobbatical- she is an Estonian mogul who founded her first startup at the age of 16. Today she’s the CEO of Jobbatical – a platform where global employers borrow the skills of techies and creatives.

Kinga Stanislawska

Experior Venture Fund- she is the founder and Managing Partner of the Warsaw-based Venture Capital firm Experior Venture Fund, which manages PLN 80 million and has made 16 investments to date.

Lea-Sophie Cramer

Amorelie- she is the creator and Managing Director of Berlin-based Amorelie – a stylish online-shop for your love life. Before Amorelie, Lea-Sophie assisted as VP International at Rocket Internet and Groupon.

Madeleine Gummer v. Mohl

Betahaus- she is the co-founder and CEO of Betahaus, a co-working space with workplaces in spaces in Berlin, Hamburg, Sofia and Barcelona. Madeleine is also the co-founder of the accelerator Hardware.co.

Nancy Cruickshank

MyShowcase- she is a London-based capitalist who started MyShowcase, a personal beauty shopping service, serving clients to discover and try custom-made cosmetics, skincare, body care and haircare references.

Katharina Klausberger

Shpock – Co-Founder, CEO and Board Member at Shpock App finderly GmbH.

Kinga Jentetics

PublishDrive – CEO & Co-founder, CEMS – The Global Alliance in Management Education and dynamic representative of women entrepreneurship.

Ksenija Rostova

Inselly – Dedicated to inventive e-commerce start-up Inselly that wishes to change the way how people sell and buy on Instagram.

Lea von Bidder

Ava – Co-founder and President Ava Science, Inc. Her experience list is endless.

Stina Ehrensvard

Yubico – CEO & Founder, Yubico. Started Yubico, and co-created the YubiKey and the FIDO U2F open verification standard to allow a safer internet for everyone.

Nathalie Gaveau

Shopcade- she founded Net-a-Porter back in 2000 in London as a website in magazine layout for marketing designer fashion. Today, Net-a-Porter pays over 3,000 people around the globe.

Raffaela Rein

CareerFoundry- is the initiator and CEO of CareerFoundry, a Berlin-based start-up which today is Europe’s primary online education purpose, teaching the next generation of technical aptitude and digital leaders.

Roxanne Varza

Station F Project- is the Director of the Paris-based Station F project, which set out to become the largest startup campus worldwide. Prior to her current role, Roxanne was the lead for Microsoft’s startup activities in France.

Sherry Coutu

Zoopla- she lives in London and is a former CEO and angel investor who serves on the boards of several companies, chairs Founders4Schools and is a Non-Executive Director of Zoopla and the London Stock Exchange Group.

Sonali De Rycker

Accel Partners- she attached the project capital firm Accel Partners in 2008 and today helps lead the London office as General Partner. Sonali serves as board member at companies like Wallapop, Calastone and IAC.

Stephanie Hospital

One Ragtime- she is the founder of One Ragtime, a global technology investment fund and advisory. Prior to this, she was a Executive Vice President of Orange Digital and served as a board member at Dailymotion.

Tanja Kufner

Startupbootcamp- she is the Managing Director of the Startupbootcamp accelerator in Berlin, and of the consulting firm Rainmaking Innovation. Prior to this, Tanja was Country Manager Germany for Wayra – Telefónica’s startup accelerator.

Suzan Claesen

Crowdyhouse – COO at CROWDYHOUSE, Suzan is responsible for the operational site of the business and most passionately the designer community of CROWDYHOUSE.

Taisiya Kudashkina

tulp – CEO and Founder at websarafan.ru. She has interest in Marketing, market development, customer development.

Tamar Yaniv

Preen.Me – CEO + Co-Founder at Preen.Me. she is big picture thinker and a problem solver.

Theresa Steininger

Wohnwagon –She is a skilful person and has assion about marketing, and graphic designing and marketing strategy.

Tiffany Hart

7write – Co-founder , BD & CMO at 7write. She is a highly experienced and educated person.

Triinu Magi

Neura – CTO at Neura co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Neura, a company managing the AI for Internet of Things

Ulane Vilumets

Like A Local Guide – Traveller at heart, entrepreneur by choice- Her website is the most recommended travel guides in the Baltics and Scandinavia.

Ulla Engestrom

ThingLink – founder & CEO, ThingLink interactive media platform and a pioneer female tech leader ininteractive visual media.

Alisée de Tonnac

SeedStars World- is a Swiss tycoon who co-founded Seedstars World, a global startup competition covering 65+ emerging and developing markets. Alisée now serves as Seedstar World’s CEO.

Brigitte Baumann

Go Beyond Early Stage Investing- is the Founder and CEO of Go Beyond Early Stage Investing. In 2015 EBAN (the European Business Angel Network) named her European Investor of the Year. Born in France, Brigitte and her family live in Zurich.

Celine Lazorthes

FinTech- is the Paris-based founder and CEO of the FinTech success story Leetchi Group – which includes Leetchi.com, an online money pot (+5M users), and MANGOPAY, the disruptive B2B payment solution.

Corinne Vigreux

TomTom- is a Dutch entrepreneur and co-founded TomTom. As a leader of one of the few consumer electronic companies from Europe to become a global brand in the recent history, she is a champion of European innovation.

Diva Tommei

Solenica- is an Italian entrepreneur who co-founded Solenica and runs the company now as CEO. Solenica builds smart natural lighting systems with an Italian design that are beautiful, affordable and easy-to-use.

Urska Srsen

Bellabeat – Cofounder & CPO at Bellabeat- she is focused on driving and building synergy between innovation in technology and design.

Verena Pausder

Fox & Sheep – CEO and founder of Fox and Sheep GmbH. She is opening digital labs for kids and families across Germany to teach kids coding and robotics.

Vladimira Teskova

TeskaLabs – COO at TeskaLabs- TeskaLabs deliver the kinds of solutions that provide organizations an efficient way to protect their IT infrastructure.

Yana Vlatchkova

Swipes – COO at Swipes Incorporated- She is a highly experienced young entrepreneur and has thorough passion in marketing.

Yasmin de Giorgio

The Grassy Hopper –Founder of vegan foods The Grassy Hopper, Yasmin has found her craving in serving worth food to vegans.

Zara Martirosyan

inKin – CEO & Co-founder of inKin Social Fitness Platform, which offers all health related programs.

Elizabeth Varley

TechHub- is the originator and CEO of TechHub. The global tech start-up community is headquartered in the UK, and functions TechHubs in seven cities around the world.

Ida Tin

Clue-she is the co-founder and CEO of Clue, the world’s fastest budding female health app. Berlin-based Clue helps you understand your cycle so you can discover how to live a full and healthy life.

Jessica Butcher

Blippar- is the London-based co-founder and Director of Blippar – the world’s leading visual browser, connecting enlarged reality and image-recognition technology.

Judith Clegg

TakeOut- is the creator & CEO of London and New York based invention and strategy consultancy Takeout. She’s also an investor and advisor in a range of startups including True Office, Onalytica, NSFWcorp and Sofarsounds.

Zsuzsa Kecsmar

Antavo – Co-founder & COO at Antavo, a loyalty management platform for B2C retailers and brands. Former journalist awarded by the European Commission.

Karoli Hindriks

Jobbatical – Founder at Jobbatical.com. She founded her firstcompany at the age of sixteen (officially becoming the youngest inventor of Estonia).

Liat Mordechay Hertanu

24me – Co-Founder | Marketing & Business Development at 24me, an award winning Personal Assistant platform which is named byApple as ‘Best of App Store’, and featured by Google, Apple, Amazon and more.

Virginie Simon

MyScienceWork – CEO&Founder of MyScienceWork, whch is the global scientific platform.

Steffi Czerny

DLD- is the co-founder and Managing Director of DLD, one of the world’s most exclusive events for topics like digital life, future design and entrepreneurship. Steffi and her company DLD Media are based in Munich.

Justine Roberts

MumsNet -is a London-based entrepreneur and the CEO of Mumsnet, the UK’s most popular parenting website, and Gransnet, a sister site dedicated to the over-50s.

Kaidi Ruusalepp

Funderbeam- is the founder and CEO of Funderbeam, a marketplace where startups get funded and traded across borders. Estonia-based Funderbeam combines startup analytics, investing and trading on the secondary market.

Kinga Stanislawska

Venture Capital firm Experior Venture Fund- is the founder and Managing Partner of the Warsaw-based Venture Capital firm Experior Venture Fund, which manages PLN 80 million and has made 16 investments to date.

Lisa Lang

ElektroCouture- is the founder and CEO of Berlin-based ElektroCouture – the first agency to pioneer bespoke innovative electronic wearable technology for the fashion industry. She’s also an evangelist of the Berlin Geekettes.

Mar Alarcon Batlle

SocialCar.com- is the founder and CEO of SocialCar.com, a leading peer to peer car rental company (P2P carsharing) operating in Spain. She’s also a board member of Barcelona Tech City, Adigital and a mentor at Conector Accelerator.

MarLisa Terziman

Fentury – Financial APIs, PSD2, Mobile Banking User Experience. FinTech & Start-Ups hooked. Being one of the reps of the idealistic generation, Lisa aims to raise customer arrangement & knowledge to the next level.

Liuba Pashkovskaya

Red Rock Apps She is a founder of RedRocks App, which is a weight loss app.

Maja Mikek

Celtra – CFO at Celtra Inc. She is a master of scheduling and managing corporations’ financial possessions.

Maria Martín

Tiendeo – Co-founder at Tiendeo. She is a devoted tycoon and a business analyst.

Marta Esteve

Soysuper – Founder and CEO of Soysuper.com, founder of Rentalia.com, co-founder Toprural.com

Maryna Kuzmenko

Petiole – PhD, CEO Petiole- she has Ph.D. in Business Law, LL.M. with Merit in International Commercial Law and the good experience of work in M&A

Meryl Job

Videdressing – Initiator of Videdressing, available for new specialized occasions. Growth, marketing, biz dev, general management.

Mette Lykke

Endomondo – CEO at Too Good To Go, Entrepreneur. Endomondo is a social fitness community based on free real-time GPS following of running, cycling, and other distance-based sports.

Milda Mitkute

Vinted – co-founder of Vinted, which is a leading p2p pre-loved fashion exchanging/trading app.

Natalie Masrujeh

Teach ‘n Go – Co-founder and CTO at Teach’nGo, which is an online Student Management System for private tutors and small schools

Nina Angelovska

Grouper – CEO & Co-founder at Grouper.mk- Won 1st prize at a national competition for most radical business plan in 2010 and got finance to start the business.

Nora Khaldi

Nuritas – Founder and CSO at Nuritas. She is PhD in molecular evolution and bioinformatics as well as a master’s in mathematics.

Olga Peters

QualySense – Chief Financial Officer, a Swiss company emerging a breakthrough technology that will alter the quality models of the agricultural commodities worldwide, improve quality and reduce waste of food globally.

Orit Hashay

Brayola – Founder & CEO, Brayola – The World’s Smartest Personal Bra Shopper.

Pauline Laigneau

Gemmyo – Cofounder & CMO at Gemmyo, a Modern jewelry brand based in Paris, France.

Raffaela Rein

CareerFoundry – Raffaela Rein is the CEO and Co-Founder of CareerFoundry/ The UX School, one of the leading onlineschools for User Experience (UX), User interface (UI) and Voice User Interface (VUI) Design.

Rhona Togher

Restored Hearing – CEO at Restored Hearing- which provides a real and cost effective solution to the problem of harmful noise in the workplace.

Rossi Mitova

Farmhopping – CEO & Founder farmhopping. It bridges the gap between sustainable farms and city people all over the globe.

Sarah Wood

Unruly – Co-Founder and CEO at Unruly- Sarah is a member of the London Mayor’s Business & AccelerateHER Advisory Boards and is a Technology Ambassador for London.

Sasha Olenina

StudyQA –Founder of StudyQA, which is an online academic programs finder.

Silje Vallestad

bSafe –

Sofia Pessanha

Unbabel – COO at Care Revolutions. Care Revolutions is a marketplace for healthcare staff.

Sona Pohlova

Ecocapsule – co-founder at nice&wise, co-founder and Product development director at Ecocapsule.

Stina Ehrensvard

Yubico – Founded Yubico, and co-created the YubiKey and the FIDO U2F open authentication standard to enable a saferinternet for everyone.

Marie Helene Ametsreiter

Speedinvest- is a Partner at the Vienna-based VC firm Speedinvest. She’s also part of the TV show “2 Minuten 2 Millionen“, the Austrian version of Shark Tank.

Natalie Massenet

Net-a-Porter- founded Net-a-Porter back in 2000 in London as a website in magazine format for selling designer fashion. Today, Net-a-Porter employs over 3,000 people around the globe.

Paola Bonomo

Italian angel investor- is an Italian angel investor who previously served as Member of eBay’s European leadership team, led the online business of Italy’s largest financial newspaper, and worked as Marketing Solutions Director at Facebook.

Anna Polishchuk

Allset – Co-founder & COO at Allset. She has a passion for entrepreneurship and producing expedient and stunning products cultivating our lives.

Sissel Hansen

StartUp Everywhere- Founder & CEO Startup Everywhere / Startup Guide- Young and ambitious entrepreneur with mind-set of learning by doing.

  Though the European women entrepreneurs are less in number, they have done a commendable job in their respective fields. More motivation will definitely help them to outgrow outside of their regular warzone. In this post, we have tried to throw some light on the influential women entrepreneurs in Europe who are successful in their personal as well as professional lives. I hope that you all will get motivated after reading their life’s story. In the end, I would like to conclude this post, with the beautiful line said by one more intellect women entrepreneur. “I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.” — Estée Lauder

#Know Your Worth

[pat78701]

Five Questions with Usman Ally, Star of 'Nobodies', 'Veep' and 'Series Of Unfortunate Events'

Usman Ally is the quintessential Hollywood “everyman” as he blazes through roles that give him the freedom to exhibit the training he garnered after graduating with honors in Acting from the University of Florida.

Before then Ally enjoyed a vibrant upbringing that began with his birth in Swaziland, and expanded to Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania and Pakistan, which all served as vital hosts to his upbringing for the first 18 years of his life.

Ally eventually headed to Chicago to flex his acting muscles by immersing himself in the theater scene.

The training and experience has clearly paid off as Ally’s career trajectory in an industry that demands more than most are able to give is on track for a perfect landing.

The actor is currently starring in TV Land’s much-hyped comedy series, Nobodies, which premiered on March 29th, and is executive-produced by the one and only Melissa McCarthy. Ally has garnered praise for his flawless portrayal of “troublemaker” studio exec Gavin, who “makes it his mission in life to destroy the three “nobodies.”

Ally is also gearing up to reprise his role on HBO’s hit show Veep – where he plays Ambassador Al Jaffar opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Selina Meyer. There is also a strong possibility that the role of Jaffar will expand considerably, which is a true testimony of Ally’s undeniable charisma.

Ally has also been attached to additional projects like Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events opposite Neil Patrick Harris and most recently the Dwayne Johnson produced YouTube series, Lifeline – that centers around “ a little known life insurance company that sends its agents forward 33 days in time to prevent the accidental deaths of its clients.”

Based on such a diverse group of projects, it’s obvious why Ally seems to be on the radar of major players in Hollywood.

We spoke to him recently to get a more in depth look into what drives his creative choices and where he hopes to end up in the not so distant future.

You have quite the diverse background, how did you get into show business and what are some of the obstacles you still face as an actor of color.

I was very fortunate that from a young age I had teachers who saw that I had a talent for interpreting the written word. When I was 11 years old, an English teacher by the name of Mrs. Lee at Saint Austin’s Academy in Nairobi, Kenya really encouraged me towards performance art. She introduced me to Shakespeare, and coached me through Mark Antony’s eulogy in Julius Caesar. She then made me perform it in front of the entire school, and that was the beginning of a long journey in the arts. There are several obstacles that actors of color still face in our industry, but it’s my belief that all of them stem from the fact that the people who have the platform, financial resource and agency to tell stories are generally part of a pretty homogenous group, and therefore, the gaze and scope of which we tell stories of people of color becomes rather skewed in one direction. Simply put, once more people of color are “at the table” in writers and producer rooms, I think we will start to see more accurate representation and inclusive storytelling.

The landscape of television has evolved over the years to accommodate more in-depth programming, are you at all attracted to film or do you prefer the freedom of the small screen?

I am absolutely eager to find opportunities to perform on the larger screen, particularly in independent films that cover stories from segments of society that are under-represented. I think the power of good filmmaking still has a huge influence on our culture. I do think that we are in an era where television has tremendous reach, what with all the various platforms from streaming to cable and network. All of this competition has encouraged studios to give the artists more license to create work that you probably wouldn’t have seen a few years ago. Shows like “Dear White People” exist because of more empowerment of diverse voices and the variety of platforms that are pushing out new content at what seems like record speed.

Who are your role models in the industry and why?

This is a tough question! I try not to idolize people because you eventually start to project certain characteristics on them without really knowing them. With that said, there are several people that I look to with admiration, respect and for inspiration. I find Ava Duvernay to be a pretty remarkable woman for her commitment to social justice and how she has climbed to a position of authority as a woman of color in a male dominated environment. For similar reasons, I would include theatre director Liesl Tommy for how she breaks open so many stories that were previously not available to certain segments of our population. As for writers, I’m a big fan of fellow Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid, and I recently watched a film called Christine starring Rebecca Hall, who gave the kind of performance that reminds me of the kind of actor I would like to be. I’m sure I’m forgetting some people, but I’m pleased to see so many of my peers doing such important work.

What are you currently working on and where do you see your career in five years?

Currently, I’m in the middle of season 2 of “A Series of Unfortunate Events” for Netflix up in beautiful Vancouver, and wrapping up some final touches on the video game Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. It’s been a busy year with a wide range of projects, so I’m quite pleased about that. In five years, I hope to have developed enough as a writer where I will have written and produced either a play, or an independent film. That’s the goal really: to stay active in all three forms of media (television, film and theatre) and continue to work on shows, both as an actor and writer, that allow me to thrive artistically. Oh, and continuing to pay my mortgage on time would be FANTASTIC.

Is diversity in Hollywood just a myth or do you believe that that change is inevitable and if so how have you been affected by the current climate?

I think change is afoot, but it’s important that whatever momentum we gain in creating more inclusive conversations is converted into something concrete and lasting as opposed to simply being a passing fad. Social media has played a massive role in helping us reach new ground. While white-washing of characters and recycling certain tropes such as the “white savior role” still happen in Hollywood, it is no longer tolerated or considered as acceptable as it once was because social tools like Twitter and Facebook allow people the space to voice their concern and displeasure. The more people who speak up about wanting to see more accurate representation and more inclusive storytelling, the more studios and networks are able to see that there is a demand and financial sustainability and reward to be found in diversity on screen and behind it. While there is much work to be done, I can say that in the last few years, I have found that roles have opened up to me that were never possible only a few years ago. My character on “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” Youtube Red’s “Lifeline” and TV Land’s “Nobodies,” for example, were not the kinds of roles I ever found myself auditioning for up until about 2014 or so. There are characters that have little to do with my ethnic background (without ignoring the fact that I am a person of color) and everything to do with my ability to interpret the character in a way that fits in the world of the show. So, there is absolutely incremental progress, and it is my hope that as we see more writers and producers of color, more actors of color will begin to share in the experiences that I have had recently.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2qf635A

#DIYS

[rtscrndr53704]

Five Questions with Usman Ally, Star of 'Nobodies', 'Veep' and 'Series Of Unfortunate Events'

Usman Ally is the quintessential Hollywood “everyman” as he blazes through roles that give him the freedom to exhibit the training he garnered after graduating with honors in Acting from the University of Florida.

Before then Ally enjoyed a vibrant upbringing that began with his birth in Swaziland, and expanded to Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania and Pakistan, which all served as vital hosts to his upbringing for the first 18 years of his life.

Ally eventually headed to Chicago to flex his acting muscles by immersing himself in the theater scene.

The training and experience has clearly paid off as Ally’s career trajectory in an industry that demands more than most are able to give is on track for a perfect landing.

The actor is currently starring in TV Land’s much-hyped comedy series, Nobodies, which premiered on March 29th, and is executive-produced by the one and only Melissa McCarthy. Ally has garnered praise for his flawless portrayal of “troublemaker” studio exec Gavin, who “makes it his mission in life to destroy the three “nobodies.”

Ally is also gearing up to reprise his role on HBO’s hit show Veep – where he plays Ambassador Al Jaffar opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Selina Meyer. There is also a strong possibility that the role of Jaffar will expand considerably, which is a true testimony of Ally’s undeniable charisma.

Ally has also been attached to additional projects like Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events opposite Neil Patrick Harris and most recently the Dwayne Johnson produced YouTube series, Lifeline – that centers around “ a little known life insurance company that sends its agents forward 33 days in time to prevent the accidental deaths of its clients.”

Based on such a diverse group of projects, it’s obvious why Ally seems to be on the radar of major players in Hollywood.

We spoke to him recently to get a more in depth look into what drives his creative choices and where he hopes to end up in the not so distant future.

You have quite the diverse background, how did you get into show business and what are some of the obstacles you still face as an actor of color.

I was very fortunate that from a young age I had teachers who saw that I had a talent for interpreting the written word. When I was 11 years old, an English teacher by the name of Mrs. Lee at Saint Austin’s Academy in Nairobi, Kenya really encouraged me towards performance art. She introduced me to Shakespeare, and coached me through Mark Antony’s eulogy in Julius Caesar. She then made me perform it in front of the entire school, and that was the beginning of a long journey in the arts. There are several obstacles that actors of color still face in our industry, but it’s my belief that all of them stem from the fact that the people who have the platform, financial resource and agency to tell stories are generally part of a pretty homogenous group, and therefore, the gaze and scope of which we tell stories of people of color becomes rather skewed in one direction. Simply put, once more people of color are “at the table” in writers and producer rooms, I think we will start to see more accurate representation and inclusive storytelling.

The landscape of television has evolved over the years to accommodate more in-depth programming, are you at all attracted to film or do you prefer the freedom of the small screen?

I am absolutely eager to find opportunities to perform on the larger screen, particularly in independent films that cover stories from segments of society that are under-represented. I think the power of good filmmaking still has a huge influence on our culture. I do think that we are in an era where television has tremendous reach, what with all the various platforms from streaming to cable and network. All of this competition has encouraged studios to give the artists more license to create work that you probably wouldn’t have seen a few years ago. Shows like “Dear White People” exist because of more empowerment of diverse voices and the variety of platforms that are pushing out new content at what seems like record speed.

Who are your role models in the industry and why?

This is a tough question! I try not to idolize people because you eventually start to project certain characteristics on them without really knowing them. With that said, there are several people that I look to with admiration, respect and for inspiration. I find Ava Duvernay to be a pretty remarkable woman for her commitment to social justice and how she has climbed to a position of authority as a woman of color in a male dominated environment. For similar reasons, I would include theatre director Liesl Tommy for how she breaks open so many stories that were previously not available to certain segments of our population. As for writers, I’m a big fan of fellow Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid, and I recently watched a film called Christine starring Rebecca Hall, who gave the kind of performance that reminds me of the kind of actor I would like to be. I’m sure I’m forgetting some people, but I’m pleased to see so many of my peers doing such important work.

What are you currently working on and where do you see your career in five years?

Currently, I’m in the middle of season 2 of “A Series of Unfortunate Events” for Netflix up in beautiful Vancouver, and wrapping up some final touches on the video game Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. It’s been a busy year with a wide range of projects, so I’m quite pleased about that. In five years, I hope to have developed enough as a writer where I will have written and produced either a play, or an independent film. That’s the goal really: to stay active in all three forms of media (television, film and theatre) and continue to work on shows, both as an actor and writer, that allow me to thrive artistically. Oh, and continuing to pay my mortgage on time would be FANTASTIC.

Is diversity in Hollywood just a myth or do you believe that that change is inevitable and if so how have you been affected by the current climate?

I think change is afoot, but it’s important that whatever momentum we gain in creating more inclusive conversations is converted into something concrete and lasting as opposed to simply being a passing fad. Social media has played a massive role in helping us reach new ground. While white-washing of characters and recycling certain tropes such as the “white savior role” still happen in Hollywood, it is no longer tolerated or considered as acceptable as it once was because social tools like Twitter and Facebook allow people the space to voice their concern and displeasure. The more people who speak up about wanting to see more accurate representation and more inclusive storytelling, the more studios and networks are able to see that there is a demand and financial sustainability and reward to be found in diversity on screen and behind it. While there is much work to be done, I can say that in the last few years, I have found that roles have opened up to me that were never possible only a few years ago. My character on “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” Youtube Red’s “Lifeline” and TV Land’s “Nobodies,” for example, were not the kinds of roles I ever found myself auditioning for up until about 2014 or so. There are characters that have little to do with my ethnic background (without ignoring the fact that I am a person of color) and everything to do with my ability to interpret the character in a way that fits in the world of the show. So, there is absolutely incremental progress, and it is my hope that as we see more writers and producers of color, more actors of color will begin to share in the experiences that I have had recently.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2qf635A

#DIYS