#and were trying to make it seem like those fans hate jacob and his wife...

[loumands]

With every blocklist 90% of the supposed 'receipts' consist just of fans of color venting in their own blogs. Some people in this fandom really are like i can accept racism and child erotica but draw the line at poc expressing any anger over it

#latest post i saw they even had screenshots of black fans affectionately joking about jacob's haircut #and were trying to make it seem like those fans hate jacob and his wife... #it's almost like you don't have any proof these poc fans are actually harassing anyone #iwtvposting #.txt

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Biggest Fan 3

Part 1 Part 2

Warning: coercion, blackmail, porn, nonconsent sex, cheating, toyplay

🎀🎀🎀

The week that followed was torture. Andy was insatiable. He found reasons to have you in his office; soon enough on your knees beneath the desk. Just a little workday relief, he said. Or when the clock tolled, he’d have you in his car. That was even more uncomfortable as you feared onlookers through the windows. He hadn’t again taken you back to his house.

And after that first week, he seemed distracted. Worse, he was angry. He dropped files on your desk without a word only to text you moments later. ‘Not today’. That was it. No explanations. As much as you were thankful for his retreat, it set you on edge. He was still your boss; your degree, your future career, your life, were all in his hands.

You sat at your desk, the font across the screen blared into your retinas. You leaned back to rub your eyes and as your vision cleared, you glanced over at Andy’s open door. He had his phone in hand, that sinister smirk on his lips. You knew that look. It had been almost two weeks since that very expression had drowned in icy dread.

He looked up from his phone and his gaze met yours. His chest puffed out and he stared back at you. He waved you in with his other hand. You pointed to the case files stacked beside your computer. He shrugged and his smirk disappeared. He pointed at his desk. That was an order.

You got up and grabbed a random file from the stack. An alibi. You held it in front of your chest as you neared his door. You knocked on the frame and he gave his usual, absent, “come in.” He was convincing. You supposed lawyers needed to be great actors. He nodded to the door and you closed it as you entered.

“We need to talk.” He looked at the empty chair across from him. You sat and rested the file on your lap, picking anxiously at the edges. “I’m sorry, baby girl, I know I haven’t had much time.” He began as he leaned on the arm of his chair. “I was just missing you like hell.”

He turned his screen to you and displayed one of your photos. This one was in your bathtub, bubbles barely hiding your nudity. He bit his lip before he blackened the screen and tossed his phone on his desk.

“I understand. Maybe it’s better we don’t--”

“You keep on with that. I thought you were a good girl. A good worker.” He leaned forward and sniffed. “The last thing you want on your performance report is the word ‘combative’. That only works in the courtroom, not in the office.”

“Andy.”

“Mr. Barber.” He purred with a wink. “Remember your first day? I think I prefer ‘sir’ now, baby girl.”

“Mr. Barber, what do you want from me?”

“I want you to relax,” He steepled his hands together over the desk, his fingertips dragged through the short hairs along his chin. “I have good news.”

“Oh?” You blinked and crossed your ankles.

“My wife just left with Jacob. Took him out of town to see her parents. She understands I’m too busy here to take the time off.” He explained. “She’ll be gone all week.”

You were silent. You didn’t need to ask why he was telling you.

“It’ll be good. For us.” He smiled. “She’s been down my neck for the last two weeks. I haven’t been able to get away from her.”

“You think she knows?” You asked softly. “If she did, she could--”

“If she knew, she would say so,” He said. “That’s just who she is and your desk would already be empty.”

You nodded and lowered your chin. You chewed your lip.

“What’s wrong, baby girl?” He asked as he leaned over his desk.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone. Especially your family.” You said.

“You keep this quiet, you keep me happy, and you don’t have to worry about all that.” He coaxed.

You mulled his words. What about your happiness? He really didn’t seem to care about that. You stood and waved the folder at him.

“I’m running behind. I should get back to it.” You said.

“Sure,” He sat back and pushed his legs apart. “Do me a favour before you do.”

You stared at him. He tilted his head. 

“You’ve earned a break. Go take a little photo for me.” He winked. “It will get me through the rest of the day.”

“And-- Mr. Barber, I can’t.” You glanced at the door. “I have to get this done.”

“No, you have to listen to me. I’m your boss.” He snarled. “Now, you go on.” He rolled closer to his desk and picked up his phone. “Oh, and uh, wait for me after work. I’ll pick you up in our usual spot.”

“Sir.” You said grimly as you grabbed the door handle.

Was all this worth it? It wasn’t too late to just start over, but you had done so much work already. You were so close. Well, you had known this profession was cutthroat. Swallow your lumps and one day you’d be in the big office making the rules.

🎀

The drive was silent. You could feel Andy looking at you in the rear view at every corner. His hand drifted to your thigh when it wasn’t on the stick. You sat stiffly, staring ahead. You wanted to sink into the seat entirely; become a part of it.

As you entered his house, you felt sick. You looked around at the photos of his family, of the remnants of their departure. A book on the arm of the couch, a game controller on the coffee table. You were intruding.

“Upstairs,” Andy set his briefcase down and took your bag from your shoulder. “I have a surprise.”

“I don’t like being here.” You said.

“You didn’t seem to hate it last time.” His hand went to the small of your back and he nudged you towards the stairs. “What’s the matter? You like the kitchen? We can come back to it.”

You shook your head but stayed silent. You climbed the stairs as he lingered behind you and his hand spread over your ass. He didn’t draw away until you reached the top.

“At the end,” He directed.

You continued on and entered the bedroom at the end of the hall. It smelled like gardenia and him. It was their room. You hesitated and stayed far from the bed. You turned and saw yourself in the round mirror hung on the wall. You had to look away.

You spun around and watched Andy go to the bed. He got down on a knee and reached beneath. He pulled something hidden up in the frame and revealed the long box. It was wrapped in lilac paper. He stood and neared you. He held it out to you.

“I’ve been waiting to give you this,” He said. 

You frowned as you searched his face, then your eyes fell to the box. You took it with a numb ‘thanks’, spoken on sheer instinct. He backed away and pulled off his jacket. He slung it over the chair by the window and turned back to you as he tugged on his tie.

“Well, open it! It’s part of the fun.” He untangled his tie and dropped it over his jacket.

You sighed and ran your thumb along a fold of paper. You tore open the wrap and revealed the black box with a plastic window. Inside that, a glittery pink dildo was displayed. You crumpled the paper in your hand as you stared at the toy. Aside from being tacky, it was huge.

“You like it?” He asked as he came closer.

You looked up at him. His brows drew together and you nodded. His lips slanted and he took the box from you.

“How about I get this all ready for you…” He peeled back the seal. “And you get ready for me.” He nodded to your attire. “Get nice and comfy on the bed.”

You nodded again. It was all you could do to keep from running away. He left you and disappeared into the attached bathroom. You listened to a draw glide open and you stepped out of your heels. You shed your blazer and then your striped blouse. You wiggled out of your skirt and Andy reappeared, loading batteries into the toy.

“Panties?” He mused. “When did you start wearing those?”

You ignored him and unclasped your bra. The sooner this was done with, the sooner you could be gone and flagellate your soul with self-loathing. 

You tossed away your bra then your panties as Andy watched. You could hear his eager breaths as he beckoned you towards the bed. You sat on the end as he held the toy up.

“I’m sure you can figure it out.” He purred as he shoved it closer. “I just wanna watch, baby girl.”

You took it and looked around. “Do we have to do it in here?”

“Trust me, it’s the most action this room will see for a while.” He brought his hands up to frame your face. “So lay back and relax.” His hands fell to your shoulders and he kneaded them. “You’re so tense. You need it.”

You fell away from him and bounced on your back. You pushed your legs apart as they hung over the edge of the mattress. You reluctantly grazed the tip of the toy along your pelvis. Andy stepped back and let out a sultry hum. You clicked the dildo on and closed your eyes.

You pushed the toy down against your cunt. You wiggled it just a little and found your clit. The soft buzz quickly sent a wave of electricity through you. Your feet arched and you hissed through your teeth. You rubbed the toy back and forth, working yourself up as you tried to forget the man looming around you.

“You think you can fit it all, baby girl?” He asked. “Hmm? You’re so tight.”

You moaned but couldn’t answer. You didn’t want to.

“Why don’t you give it a try?” His voice was low and gritty as he ran his hand up your leg. 

You bit your lip and angled the dildo along your folds. Your pussy clenched as you reached your entrance and you paused. He grabbed your hand around the base of the you and he guided the tip inside you. You gasped and he pushed deeper. Your thighs tensed as he released you and grasped your thigh to keep your legs apart.

“Keep going,” He order.

You whined as you drew the toy back and then pushed it back in, even further. His fingers tickled your leg and he lifted your foot up onto the bed to bend your leg completely. Then he raised the other and withdrew.

You whimpered as the dildo sank deeper and your eyes fluttered open. You gulped and his figure moved around the bed.

“That’s it, baby girl.” As he came closer, you saw the phone in his hand, pointed at your body. “Just like that. Look how fucking wet your are.”

“Are you rec--”

He shushed you and put his hand over yours once more. He shoved the toy to its limit and you cried out. He guided it in and out of you, fast and hard. Your voice grew louder and louder as he battered your walls with the silicone.

“Ow, please.”

“Don’t stop.” He growled as he slipped his hand away and pressed his thumb to your clit. 

He swirled around your bud and flicked up and down as your hand worked around his. You trembled as your core pulsed and the pressure grew suffocating. His low purrs mingled with your helpless moans and you arched your back as you struggled to keep the toy moving. 

You came and felt the gush around the dildo. You writhed and let out a guttural noise as you were awash with pleasure. You panted as he slowly pulled away and you pressed your legs together as you turned onto your side, crushing your hand between your thighs. The toy slowly slipped out of you as you laid, senseless and weak, at the end of the bed.

Andy’s large hand spread over your ass and continued down your thigh, making you quiver. He gripped your hip and pushed until you turned entirely onto your stomach.

“This part is just for me.” He said as he got down behind you and tossed his phone up on the pillow. “You’re mine. All mine.”

#andy barber #dark andy barber x reader #dark!andy barber #dark andy barber #dark!andy barber x reader #andy barber x reader #drabbles #drabble #series #sequel #biggest fan #defending jacob

[carewyncromwell]

Oh boy, oh boy, not kidding, I thought about sending you this ask just because I wondered about it earlier today 😄

In all your AUs, the core characteristics of your characters generally stay the same and only change slightly due to circumstances.

What was the biggest change you put one of your characters (OC or not) through across all your AUs (not counting Flipped!AU cause that speaks for itself)? Which was your favourite and which did you find hardest? 💛💚

*considers this* Hmm...that's a very interesting question! Let's see here...

For both the biggest and hardest change, I gotta go with Lucius Malfoy in Harry Potter and the Lack of Lamb Sauce.

...Yes, really. 😂 For those of you who haven't read my way-too-long train-wreck, I set about taking on the challenge of giving the entire Malfoy family something of a redemption arc, including Lucius, who would easily be the biggest challenge to show a better side to, out of the three. The HP fandom is generally very on-board with forgiving Narcissa for all the stuff she was involved in, considering she ended up covering for Harry at a critical moment, and forgiving Draco for everything he did because HBP showed him in a pitiable light and J.K. said that he and his wife Astoria raised their son Scorpius better than how Draco himself was...but Lucius? Nope. No way. This is the guy that many fans claim abused Draco, using the films' interpretation of Lucius largely as evidence, since in the books, there really isn't any such cold, abusive undercurrent to Lucius's treatment of Draco. Lucius is often written as singularly bad in fanfiction in order to make Narcissa and Draco seem more sympathetic, and honestly, even if you don't write him that way, I still think Lucius in the books is an objectively terrible person. So trying to find a way to give Lucius any sympathetic depth that could potentially open him up to the slightest bit of positive change was a hurtle I wasn't sure if I could climb. In the end, I decided to break Lucius's character arc into several steps --

Put Lucius and his family in an objectively terrible position. Not only does Lucius nearly die completing a mission for Voldemort, but Voldemort refuses to help save his life, forcing Draco to seek help from someone who has no reason to help them; Lucius loses both of his arms and one of his legs through an incredibly painful process; and worst of all, Lucius has to pretend he's dead and go into hiding without his wife and son, just to keep them from being punished by Voldemort further.

Put Lucius out of his comfort zone. While in hiding from Voldemort, Lucius is forced to live in very modest living arrangements alongside two Muggle-born teenagers, an elderly witch whose daughter was married to a Muggle, and a Squib. This forces him to see those who he would've persecuted previously as individuals, capable of emotions just as valid as his own.

Give Lucius a relatable interest that has nothing to do with his identity as a Death Eater or even as a Malfoy. In this case, I chose choir music, which actually is my mother's greatest passion! Not only does it give us the chance to see Lucius loving something as opposed to hating it, which gives us a new angle to his characterization, but exploring why this interest is news to us (namely, Lucius decided not to pursue music as a career, so as to uphold the Malfoy name) gives his relationship to his family nuance. It also gives other characters a backdoor into his heart, by engaging with him through the things he enjoys.

Explain Lucius's misguided thought process, and then -- naturally -- challenge it. Clearly prejudice has no logic to it, but bigots do still try to find reasons to justify their belief systems and terrible behavior. In this case, Lucius grew up hating Muggles, and rather than seeing how his family's hatred of Muggles prompted his mother to write letters justifying her blood purist beliefs to relatives, which were understandably condemned when they were made public, Lucius solely sees the pain his mother felt at being rejected, rather than how justifiable the backlash to her was. He loved his mother and father, but that love blinds him to how wrong their beliefs were -- just as he was blind to how much him following in their footsteps and chasing glory and status for his family by terrorizing others was wrong. And through his interactions with his fellow tenants and the Muggle World, Lucius comes to see that there's value in the world he used to scorn and that the people he's met don't match the image he'd always had in his head of what "their kind" is like.

Have Lucius stumble a bit, but ultimately learn and grow. Even if in the end, Lucius doesn't exactly make up for everything he's ever done, and so there's still plenty of ground for his arc to cover after the story is over, we see that he's still a much better person than he was at the start, in how he's learned to treat people differently than him with respect and how he even feels the urge to introduce his "bunker family" to his wife and son.

It was a really fun challenge, and one of the things I'm proudest of about Lack of Lamb Sauce is that my mum -- who is as big of a Potterhead as I am and hated Lucius Malfoy more than anyone else in the books besides Umbridge -- said that he ended up being one of her absolute favorite characters in my fic when we read it together. 💜

Favorite changes-wise, I think I'll nominate Pirate!Jacob Cromwell and Merman!Duncan Ashe in the Pirates of the Caribbean AU. I just absolutely loved the dynamic these two ended up having, and it made me ship Jacob/Ashe (Jacashe?) even more than I did already!! 😂 It makes me all the more excited to do more with Duncan in the Tangled AU.

Fanfic Writer Friday!

#ask me #fanfic writers friday #writing #personal #harry potter and the lack of lamb sauce #jacob cromwell #duncan ashe #lucius malfoy #lol recycled art

[fc5holidayexchange]

Far Cry 5 Holiday Fic Exchange 2019 [FIC]

“Surrender" 

Deputy Lenni Hartfield/Jacob Seed

@fluttyseed

Happy Holidays, love! I had such a GREAT time writing this for you, and you made me fall in love with your Dep, Lenni! I hope you have the merriest of Christmases and a New Year that is so kind and wonderful to you! Many blessings.

Jacob Seed, Jacob Seed x Deputy, Jacob Seed x Lenni Hartfield, fluff, romance

“I keep a close watch on this heart of mine, I keep my eyes wide open all the time, I keep the ends out for the tie that binds Because you’re mine, I walk the line.”

-Johnny Cash, “Walk the Line”

+++

Jacob loved the sound of birdsong - this was not a man who would readily admit such a thing (the great Jacob Seed, protector of Eden’s Gate with an affinity for little birds and their littler chirping? Absolutely not. Preposterous. Lies!) He hadn’t even noticed what an integral part of a Montana sunrise it was until he was thrown into the middle of nowhere in Afghanistan, his only companions being other soldiers, sand and his own thoughts; he heard no birds, only snoring from the other end of the bunk tent and the buzzing of another of those goddamned mosquitos in his ear. 

Even on the nights before the shelter, before his brothers found him, nights fighting for survival in domestic conditions harsher than the desert, abandoned by the Army, by his country, by even - he thought - God, he was not abandoned by the birds who’s singing roused him every morning, reminded him that he was alive, that he’d made it through another night. The birdsong got him through that time of survival and still gently woke him now, just before sunrise, in a time of thriving.

He watched her softly, admiring the way her long lashes rested against her cheek, admiring the curve of the cupid’s bow of her lips, admiring the golden halo of curls on the pillow beneath her head, turning Lenni - deputy, warrior, lover, goddess, his Lenni - into an angel. Well, no, she was already an angel, but there, asleep next to him in his little bed against the wall of his makeshift office in the Veteran’s Center - maps tacked to the wall above them, a fan blowing softly across their sweat dampened skin from the heat of a Hope County summer, (even early in the day like that) and their proximity - she really did look the part.

Finally, he could stand it no more and carded his rough, calloused fingers through those golden curls. She made a tiny noise, like a kitten, and pressed closer to him, making the soldier smile and pull her closer. 

“Good morning, my love,” he murmured into her hair.

“Mmmmmmmmm,” she half whined. “Five more minutes…”

“Shhh, it's okay,” Jacob pressed a kiss to the top of her head, “It’s just past dawn. We have plenty of time. Go back to sleep.”

Lenni nuzzled in under his chin, and drifted back off. 

+++

She was still sleeping when he managed to carefully, and reluctantly, disentangle himself from her and stand - stretching and cracking his neck before starting some coffee in the old coffee maker he’d scrounged up from what had been the center’s kitchen and, once it was ready, sitting at his desk and beginning his day’s work. 

The notes to the side of the largest map that took up most of his desk must have seemed like gibberish to anyone but him - or of course, someone else who’d served (old habits always have died the hardest, after all). There were red and green lines denoting Eden’s Gate territory and territory reclaimed by the so-called “resistance” that he often felt like he was only borrowing Lenni - his Lenni, from. The worrying number of outposts marked as “reclaimed” by that “merry” band of hilljacks, and the lines of Eli Palmer’s Whitetail Militia - the bastards - painted an extremely worrying picture. 

The resistance hadn’t worried him until he’d come face to face with - or more like his throat to her knife with - Lenni, seen how capable and forceful she could be, and what a good leader she was. That was what the resistance had lacked until her involvement: a leader. Jerome Jeffries tried, but was less effective than Jacob assumed he thought he was; Mary May Fairgrave was tough, and clever, but not a uniter; and that Rye kid, Nick, Kim’s husband (now Kim, Jacob thought, Kim Rye was another capable woman) would have loaded up that obnoxious yellow plane of his with his wife and flown like hell for Missoula the second Lenni’d…liberated the plane from John’s ranch, if he’d been given half the chance. But then along came little miss deputy, little miss blonde curls and sparkling eyes and sunkissed cheeks, dotted with freckles from her time in the sun, and little miss button nose and little miss pink cheeks and -

Jacob had to chuckle to himself, even staring down the gravity of Eden’s Gate’s current precarious situation; Lenni drove him to distraction in even the most dire of times. God, he loved her. 

“What’s so funny?” She asked softly as she sat up, stretching in much the way he had. 

“You invade my thoughts, constantly; do you know that?” He asked, steepling his fingers together, elbows on his desk, leaning forward to meet her eyes from across the room. “Here I am, perfectly innocently staring down how absolutely fucked we are and of course, do you know where my thoughts decide to drift?” He asked, grinning a little. “To your freckles. To your lips.” 

The look she gave him was indecipherable. “Wait-”

“What?”

She stood and made a beeline for his desk, leaning over the map from the opposite side. “What do you mean ‘how absolutely fucked we are’?”

He leaned back, lacing his fingers behind his head, and leaned the front legs of his chair off the floor, trying to appear nonchalant, as though this didn’t scare part of him absolutely witless. “Your little resistance -” she made a face at the somewhat pejorative adjective - “is proving very capable under your leadership.”

Jacob saw that old familiar look of conflict on her face; here she was, quite literally sleeping with the resistance’s enemy, with the people who kidnapped and killed and held folks hostage, and who she’d been actively working to overthrow. But that wasn’t…Jacob. Jacob was her Jacob. He existed somewhere out of space and out of time in their current situation, at least to her, but he knew that she knew, deep down, that she was deluding herself. Her torn look didn’t suit her; he hated being the cause of the lines of worry that crossed that beautiful face. Her eyes were darker than usual as she let herself get a little lost in thought that morning.

“Penny for your thoughts?” He asked eventually, as she stared down at the map, still.

Finally, Lenni raised her eyes, and he noticed how wet they were. “Jacob, how does this end?”

“Well, if you ask my brother, in fire and flood.”

She tsk’d. “Be serious.”

“I am.”

“I mean us. Where does this end? How do we…” she swallowed something that sounded painful and caught in her throat, “How do we make it out of this?”

“Darlin’, I don’t think we’re going to have a picket fence and two point five kids anytime soon.” 

Lenni stared at him - more into him, if he was being honest, and finally said, “What do we do, Jacob? How do we…”

“Fix this?” He finished for her as she trailed off.

“Yeah.”

“I’m not sure we can.” 

+++

It ate at him, as she slipped away under the cover of the morning’s drill activities, disappearing into the trees of the Whitetail mountains like she’d never been there, like she’d never been tangled in his bedsheets, like their love wasn’t treasonous and all-consuming. 

He wanted her, more than he’d ever wanted anything. He wanted a future. He wanted to leave this place with her and that goofy, fluffy-tailed dog of hers and never come back. He wanted a regular job and a sedan and to be awoken late at night by the sound of a newborn over a baby monitor. 

Were things like that not for men like him? Had God forsaken him a second time? Or had Joseph just led them all astray? Did they follow a false prophet? 

Jacob Seed stood on his balcony of the old, dilapidated Veteran’s Center, and realized what he had to do. He stepped back inside whistling an old Platters’ song that he usually heard only in his dreams. 

+++

Finding a truck that wasn’t a garish disaster of Eden’s Gate iconography (thanks John,) proved harder than even he’d thought. Finally he found one that someone had stolen from one of the deputies - probably Lenni, he thought, if he was being honest. That girl had a way of leaving vehicles dotted all over the county with little regard for ever fetching them and yet she somehow seemed to have an eye for every vehicle Eden’s Gate could use - and of course every fuel truck they tried to run absolutely anywhere. But once he slipped into the driver’s seat, and jammed a baseball cap on his head to hide his distinctive shock of red hair - at least at first glance - and gave himself the world’s worst, and most useless pep-talk, he started the truck and took a roundabout way down the mountain, toward his brother’s ranch, and past it towards Fall’s End. 

He made sure he arrived late; most of the resistance already resting, and the white clapboard church was mostly abandoned except for the flicker of candlelight in a room upstairs. Father Jerome sat, silhouetted in the window. Jacob prayed - prayed for forgiveness, for strength, for his brother to be wrong - before parking, and sneaking in a back door. 

“Father?” He called quietly, in a voice that didn’t even sound like his own.

Silence, and then: “…Jacob?”

“I mean you absolutely no harm. I’m unarmed.” 

More quiet, and then the creaking of floorboards above him, and Jerome, with his bulletproof vest firmly in place, and his shotgun held in front of him - which made Jacob raise his hands in supplication, to prove he told the truth - descended the spiral staircase, somewhat hidden toward the back of the church.

“What do you want with me, Jacob Seed?” Jacob met his eyes; soldier to soldier, man to man. 

For her. All for her. Anything for her. 

Joseph could not win.

Jacob swallowed, and said only: “I want to join the resistance.” 

+++

“You’ve got a way to keep me on your side, You give me cause for love that I can’t hide. For you I know I’d even try to turn the tide, Because you’re mine, I walk the line…”

#jacob seed/deputy #jacob seed #deputy oc #jacob seed/lenni hartfield #fluff #romance #gift: fic #fc5holidayexchange #fluttyseed #submission

[emybain]

Renegades Titanic AU Part 5

for whatever reason this didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to bUT the next part should be interesting sooo there’s that. also, could not pass up the chance for some lowkey nobell. that's all I have to say. 

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 

Part 5: Dinner Party

Adrian

    “What if she doesn’t come? What if I said or did something to offend her earlier?”

    Adrian readjusted the spectacles on his face. His palms were sweaty, but he refrained from wiping them on his pants. Bad manners, Hugh would say. 

    He and Oscar were standing at the bottom of the grand staircase, a ways off from the rest of the group. People he knew walked by, and he nodded at them in acknowledgement, although he wasn’t really paying attention. 

    “Calm down, Adrian.” Oscar shook his head. “I saw the way she looked at you when you left. She’s coming.”

    Adrian looked at his friend. “What if she gets lost on the way here?”

    Oscar dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “Ruby and Danna snatched her up when they left to get ready. She’s probably with them.”

    Adrian wanted to believe him. However, in the short time he had had to know Nova McLain, he had a feeling she wouldn’t show. He could tell that being around first class made her uneasy, and even more so around the group he called family. 

    There was something about her that made him plead to the sky above that she would at least appear, even if just for a moment, because that meant that she had at least thought of him. And, strangely, the thought of him being in her thoughts sent a tingle down Adrian’s spine. 

    He wondered what went on in her mind, had been wondering since they first made eye contact the day before. It was peculiar how they had been pushed together, somehow, as if it was meant to be. She had scoffed at him yesterday, but was laughing and smiling with him just hours before. 

    It was safe to say that he wanted to befriend her, the unusual third class guest who was supposed to be his enemy. But deep down, he knew that he wanted to pursue a different relationship than friendship. A relationship that included friendship, for sure, but a different kind of friendship. He knew that it was unrealistic and impossible, not just because of their class differences and backgrounds, but also because they just met; it was almost certain they would never come into contact again once the boat docked. 

    Adrian had never been so interested in a girl before as he was now with Nova, though. So if nothing else, he at least wanted to get to know her. That was all. 

    Beside him, Oscar nudged his side, muttering something about how he was right. Oscar nodded up, and Adrian followed his gaze to the grand stairwell. 

    He definitely wanted to get to know Nova McLain.

    Leaving Oscar, Adrian walked to the bottom of the stairs and waited, unable to tear his eyes away from Nova. A small smile played at his lips, unable to be controlled. 

    She was in between Danna and Ruby, gripping their arms as they helped her down the stairs. It was almost comical, watching her struggle in the heels in obvious discomfort, but Adrian felt bad for her. He recognized one of Ruby’s gowns on her. As she neared the bottom, he noticed the bit of makeup on her lips and cheeks, and how her hair was done nicely with beading to compliment its shortness. 

    He held out a hand to her, which she accepted, her eyes pointed at the ground. Feeling bold, he kissed her gloved hand. Her cheeks, already pink with makeup, reddened. 

    “You look nice,” he said, now offering his arm to give her more support to get down. 

    Nova managed a glance at him. “Thank you...um, so do you.” 

    Adrian’s heart leapt into his throat, and all of a sudden he was at a loss for words. In the corner of his eye, he saw Ruby grabbing onto Oscar’s arm, and then they began making their way to the dining room, forcing Adrian to follow with Nova beside him. Alone. 

    Danna appeared beside Adrian, taking his arm. “Mind escorting another?” He looked at his friend, silently thanking her. She rolled her eyes and tugged him ahead. 

    They paused in front of Adrian’s fathers and their inner circle, a group of five individuals who were responsible for their success as a whole. They were once six, but that was before Adrian’s mother was killed years ago. 

    Adrian cleared his throat. “Pops, Dad? You remember Miss McLain, surely?” Five pairs of eyes turned to the three of them, glancing over Adrian and Danna and landing on Nova. Adrian could see Hugh’s eyes widen, and an amused smile lit his face. 

    “Well, this is amazing,” he said with a chuckle. “You could almost pass for a lady, Miss McLain.” 

    Adrian felt Nova tense beside him briefly. “Yes.” She smiled tightly. “Almost.”

    “Extraordinary, really.” Hugh nodded at them, and then to the other four, and then they left the smaller group. 

______

Nova

    It took nearly every bit of Nova’s body to stay where she was and not run away. Every time someone looked at her, usually with curiosity, she felt as if they were telling her that she didn’t belong, that she never could, and that she had no business being in first class. 

    She, Adrian, and Danna had made their way down another staircase to what appeared to be the actual dining room. People around her were socializing and drinking champagne and relaxing in plush seats around tables with white clothes and candles and ornate china. Amazing how first class required so much just to eat dinner. Down in third class, there was a simple dining hall where only a few options were served, and champagne was definitely not on the menu. 

    Danna let go of Adrian’s arm and went around to Nova’s side, pulling her away from him as well. The other girl linked their arms together and leaned in close to Nova, enough for Nova to smell her perfume. 

    Danna pointed a subtle finger toward a poised woman dressed in white and pearls who was speaking to a man. “There’s the Countess of Rothes.” She turned them around. “Oh, there’s John Jacob Astor, the richest man on the ship.” She smiled at Nova, who only stared back cluelessly. “His little wife beside him, Madeleine, is our age and in a delicate condition.” Nova followed her eyes to the petite young woman standing beside a much older man, and down to her belly where she held a fan in front, as if trying to conceal the way it protruded out. “See how she’s trying to hide it?” Danna asked dryly. “She’s younger than his son from his first wife. Rather disgusting, but that’s none of our business, is it?” As Danna continued to point out the rich people to Nova, she felt more and more repulsed by their society. They always portrayed themselves as the best and of civilized upbringing, when, in reality, they all had dirty little secrets that ruined their images. Yet they continued to step on people of Nova’s rank because they had the privilege known as wealth. 

    “Are you trying to scare her away?” Adrian laughed, and Nova suddenly remembered that he was there, that she was there because of him. 

    Danna shrugged. “Just trying to prepare her for when we actually eat.” She squeezed Nova’s arm reassuringly and led her into another section of the dining area, this one much larger. “Nothing to it, right? They love money, so just act like you’re an heiress to a railroad fortune or something and you’re in the club.” 

Danna and Ruby had given her a similar pep talk when she was in Ruby’s rooms with them earlier that evening. Nova had tried to convince them to let her go back down to third class, insisting that she had a dress she could wear, but they wouldn’t hear it. Ruby had pushed her into one of her own gowns as Nova protested against wearing something so fine, waving Nova’s comments away by saying that the gown was too small anyways. While it was a bit long, there was a loop attached to the bottom of the dress that Nova was supposed to wear around her finger to hold up the train. It was a stupid thing, really. It made being able to move quick harder because it forced Nova to hold up her own dress the entire night. So much for self defense if need be. 

The pep talk before had done very little, and the pep talk now wasn’t doing much better. Still, Nova forced a smile onto her face and did as Danna said, pretending to be stuck up and dripping in wealth like the rest of them. She hated every second of it. 

It seemed to work, though, as she was treated no differently than Danna or Adrian by those she was introduced to. Nova refused to let her nerves peak through her pompous acting, mirroring Danna’s and Ruby’s actions and the way they spoke to others in the first class. It was a lighter way of speaking, sort of airy and soft and feminine. It contrasted the way Nova had heard Ruby snort earlier in her rooms and the way she heard Danna fake gag when Ruby teased her about some boy or other who must have been infatuated with Danna once upon a time. She supposed Adrian was right when he said they were different than the rest of the upper class. 

All was going well, even as they sat down to eat. Nova was placed between Danna and Ruby, thankfully. Clearly, the Renegades were thought highly of on the ship, for they were sitting at the biggest table in the dining room with the highest of first class. Nova was just starting to let her muscles relax slightly when Hugh Everhart opened his mouth. 

“Miss McLain, please, do tell us of the accommodations in steerage. I hear they’re quite good on this ship.” His gaze was intense, so Nova set down the glass of champagne she was about to sip in order to rival it.

“The best I’ve seen, sir.” She smiled sweetly. “I’ve only seen a few rats.” The table laughed, and Nova blinked at everyone around her. She hadn’t meant to be funny. 

“Miss McLain is joining us from the third class,” Simon Westwood explained to the few confused faces at the table. So much for pretending to be one of them. “My son was of great assistance to her last night, and being the gentleman he is, invited her to join us tonight to get to know her.” 

“Adrian has always been that way, ever since he was a child,” said Tamaya Rae, with a fond smile in Adrian’s direction. “I remember Georgia having to get onto him for speaking to strangers on the street because he wanted to make friends.” 

Adrian, who was sitting a few seats away from Nova, turned red. “I learned today that Miss McLain has a love of travelling, like myself. She’s been all around Europe.” 

“Really?” Hugh tilted his head. “How is it that you have a means to travel? It is my understanding that you and...your friends are still struggling with success, correct?” 

“We get by just fine, Mr. Everhart, but thank you for your concern.” And by just fine, Nova really meant by living off of Leroy’s concoctions and Honey’s gambling and her…other way of making a quick buck. But Nova had a bed to sleep on and a roof over her head, and that was all that mattered. Now, especially, that was all that mattered, seeing as they were making their way back to America to free Ace and finally mark their success. 

“Your son was kind enough to show me some of his art, earlier,” Nova said, changing the subject. “He’s very gifted. I had no idea.”

“You showed her your drawings?” Oscar piped up, a bread roll halfway to his mouth. “I’m hurt. It took you forever to show me.” While he fake pouted, his eyes were playful. Nova felt as though she shouldn’t have said anything, however, from the awkward look on Adrian’s face. 

Everyone laughed again, and Hugh somehow managed to turn the conversation back to Nova. “And where is your family, Miss McLain? It is quite odd for a girl of your age to have connections to your friends and for there to be no family around.”

It was like throwing salt on an open wound. “They passed away around ten years ago, sir. My mother, father, and baby sister were murdered by a gang. I was lucky enough to survive.”

The light attitude of the table turned dark, and the mindless chatter from before quieted. Glasses came to rest on the table. Suddenly, all eyes were on Nova, but hers were only on Hugh Everhart’s. She stared him down, daring him to remember her parents, remember his promises. Clearly he was too thick headed to even think, though. 

“I’m terribly sorry to hear that.” He sipped his champagne, unaffected by her glare. “Then, how is it that you became associated with the others? They aren’t exactly the best group of people for a growing child to be around. That is, assuming you’ve been with them for a while?”

“Yes, I’ve been with them since my family passed. You see, they saved me from the gang. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be here today, on the greatest ship in the world, sipping champagne with you fine people.” 

Hugh gave her a look that could only be described as quizzical, and Nova let him stare as she accepted a refill of her champagne. 

“They protect you, then?” Simon Westwood raised a suspicious eyebrow. 

“They’ve done much more than that, sir.” Nova bit into her roll, taste buds exploding at its taste. “I am trained in self defense and I know quite a bit in mathematics and chemistry. I am not helpless and could handle being on my own just fine if need be.”

“You sound sure of your own abilities,” added Evander Wade, who was one of the most stuck up of the group, at least in Nova’s eyes. “Although they are impressive, have you ever tested them?”

Nova looked him in the eye. If only any of them knew who she really was. What she was capable of. “Yes.” 

They truly were clueless about her identity, but Nova wasn’t complaining. It wasn’t as if Nightmare was confirmed to be one of Ace’s followers, only speculation and rumor. 

A murmur went around the table, as well as a few chuckles, then the conversation finally turned from her to more interesting matters. As everyone else chattered and laughed, Nova listened with attentive ears while also trying to learn how to properly eat each course, getting help from Danna and Ruby when they noticed her struggling, of course. 

Earlier that day, before she went on her walk with Adrian, Ingrid had drilled her on what to do during the dinner and what to listen for. Anything concerning Ace was priority, and any gossip or personal knowledge was second. But as Nova listened, she understood why Adrian hated first class. They all talked about nothing. Never once during the entire evening did she catch a bit of information that would be beneficial to her and the others. Ingrid was going to be pissed. Unless...Nova could get something out of Adrian or his friends. But they would have to be alone for that. She stabbed and poked at her food until an idea popped into her head. 

Turning to Ruby, she nudged her shoulder. Ruby turned from her conversation with Oscar, eyebrows raised. They raised further at Nova’s request, curious, but nonetheless, she dug through her coin purse and pulled out a pencil and a loose slip of paper, handing them to Nova. Quickly, Nova scribbled her message onto the paper. As she was folding the paper up, the older men at the table began to stand, thanking the ladies and younger gentlemen for their company and one saying something about needing a brandy and a smoke. She handed the pencil back to Ruby discreetly and stood as well. 

“I best be heading back,” Nova explained, hiding the paper between her two fingers. “Thank you for having me tonight. It has been an honor.” She stiffly said her goodbyes to Adrian’s parents as they left with the other gentlemen, then made her way around the table to Adrian, who stood quickly. The soft way he looked down at her sent her heart fluttering, almost making the past few hours among the wealthy bearable. 

“Miss McLain, must you go?” Adrian asked, eyes roaming her face. 

“Time for me to go row with the other slaves.” Nova’s lips quirked up. She hated how she had to tilt her head up to look him in the eye. 

Adrian chuckled, rolling his eyes. “Would you like for me to escort you back?”

“Goodnight, Adrian,” she murmured, holding out her hand to shake his.

But he had other ideas. He took her hand and raised the back of it to his lips, kissing it gently. Remembering her task just before he let go, her mind a mess, she quickly pressed the paper into his hand. His face scrunched up in momentary confusion, but relaxed just as quickly, a smile replacing it. 

“Goodnight, then, Nova.” 

It was the first time she had heard her name on his lips and not Miss McLain. Something that was real and not made up. She hated how much she enjoyed it. 

Turning from him, she bid farewell to his friends and quickly made her way out of the dining room and to the grand stairwell with the clock at the top, where she was to wait.

#renegades #archenemies #nova artino #Adrian everhart #danna bell #Oscar silva #ruby tucker #anarchists #my writing

[sml8180]

Comfort Through the Storm

A/N: I posted a soft!Seed HC about Jacob and John being kind of afraid of storms, and Joseph being the one to help them, and decided to make it into a full on one-shot. Also, slight bonus HC that all three brothers enjoy music, so there’s that, too.

@johnseedthot @deputyshitlordsantana @jacobsmusicbox @farcrying5 @johnseedsplane @rookieseed

Lightning flashed overhead as the rain came down in sheets. John hadn’t been through a storm like this in some time, and he could easily say that he still wasn’t a fan. He’d hated storms ever since he could remember. Despite being a grown man who heard gunfire on a near daily basis, thunderstorms were one of those things he couldn’t stand. He knew Jacob wasn’t one for them, either, but his eldest brother wasn’t the type to go to another for comfort. Usually, once the thunder started, Jacob would simply leave and lock himself in his room, coping on his own. John, though, found that being alone was one of the worst things for him. So many late stormy nights, alone at the office while he finished paperwork for whatever case he’d been working on had proved that time and time again. When the wind picked up, and lightning flashed again, the Baptist picked up the book he’d set on the table beside his chair and left his office.

He slipped into the main lounge just as Jacob slipped out, passing by without a word. John found Joseph sitting by the fire he’d lit, his glasses set aside and a white leather bound journal in his lap. Neither brother said anything as John settled himself in a nearby armchair, getting comfortable before opening up the book he’d brought with him. The thunder boomed outside, and his grip on the book tightened for just a second. The youngest brother tried to focus on his book; it was one he’d read a number of times already, but he enjoyed it all the same. For a time, John was able to focus on his reading and the crackling of the fire, but as the storm picked up, he sighed, unable to focus correctly as the thunder grew louder.

Joseph looked to his brother out of the corner of his eye, hearing the man’s quiet sigh. He tried to think of what he could say to help distract his younger brother. The Father closed the book in his lap and stood to put it back in its place on the bookshelf. There was only a handful of things he knew helped John through storms like this; conversation, music, reading, even just getting him to sketch out tattoo designs seemed to help the man. Thinking for another moment, Joseph nodded to himself, and made his way back to his brother.

“John?” Joseph’s voice was soft as he addressed his brother, setting a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. He didn’t want to startle his brother, after all. “We haven’t worked on filling in the tattoo on my back in some time. We could do some now, if you’re willing.” The Father tried to be casual in his wording. If he was too obvious about trying to distract John, it wouldn’t help him. What he was saying was true, anyways; the pair had been chipping away at a large cross tattoo Joseph had wanted on his back, and the outline was finished, but currently stood only partially filled. They were going just a section at a time, trying to work around the schedule they held in keeping the Project running smoothly. Now, though, they had a fair amount of time to kill as the storm continued outside in the night.

“I suppose it has been a while, hasn’t it?” John quietly mused, setting his book aside. “I guess who could work on it, we do have the time, after all,” he went on, looking up towards his brother standing by his side. The Baptist stood, going to get his equipment without another word.

Joseph smiled to himself, and got a few things together for John. He set a pair of chairs together in the light, turning on an extra lamp so that John would be able to better see what he was doing, and set a table nearby for John’s equipment. Afterwords, he slipped off his shirt, setting it aside. He was thankful that he would be able to go back to wearing his usual buttoned shirts in another few days, it wasn’t normal of him to go around in T-shirts like Jacob did. The words cut into his skin were no longer sensitive to the touch, so long as it didn’t do anything to cause them to open back up. The middle Seed sat on one of the chairs, facing the back of it and crossing his arms over the back. John soon returned, and set out his equipment, hands already washed and everything else ready to go. He took a small breath as the tattoo gun buzzed to life in his hand, relaxing at the familiar sound, if only a small bit.

The Father felt his brother’s hand on his back, keeping them both steady as John began to work. The fast moving needle was a familiar feeling to Joseph, by now, and the sound was something else he’d grown used to. As his brother worked, the older Seed held still, smiling to himself as he could feel John’s bracing hand relaxing against his back as he worked. John had a steady hand, and Joseph found a bit of comfort in that fact. Despite all the tattoos he had, Joseph wasn’t one to trust just anybody to take a needle to his skin. The only ink he’d had done that wasn’t by his brother’s hand had been the pair of Doves by his collar bones. They had been nearly hell to get done, with how sensitive the area was from a lack of muscle or fat to cushion the needle. After reuniting with John, though, and learning about his skill with a tattoo gun, Joseph had asked if he could add a new tattoo to him; the portrait of his late wife, surrounded by Bliss flowers, had been John’s first work on his brother. From then on, Joseph only trusted his Baptist to take a needle to his skin.

As the atmosphere became more relaxed between the two, Joseph let his eyes shut. Any tension he’d felt in John’s hand against his back was now gone as he worked, and the realization let the older brother relax, himself. Soon, Joseph started to hum whatever hymn that came to mind, breaking the silence between him and his brother. Not long after, he could hear John join him, quietly starting to sing the lyrics to his brother’s humming. As this went on, John continued his work, singing with his older brother as he did. By the time they got tired enough to call it quits for the night, John had gotten almost a quarter of Joseph’s tattoo filled. They still had roughly half of the linework left to fill in, but that could wait. For now, John covered up the freshly inked skin on his brother’s back and started to gather his equipment to be clean it later on. Joseph straightened up, rolling his shoulders and head to loosen up the stiff muscles.

“We made a dent, at least. A couple more sessions, and we should have it finished,” John told his brother, putting away his equipment. He was far more relaxed, now, going off his tone and movements.

Joseph smiled calmly, nodding. “We’ll need to find the time, then,” he simply stated, earning a nod from his younger brother. After the equipment was cleared and things returned to normal, John made his way to his room, heading to bed as the storm started to finally die down outside. While his younger brother went to bed, Joseph went to check in on his older brother, quietly knocking at the wooden door before opening it enough to slip in and lean against the inside door-frame.

The Soldier didn’t seem to take much notice at first, as he tightened a small screw in the music box he always kept around. Joseph didn’t know where he’d gotten it, but believed it wasn’t his business to ask. He simply watched as Jacob wound the box, getting it to start playing its song. Jacob joined in the melody, softly singing the lyrics without even thinking. When the eldest Seed heard a second voice join him, he turned to see Joseph, and kept an eye on the man as they both sang with the tune of the music box on the desk, until it stopped playing. Without a word, the two older brothers exchanged a nod, and Joseph left the room, going to his own. The Father was simply glad that he was there to bring his brothers comfort through the storm.

#fc5 fanfic #soft!seed brothers #john seed #joseph seed #jacob seed #tattoos #mentions of blood #mentions of needles

[danceworshipper]

HPHM Character Profile

I wasn't tagged but I wanted to do it anyway

General Information:

Name: Gracie Tessa Chiva

Age: 15

Gender: Female

Nickname(s): Little Heaven by her father, Twin Number One by many of her friends, Oldie by Tessa (younger twin), Pumpkin by her mother, Darling by Rowan, Star by Jacob.

Date of birth: August 17th, 1973 at 3:33am

Zodiac Sign: Leo

Ethnicity: Scottish, German, English

Nationality: English

Species: Human, Witch, and a hint of altered DNA (more on that later)

Blood Type: AB+

Blood Status: Pureblood

Family:

Father: Jason Peter Chiva

- The Chivas were a very closed off Pureblood family, only ever leaving their childhood homes once married and usually moving very close by

- Jason was the first in his family to marry a Black, one of his greatest accomplishments

- Jason move to England to make his wife happy, causing a fallout between him and his parents/siblings

- Jason was sorted into Slytherin, while most Chivas were Hufflepuffs (surprisingly)

- This is why he was considered a suitable fit for a Black while no one else was

- Jason was very good at DADA, and had a particular liking for Astronomy

- He was on the Frog Choir

- He was a Prefect

- Jason became an Auror at the age of 23

- He met his wife Clarissa Black on the job at age 24, saving her life from a Muggleborn who had heard one too many 'Mudblood's

- It was love at first sight for him, but she took over two years for her to finally agree to marry him

- He is three years younger than Clarissa

- They were married at the ages of 26 and 29

- They had their first child (Jacob) when Jason was 28

- Jason is arrested for a string of murders when Gracie is 12, destroying the Chiva name

- He comitted those murders trying to find the person who cursed his daughter

Mother: Clarissa Vanessa Black

- As a Black, Clarissa was taught about blood purity and all that garbage for her entire childhood

- It wasn't until she was sorted into Ravenclaw and met her Halfblood best friend that she started to question her family's morals

- She and that best friend had a huge fight in Year 4, causing Clarissa to stick to her family's morals for a while longer

- Discovered she was a Legilimens at age 5, and was the family jewel as youngest Legilimens in the entire Black family

- The Blacks never had another Legilimens who had the last name, only the Chiva children

- She was a Prefect

- Clarissa had a very easy time in Divination and switched to Arithmancy to give herself more of a challenge

- Actually fell in love with Jason a few months into their relationship, but hid it because she was afraid she would not be allowed to marry him and did not want to get her hopes up

- Jacob's disappearance nearly killed her

- Gracie's curse and Jason's arrest only made her depression worse

- Her favorite child used to be Jacob, but then became Tessa because Tessa was the only one who didn't leave her in some way

- She and Gracie never get along anymore

Brother: Jacob Riley Chiva

- Five years older than the twins

- Always favored Gracie for her spirit and attitude but tried to not let Tessa know (she knew)

- Called Gracie 'Star' and Tessa 'Lady'

- Sorted into Ravenclaw like his mother

- Wasn't a Prefect and didn't want to be

- Was on the Frog Choir with the toad that is now Gracie's, Clara, named after their mother

- Preferred Duncan to Olivia and everyone knew it

- Discovered he was aroace two years before his disappearance

- Hated it when Olivia and Duncan began dating

- Lost his mind after his best friend died and only focused on the vaults, desperate to not let Duncan have died for nothing

- Olivia grew afraid of him but helped in anyway she could until her own fate caught up to her

- Doesn't know about Gracie's curse

- When they meet again he doesn't recognize her, but when he does, he instantly knows who did it, which is why he doesn't stick around to say hi to Tessa

Twin Sister: Tessa Gracie Chiva

- Eight and a half minutes younger than Gracie

- Always loved her father more, but after his arrest is so hurt that she won't even mention him, and Gracie is careful not to do so around her

- Sorted into Slytherin because she didn't want to be away from Gracie, but would have preferred Ravenclaw

- Started dating Barnaby in second year. They had a falling out when Barnaby began to work for Merula, but once he became friends with Gracie instead they got back together

- Her best friend is Liz, and they go vegan together

- Favorite class is Care of Magical Creatures

- Despises Gracie's obsession with the vaults and tries to avoid everything having to do with them

- Doesn't believe that Gracie found Jacob and hates her for 'lying' about it

- Pissed off at Barnaby for believing Gracie, but is unwilling to break up again and passes it off as him being gullible

Affiliations/Organizations

- Slytherin

- Potions Club

- Would do anything for her friends/family

Occupation(s)

- Future Dark Arts teacher at Durmstrang

- Currently a tutor and CoMC assistant

- Currently a Prefect

Magical Characteristics:

Boggart: Rowan turning on her

Riddikulus: Rowan being aged down into a toddler

Patronus: Mastiff

Mirror of Erised: Her and everyone she cares about being together and happy

Wand:

Length: 13 3/4 inches

Flexibility: Reasonably supply

Wood: Rowan (good heavens is Rowan excited when she finds out)

Core: Unicorn tail hair

Description: Dark wood with incricate designs on the handle and a peridot (her birthstone) sticking out of the end

Animagus: Osprey

Amortentia:

To Others: poison, sugar, and wind

To Her: hair dye, danger, and fresh breath (Merula)

Appearance:

Height: 5'5"

Weight: 119 lbs

Complexion:

- Before the curse she is pale but human looking, and has almost golden freckles

- After the curse she is so pale you can see every vein, and the freckles stand out more

Hair Color/Style:

- Before the curse her hair is dark brown and slightly wavy, usually kept around waist length

- After the curse it turns white and she cuts it to her jawline, still slightly wavy

Eye Color:

- Before the curse her eyes are deep green with flecks of brown and large pupils

- After the curse her eyes are a glowing bright green with no flecks at all and small pupils

Hogwarts Information:

Worst Class(es): Gracie gets straight Os most of the time but she hates History of Magic because it is so boring, and she finds Charms boring but useful

Best Classes: Gracie is also a fan of Astronomy and Arithmancy, and is one of the best fliers in the class. She loves CoMC and likes the challenge of Potions

Least Favorite Teacher(s):

- Binns. Self-Explanatory

- Rakepick. The fact that she can never get a straight answer infuriates her and she's never one to trust quickly after the curse, especially because Rakepick is not a nice person and she can tell

- Snape. People that abuse their authority get on her last nerve, and Snape is the king of doing that

- Dumbledore. So. Damn. Annoying. Also, she knows that he's hiding something, she just can't tell what

Favorite Teacher(s)

- McGonagall. She's always striving for her approval and is happy with even the slightest amount of praise from her

- Flitwick. Despite not liking his class, Gracie likes him because he is always so nice and seems to have pure intentions

- Kettleburn is not on this list because she won't let herself get close to him because she feels like he's going to get himself killed

Quidditch:

- Loves to watch

- She would have played as a Beater but the vaults hardly leave her time to do that

- Plays casually on weekends with her friends

Favorite Spell(s):

- Accio

- Crucio

- Sectumsempra (Snape taught it to her in her second year at Dumbledore's request)

- Vermillious

- Various hexes

Trivia (random facts not stated previously)

- She is bisexual

- She started dating Merula in fourth year. Their first date was the Celestial Ball

- She is left handed like everyone else in her immediate family

- Her family has a Crup named Ruby

- She will get an Owl named King in her sixth year

- Gracie's curse was invented by R

- It causes her to be immune to all mind warping spells/potions and gives her a horrible cough when someone is trying to use one on her

- The curse does have a bad side (obviously, it's a curse). It gives her the natural instinct to hurt people, even the ones she loves, just out of curiosity. She has only given in once with Rowan's permission. Rowan now has Gracie's name scarred on the back of her neck, hidden by her hair

- The curse also will cause Gracie to slowly die if she is separated from her wand for longer than 24 hours

- Gracie has a lower body temperature than most people (only by a few degrees) and is always warm to the touch, never cold

- Gracie witnessed one of the murders her father committed and can see Thestrals while Tessa cannot

- Gracie hopes Tessa and Barnaby never break up again, not because she likes them together (she doesn't) but because she doesn't want to have to choose between them (she'd pick Barnaby if she had to)

- She and Merula got intimate right before entering the Portrait Vault in fear of one of them dying and never getting the chance

- She still doesn't fully trust Ben but she does still love him

- She never had her wand broken because she well and truly walked away

- Her key necklace was a gift from Jacob. It unlocks a box of memories of the two

I tag @sasha-at-hogwarts , @son-of-aurlius-piscius , and @upset-hufflepuff

#hogwarts mystery #slytherin #jacob's sibling #gracie chiva #hphm mc #friends #rowan khanna #merula snyde #tessa chiva #jacob chiva #clarissa chiva #jason chiva #ask

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

I had a friend create a 10-category, 50-question Harry Potter trivia quiz for my 30th birthday. I have a Ravenclaw tattoo that takes up most of my right forearm. I’ve helped orchestrate an HP-themed baby shower. I’ve held multiple HP movie marathons. And when we were first dating and Wife told me she’d never read the books, I legitimately cried and then blocked it from my memory. When she told me for the second time, months later, I cried again. 

One could say I’m a fan of the wizarding world. 

So here we are, at the second entry in the second wizarding franchise, and the only question really worth answering is, is this a world that’s still worth visiting? Well...

Imagine someone you love - it could be anyone, but as an example I’ll use your best friend. Imagine your BEST friend, whom you’ve shared so much with, whom you’ve gone through ups and downs with. That one. Now imagine that every few months, your best friend’s mom sends you a text, or calls you, or puts up a billboard in your town that seems to be actively trying to get you to hate your best friend. Things like “She kicks puppies” or “One time, she made fun of a homeless man until he cried” or “She told me she wants to set fire to a hospital.” Like, real fucked up stuff. Would you maintain a relationship with that friend? With them both? Or would you cut ties completely and just hold onto the memories of the friendship you used to have?

I’m genuinely asking, because J.K. Rowling seems hellbent on shitting all over the things I love in some twisted effort to make me utterly baffled and repulsed by the world she has created. I never thought I’d say this, but Johnny Depp is the least of this movie’s problems, so welcome to Whose Crime Is It Anyway? where the timelines are made up and the plot points don't matter.

A spoilery summary! Our favorite Hufflepuff Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) is asked by Hot Dumbledore (Jude Law) to go to Paris and find Credence (Ezra Miller). You remember Credence, the sweet emo boy from the first movie whose death functioned as the climax of the film? JK JK death is meaningless and impermanent here! It’s the roaring 20s, everyone’s drunk. Newt needs to find him because Grindelwald (Johnny Depp, doing his best impression of day-old potato salad) is also looking for him. Credence is the subject of a prophecy that everyone’s familiar with but the audience, you see, and he’s currently trapped in a Parisian street circus with a woman/snake named Nagini (Claudia Kim, and yes, THAT Nagini). Jacob and Queenie (Dan Fogler and Alison Sudol) also show up again, because they were in the first movie too so they have to be here for this. Jacob’s memory has been restored because...~handwavey reasons~ and Queenie decides to join The Mayonnaise Man’s cause as a wizard Nazi because...she wants to marry a Muggle. Somehow I think she didn’t read the whole orientation flyer. Leta Lestrange (Zoe Kravitz) is engaged to Newt’s brother, Theseus (Callum Turner) but is mostly hanging around to look sad and reveal that Credence couldn’t be her long-lost brother because she killed her long-lost brother by switching him with another baby on a ship right before it sank at sea. And she’s right, Credence isn’t her brother - he’s gone over to the dark side, where the vaguely human amalgamation of cauliflower rice tells him he’s the long-lost brother of Albus Dumbledore! Because why the fuck not, nothing else in this goddamn thing makes any sense anyway.

I would also like to point out I left out at least 40 more characters, many of whom seem to be important but are never named or introduced in any way.

SEVERAL thoughts:

Visually, this world is stunning. The set designers have done an incredible job showcasing new magical settings in rich, vivid detail. The Parisian street circus and the French Ministry of Magic building were particular favorites of mine.

Likewise, the 1927-era costumes are drop-dead gorgeous. This franchise should really be called Fantastic Coats and Where to Find Them.

50 galleons seems so steep. I wonder what the wizarding inflation rate is.

Snakes can fit through bars of cages...

Performances - Redmayne is sweet, but virtually shoved out of the way in his own franchise; Kravitz is cold and removed - is that acting choice secret pain or constipation? Hard to say; Fogler is underutilized, especially after being the emotional MVP of the first film; Sudol is fractured and manic, completely devoid of her earnest warmth from before; Miller barely gets 3 lines, and mostly looks like he’s about to cry; Law is fine as hell and kindly and wise and doesn’t give off weird “I’m going to use children as sacrificial lambs without telling them or anyone else about it” vibes, so that’s already a big step up from the Dumbledore we get in the books; and then there’s Johnny. Johnny “lightly braised tofu” Depp is giving one of his most understated performances in years, to the point that he’s almost...boring? Most genocidal fuckheads are at least compelling speakers, but this dehydrated turnip just sort of glides about, while his followers do dastardly things for him. He doesn’t even kill his own toddlers, he outsources it to his followers. Does nobody believe in honest, hard work anymore? 

Basically all of the details - the set dressing, the costumes, the overall aesthetics and feel of the film - are beautifully realized. However, the foundation is made of smoke and sand and the distant sound of JKR’s maniacal laughter.

Cast and endorse an accused abuser who is teetering on the brink of public collapse? Check. Include outdated Orientalism cliches by casting an East Asian woman as mysterious, dangerous, and literally snake-like? Check. How about a white imperialist Imperius-ing Leta Lestrange's (black African) mother and literally forcing her into sex slavery with no follow-up or reflection on the part of the film or its characters? Check. It’s like some sort of perverse bingo game she’s playing to try to alienate everyone who might have seen themselves in the Harry Potter universe as belonging, because they understood what it was like to be an outsider, to be abused, to be shunned and made fun of and ostracized. Cause fuck all those people, amirite?

And that’s just the offensive choices from a purely political standpoint. How about the offensive choices regarding more trivial matters like linear time and space - like Dumbledore teaching Transfiguration, not DAtDA. Or like Professor MacGonagall being born in 1935, yet somehow teaching at Hogwarts in 1927. People apparating inside Hogwarts. Complete reversals of characters’ personalities and motivations. Characters being introduced and never seen again (where did Bunty go?? Did she die???) Characters NOT being introduced and never seen again (what up Jessica Williams, super psyched that you’re here, sure would be neat if I knew who the fuck you were playing or why that person was important!) If the references are meant for fans’ benefit, it fucking BACKFIRED, because most HP fans I know aren’t looking for a convoluted soap opera where babies are switched, people have secret brothers, everyone's amnesia gets reversed, and people come back from the dead.

Now that I think about it, the practice of confronting a boggart is super problematic. Like people have traumas. It's not all spiders and snakes, Dumbledore! God, Hogwarts pedagogy is shit.

I’m still not convinced that Jude Law’s tasty Daddy Dumbledore could possibly still be in love with this tuna salad sandwich from a vending machine at the DMV. That flashback in the Mirror of Erised is supposed to be full of longing but all I could think was, “is this how straight people think gay sex works?” Would have loved to hear that day in the writer’s room. “Maybe we could have them kiss?” “Too gay. What if they exchange blood vows and hold hands to form a magical amulet?” “Nailed it.” *everyone high fives and chugs a Red Bull* 

There’s just...so much. So much that I wish were different. I don’t quite know how it’s possible for a film to explain both too much and not enough, but here we are. The Crimes of Grindlewald isn’t just a title, it’s a prophecy of what audiences are forced to endure here - it’s not just separating art from artist, it’s not just cultural exploitation and othering, it’s not just queer erasure, it’s not just overplotted and underwhelming narrative, it’s not just cheap shocks and winking references. The rap sheet just keeps getting longer and longer, and I have to wonder when, if ever, Rowling will atone for these crimes.

#118in2018 #the crimes of grindelwald #the crimes of grindelwald review #fb tcog #fantastic beasts #jk rowling #wizarding world #newt scamander #eddie redmayne #johnny depp #jude law #zoe kravitz #dan fogler #alison sudol #ezra miller #claudia kim #movie reviews #film reviews

[ask-lightning-n-dusk-blog]

Am I the Only One to Notice?

This is inference I suppose.

How many of you have to blush when you admit you like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwK_WOXjfc0

(If it’s because you’re a feminist with a broom handle up her four point of contact, declaring it sexist because-

I’m not talking to you and you won’t like this article.

If you’re a man or woman ashamed to like it because just feels like you... it’s hard to explain, you just feel like you shouldn’t... read on

I’ve been noticing what seems like a trend over the years when it comes to gender differences in entertainment- they’re getting bigger. The more we hear feminists brag about killing “toxic masculinity” the more men and “tom boys” seem to want to eliminate more feminine or even neutral titles from their film libraries. In the military guys and even girls were mocked for liking, of all films, Sound of Music- ya know, only the third most popular film of all time, just two down from Gone with the Wind, and no guy these days would admit to THAT being in his top ten.

I’ve done a little research and yes, I’m aware of the phenomenon of gender differences actually amplifying in egalitarian societies. However one thing I would put forward. What if there is a reason for this outside of nature and economics? Particularly with the “toxic masculine”, is there a reason more men and boys love to talk about the brainless crap put out by Michael Bay, but are scared to talk about Pride and Prejudice?

I mean, yeah, I’ve noticed a number of romance stories tend to view male characters in a very demeaning way, Edward and Jacob are card board cut outs made overtly to please women and their feelings and futures are portrayed as not even mattering. I can see men having a problem with Twilight, but Citizen Cain? That’s not even a romance but many guys are afraid to talk about it because it’s not, I guess, “manly enough”. It’s even ironic to talk to these “manly men” about films like Sound of Music and notice how they can practically quote the film verbatim and yet they “don’t like it”.

(Skip this paragraph if you frankly don’t care about the feminist explanation.) The feminist explanation for this is an international subconscious male conspiracy that can never be proven real or not by science because its definition is too nebulous. (Am I wrong? Am I really? How is it you know exactly what I’m talking about Fems?) The same subconscious male conspiracy referenced in the Duluth Model, which is used to assume default male responsibility in cases of domestic abuse which has seen men put away for trying to report abusive women. It also probably has something to do with rape, one of the most basic, terrifying and violent crimes known to human kind, being declared a women’s issue, despite little to no evidence that men are less likely to experience it. (I guess you feminists can take solace on that one, after all, when you refuse to protest the FBI not referencing “made to penetrate” in it’s definition of rape, you are indeed not supporting thousands upon thousands of women whose rapes would fall into that category, so hey, “equality” there.) So yeah, fuck off with your dumb conspiracy theory.

Well here’s my own subconscious analysis. When you tell someone their interests, like action heroes and brutal fast paced animes are “toxic” particularly because of born traits that they can’t change, they become defensive of those interests. When someone has to defend their interest or feels their interest is being delegitimized, they focus undo attention on it. They then try to justify how their interest is good, often turning a product that is decent or even sub par, into a magnum opus in their own head, an opus so amazing, nothing that doesn’t replicate it is worthy of your time.

Want an example of this in a different place? Look at the brony fandom. Yep, I’m honestly examining something I’m part of. My Little Pony is- okay. That’s it, it’s- okay. Even as kids shows go its-okay. But for some bronies, they have made MLP their gold standard, even guys who used to have much more diverse interests. There are MANY MANY bronies like this. In fact MANY male fan bases for feminine shows end up calling their show some kind of gold standard, like the small niche of male Winx fans or male fans of Lady Bug.

If you have to defend your love of something, that love intensifies, and as that love intensifies, other interests start to pale. They pale to the point where you honestly start to feel shame that you like things that are TOO different from the interest your defensive of.

Basically, yes fems, by constantly calling legitimate interests, like super heroes and action movies “toxic” YOU are the ones causing growing divides. Men who have these interests are now feeling the need to defend them

“Boo hoo, male tears!” Yeah yeah, never said this was serious, but seriously, tell me again about the pink bottle being more expensive than the blue bottle and why you can’t just buy the blue one

So, to men and women alike who love super heroes and action movies and have trouble admitting that you also like things like Gone With the Wind, my solution is to say “it’s fine”. If you like the dumb explosion fests that are the Michael Bay Transformers franchise, that’s fine. You don’t have to defend it. Lots of money, time, creativity (at one point), ingenuity, expertise and know how went into those films. I could sooner reproduce a scene from the latest AMC version of Pride and Prejudice than a Transformers squeal. I hate them personally, but there is probably a lot to love. Your interest is FINE. It’s NOT toxic. I hear you, the explosions look amazing and the special effects were and sometimes are ahead of their time. I get the same chills you do hearing Optomis’ voice done so well. I get that you love seeing a beloved franchise you thought dead, reborn on the big screen, there’s nothing wrong with liking that. For those of your waiting for the “but” there isn’t one. Like whatever you like, it’s fine. Your personality doesn’t require my approval.

Okay so I guess there is a “but”. Can you give movies like Sound of Music and Gone with the Wind another chance? To the girls, its fine to like girl and guy things, it’s even fine if you recognize them as “girl” and “guy” things and like seeing them that way (how many people had to pause after reading that line?). If you’re a girl who loves Transformers and really does want to be seen as different for liking it, though different in a positive way, especially because you put hours of effort into that Bumble Bee cosplay, and your tired of people telling you your beloved movie is the worst thing ever- it’s not the worst thing ever- and seriously, that costume is AWESOME! To guys, I’m on your side. The explosions were pretty cool. And ya know what, if you like those explosions, it doesn’t mean you want to beat your wife or anything else that might be implied by the term “toxic”. Now that I said all that, can you give classic and varied cinema a chance again? C’mon, I doubt the highest rated stories of all time got that way by being gender specific or nechie. You might still not like them, but c’mon... this is just so beautiful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fH2FOn1V5g

And for those of you who think its just for girls, this too is amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMuTDdWXbNo

He’s probably one of the best male protags I’ve seen in film to date. And yes, someone is trying to make him change and evolve- difference? He’s not the only one who has to, his discipline is shown to be good in it’s proper place, and we’re made to care about him as a person. The Captain is never portrayed as just a brute. The Captain is broken and his masculinity is corrupted. When he’s shown how to open up again, he then uses his discipline and true manliness, to protect his family from the REAL Nazi empire. Don’t think he’s manly? The dude stares down a gun from a real life Nazi and doesn’t even blink.

#hills are alive #toxic masculinity #isn't real #its fine to like things #should be common sense

[aion-rsa]

An A.P. Bio Season 4 Episode Guide with Showrunner Mike O’Brien

https://ift.tt/38xQFt4

Fittingly for a show about high school, A.P. Bio’s writers are often tasked with the least enjoyable aspect of education: homework.

“One of the ways we try to find new areas in stories is just by writing assignments and homework,” A.P. Bio showrunner Mike O’Brien tells Den of Geek. “We’ll all go home and write. I often call them sketches or scenes – just some little thing.”

O’Brien’s homework assignments have apparently paid off as they’ve allowed the comedy to reach four seasons, the first two of which aired on NBC and the following two on streaming service Peacock. 

A.P. Bio is set in the fictional Whitlock High School in Toledo, Ohio and follows disgraced Harvard philosophy professor Jack Griffin (Glenn Howerton) as he returns home to teach some eager nerds A.P. Biology. Unfortunately for the nerds, Jack has no intention of teaching them A.P. Biology and instead forces his students to join him on missions to address his many petty slights and grievances. Fortunately for the nerds, some lessons are learned despite Jack’s most sincere efforts not to instill any.

With all eight episodes of A.P. Bio season 4 available to stream on Peacock now, we caught up with O’Brien to discuss the journey so far. And since we’re thorough, we decided to ask about each of season 4’s eight episodes. 

Read along with our A.P. Bio season 4 syllabus below.

Season 4 Episode 1 “Tornado!”

“Tornado” begins with a set up that should be familiar to many current and former Midwestern students: a tornado drill. The concept of avoiding the mighty power of a tornado by gathering in a hallway and hoping it doesn’t notice you is ripe for comedic possibilities. A.P. Bio, however, decides to take things in a bit of a different direction. This premiere is a vessel for the students of Whitlock High to share slash fiction stories about their teachers with one another.

“One of the writers in the room, Jess Lacher, wrote the cold open of ‘Tornado’ almost word for word,” O’Brien says. “That stayed pretty much as is. We were like, ‘Maybe this is a whole episode.’”

Naturally the excursion into one of fandom’s most treacherous pastimes required some preliminary investigations. 

“We did a decent amount of research (into slash fiction). I tried to get into the origins a little bit of it, which seemed to be maybe Spock and Kirk.”

As of press time, there is no available slash fiction about A.P. Bio characters that I’m aware of…yet.

Season 4 Episode 2 “Sweatpants”

The simplest of actions lead to the grandest of consequences on A.P. Bio. In this episode, that action is a dress code policy to curb bullying. The consequence is the formation of a cult, naturally. 

Read more

TV

A.P. Bio Season 3 Preview: School’s Back In Session

By Alec Bojalad

“We were trying to use some of the tropes of real cults,” O’Brien says. “I feel like I’d just seen Midsommar, and I’ve been a fan for a long time of The Source Family. There’s so many good fiction and nonfiction cult movies and things to talk about, that writers are always talking about and imitating.”

What makes A.P. Bio’s cult particularly interesting is that it centers on sad sack student Victor (Jacob Houston).

“More than anything, we wanted to put it through Victor’s filter. So things he likes and hates are all given Jonestown-level of intensity.”

And that’s how you get delightfully strange scenes of a whole classroom yelling “Divorce! Divorce!” at things they don’t like. 

Season 4 Episode 3 “An Oath to Rusty”

Following his break-up with the lovely Lynette (Elizabeth Alderfer), Jack needs some friends. Unfortunately, the only way he knows how to go about getting them is by asking them to play the world’s hardest board game

“I found Twilight Imperium by Googling ‘hardest games to learn.’ It’s always in the top five. It’s a lot,” O’Brien says. “Talk about going down deep rabbit holes. I spent more time learning tutorials on YouTube for that game than anything else.”

While Jack’s relationship struggles, this episode spends plenty of time with a trio of characters who are thick as thieves. Stef Duncan (Lyric Lewis) and Mary Wagner (Mary Sohn) find themselves frustrated with their friend Michelle Jones’s (Jean Villepique) refusal to tell them what case she worked on during jury duty. According to O’Brien, this is another concept that came directly from the writing staff’s “homework assignments.”

“That was a homework assignment from David Neher, who plays Geology Dave on the show. He just randomly brought in as his homework one time a thing where Stef and Mary are doing police sketches of a fully misunderstood thing from Michelle, who isn’t saying anything about her boring trial she was a jury member for.”

Season 4 Episode 4 “Tons of Rue”

Though the delightful Joe Manganiello notably pops up later on, cult movie star Bruce Campbell is A.P. Bio season 4’s biggest get. The beloved Evil Dead actor portrays Jack’s scumbag father who is trying to turn over a new leaf.

“That was so cool,” O’Brien says of bringing Campbell aboard. “He’s not as well known as Tom Cruise, but his fans are all fever pitch fans. Certain crew members and a handful of the writers were going nuts. I think Glenn was a big fan and really excited.”

Unfortunately for Howerton’s Jack, his father’s instincts to flee when things get too real win out again in the end. Though Campbell’s time on the show was brief, he left a big impact behind the scenes, according to O’Brien.

“He’s just so nice. I guess you’d hope it’s either that, or he’s like a weird psychopath that requires tiny orange juices to keep coming to work. But he’s gregarious and funny and nice and does a great job with the script. I loved having him around. I was a big Evil Dead fan in college, so it was the best.”

Season 4 Episode 5 “The Perfect Date From Hell”

So I’ll be frank: we ran out of time to discuss “The Perfect Date From Hell” with Mike O’Brien. And that’s a shame as there’s quite a bit going on here! From the introduction of Jack’s new love interest Shayla (Hayley Marie Norman) to Principal Durbin (Patton Oswalt) going all Undercover Boss, there was certainly plenty to unpack. Oh well, next time we’ll get to hear all about Durbs’ disturbing prosthetics.

Onto the next one!

Season 4 Episode 6 “Love, for Lack of a Better Term”

This is Victor’s second big showcase episode of the season, after serving as a cult leader in “Sweatpants.” This time around things are a lot less sinister. This half-hour serves as a parody of ‘90s teen romance movies (Third Eye Blind soundtrack and all) in which a lovable schlub goes for the popular girl and can’t realize his true love was in front of him the whole time. 

“It ended up being a big Victor season. He kind of takes over this episode and has a couple of other really great moments,” O’Brien says.

Despite Victor’s clear status as MVP, O’Brien says it’s important for each student character to get their time in the sun. 

“I would say I hope that all of (the students) shine at different moments, because they’re all so talented. It’s on the writing team to make sure we aren’t letting any of them slip through the cracks, even for one episode.”

Season 4 Episode 7 “Malachi”

It’s no secret that comedy titan Paula Pell is a big part of A.P. Bio’s success as school secretary Helen Henry Demarcus. Through three seasons, the show has treated her as a Paul Bunyan-esque character, capable of astonishing feats and fit to bursting with a positively insane backstory. While Helen has quite the internal history on A.P. Bio, the show has not yet fully reckoned with her as a sexual being until this season. And this is the episode that delves furthest into Helen’s horny heart to amazing success. 

“She’s in and out of relationships that aren’t great all the time,” O’Brien says. “We cast Paula’s wife who is a very funny comedy writer and performer. That not only was really fun and exciting, because we know Janine (Brito), but in the midst of a very tense February and March COVID shoot it was a little bit of a relief for Paula and Janine to be able to kiss.”

The story of Paula and a waitress at a local bar’s torrid (and quick) love affair is quite madcap. But according to O’Brien, the show has considered some other off-the-wall possibilities for Helen’s love life in the past.

“We pictured she had a girlfriend who works on one of those fishing boats in Alaska, like Deadliest Catch. She’s there 363 days a year and then on one day Helen calls their “Purge dating day’, they try to have dinner, make out, and go to an amusement park and a concert, all in one day. That was probably a little too wacky.”

Season 4 Episode 8 “The Harvard Pen”

“The Harvard Pen” has a high concept befitting a season (or perhaps series?) finale. The episode flashes back all the way to Jack Griffin’s first day with the A.P. Bio class, which is somehow only “a few months earlier.” Jack gives one golden rule to the assembled students: never touch his Harvard pen. Naturally they do, and the episode follows the pen’s months-long journey to eventual oblivion.

Ultimately though, the real standout in this installment is the web series that the A.P. Bio kids have been producing with Heather (Allisyn Snyder) starring. Janet Fist is a ‘70s style cop drama in which the titular character is a receptionist who has an incredible ability to solve crimes…and to shoot everyone she sees full of lead.

“I used to write a lot of short stories about a ‘70s renegade cop that I would read when I was in improv in Chicago,” O’Brien says. “I thought ‘what if that was through the eyes of this kind of quirky high school girl? Maybe she’s not even allowed to be a cop in the ’70s.’ It becomes this kind of feminist statement that Heather wants to make. It was just really fun to write after that.”

If a fifth season of A.P. Bio isn’t in Peacock’s plans, we’re gonna need to go all-out on a Janet Fist spinoff fan campaign.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

A.P. Bio season 4 is available to stream on Peacock now.

The post An A.P. Bio Season 4 Episode Guide with Showrunner Mike O’Brien appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3mUWqJx

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[putthison]

Digging in the Crates: Talking with Brian Davis of Wooden Sleepers

Wooden Sleepers is the kind of store I wish was near me. Brian Davis, the shop’s founder, has been around the menswear scene forever, but first opened his shop seven years ago on Etsy. Back then, he just had simple listings for his vintage finds, which ranged from classic Americana to workwear to Ivy Style items. A few years later, he opened a brick-and-mortar shop in Brooklyn, which has been since become a destination spot for men’s style enthusiasts. Japanese menswear magazines such as Free & Easy have featured the store; GQ called it the best new vintage menswear shop in NYC. 

When Brian opened his brick-and-mortar, he took down his online web shop in order to focus on his physical location. Carefully setting up the interior decor and presentation was a lot of work, too much to also include shooting photos and selling online. Now that Wooden Sleepers is more established, however, they’ve jumped back on the internet. This past month, they launched a fully dedicated online site (although inventory is still being added), and they’re been developing an in-house line of Wooden Sleepers totes, caps, and sweatshirts (we love all of it). They even shot a fall/ winter lookbook. 

I recently sat down with Brian to talk about his store, his history with vintage clothing, and his style suggestions for guys who are are looking to incorporate a bit of vintage into their wardrobe. 

Tell us about how you got into vintage clothing and how you started Wooden Sleepers.

I grew up on the east end of Long Island, skateboarding and listening to punk and hip-hop music. I lived with my grandparents at the time, a long way from any of the shopping malls. Buying second-hand clothes from local church shops was a way for me to rebel against the Abercrombie & Fitch crowd -- this was around the early- to mid-90s, when A&F was big. Looking back, a lot of the stuff I used to rummage through would later influence my taste in clothes as an adult – seersucker suits, oil-stained mechanic jackets, vintage Levi’s, etc. 

Fast forward to 2010, I was working a corporate job and wanted a creative outlet. My girlfriend at the time, now my wife, encouraged me to set up my own clothing shop. This was when heritage and Americana were huge online. There were sites such as A Continuous Lean, Valet, and Put This On; New York City had the Pop-Up Flea; Etsy was just getting started, but was still a fairly unknown thing. So I started listing stuff online for my thrifted finds. We launched on Etsy in 2010 and then opened a brick-and-mortar in 2014.  

That’s surprising because, right around that time, many brick-and-mortars started struggling. Do you find it difficult to do a brick-and-mortar business in NYC nowadays?

The New York Times had a story not too long ago about Bleecker Street, a big commercial area here with global brands such as Marc Jacobs and Ralph Lauren. At some point, the landlords got greedy and raised rents, and now all those businesses have had to move out. Maybe they could have afforded the rents, but it probably didn’t make sense given the amount of business they were getting from the area. And now, when you walk down Bleecker Street, there are a ton of empty storefronts.

My goal as a business was never about being part of that world. When I was looking for a shop space, I was looking for a place with a thriving community of small businesses. We found that in Red Hook in Brooklyn. Our street is very much orientated around mom-and-pop businesses, with great restaurants and small shops. We’ve actually seen our business grow year after year.

But many small NYC clothing stores have closed – Gentry, French Garment Cleaners, Carson Street Clothiers. It’s not just big brands that are struggling, it seems like it’s everyone. People are so used to comparison-shopping online, they’ll find the cheapest price possible for any given item. Do you feel you’ve been able to escape this as a vintage clothing store?

I think so. Although you can still comparison shop with vintage clothes, nothing is ever going to be the same exact piece. If you find something and it’s “the one,” you may never see it again. Sometimes there are idiosyncratic details or nuances that make it just right.

I also think we’re lucky to have a community that supports us. As a consumer myself, I try to support local and small businesses because I know those companies can easily disappear. And that’s not great for the neighborhood. We have many customers outside of NYC, but we’re also lucky to have lots of guys in the neighborhood that enjoy shopping with us. And they’re guys who aren’t going to get on the computer to see if they can find something for ten bucks cheaper.

How do you get your stuff?

No two days are the same. There are wholesale places that sell bales of vintage clothing. So, you go and buy these dirt-cheap lots, sorted by types of clothes – sweatshirts, t-shirts, jeans, etc. But you have to buy so much junk order to get a few gems. That’s how you get these huge vintage stores with a ton of inventory, with racks and racks of stuff.

Our business model is the exact opposite of that. We have a very small store, which forces us to edit. I only want the gems. Which means I have to go out and source things myself, often piece-by-piece. That can mean anything from crawling around an attic to get vintage chore coats to digging around an estate sale. Sometimes I’ll follow a lead I read about; sometimes I network with other pickers around the country. The key is to always be sourcing because out of ten leads, only a few will be good.

You network with other vintage sellers?

Yea, it helps to have people out there who can tell you when they’ve found something, but aren’t in your specific market. I once met an antiques dealer at a flea market who had a stack of old work clothes. I bought the jackets and told him I had a vintage clothing store in Brooklyn. So, we traded info.

A few weeks later, he called me out of the blue and told me he found an old, boarded up mom-and-pop shoe store in Ohio that has been closed since the 1970s. Inside were hundreds of deadstock boots. He wanted to know if I was interested in buying them. 

I was skeptical at first since sometimes things are deadstock for a reason – maybe they’re in odd sizes, for example – but he promised they had a good size range and everything was in great condition. So, I told him I was interested. He ended up driving all the way to NYC from Ohio and we met up at my store at midnight. I bought 150 pairs of boots from his inventory. Had shoeboxes going up to the ceiling that night.

I’m surprised those things still happen. I can imagine finding up an old boarded-up place with deadstock items in the ‘80s, but with the internet, it feels like anyone can offload stuff online. 

I’m as surprised as you are, but those pickers still exist. From a business perspective, you’re getting the best margin. You’re getting stuff that people think is garbage, so you’re getting it for the lowest price, and then you’re able to find specialty collectors or buyers. It takes a ton of work. These people are often waking up at 3am just to find things, driving around searching for old stores, looking for hidden gems. It takes a certain kind of person.

Do you ever get people coming in off the street with an unusual find for sale? 

Not yet, but I once got a call from Richard Press, the former President of J. Press. It was great because I’ve always been a huge fan of the company. He helped broker a sale where I was able to get a bunch of stuff that was in the personal collection of a former J. Press tailor. One that had worked for the company from about the 1960s to the ‘80s. In the collection, there were hundreds of ties, sport coats, trousers, and deadstock shirts. It was so great to see Richard’s face light up, to see how excited he got about clothes. I feel like it’s so easy to get jaded about things, especially in the fashion industry, but Richard had this youthful excitement about him when he saw old things from his family’s store. It was really special.

Are there things you’ve picked up along the way that you’ve decided to keep it yourself?

Well, I always want to give my customers the first crack. I’ve always hated those vintage stores that dangle the best stuff from the ceiling, but only for decoration. That said, I’m an outerwear nut and NYC winters can be brutal, so I was pretty excited to get a Brown’s Beach jacket to go along with the vest. The jackets are rarer than the vest, and I was lucky to find one that fits. My 1940s USN deck jacket is also a favorite. Mine is olive; the navy one is a bit of a unicorn.

A lot of the stuff I wear, however, isn’t that rare. I like madras shirts, old Brooks Brothers button-downs. I like cut-off military khakis, vintage military jungle jackets. Anything from that ‘60s and ‘70s Vietnam War era, in the OG-107 cloth. Some of those vintage military fabrics were made from a cotton-poly blend, especially in the later years, but the earlier stuff was often pure cotton. That’s the stuff you want because it ages in a really nice way. 

As a guy who cleans and repairs things for his store, do you have any tips on how to clean vintage clothing?

A lot of it is common sense. Cotton things can be thrown into the wash; wool items will often need to be hand-washed or dry cleaned. A lot of what I buy is vintage workwear, so they’re things that have been through a lot – a washing machine isn’t going to hurt them. There are some things I leave behind because they’re too raggedy, but there’s a lot you can save with a bit of mending and cleaning.

If you find a vintage item with a musty smell, you can also spray it with a 50/ 50 mix of white vinegar and water. It helps freshen it up a bit. The vinegar smell goes away, and with it, it takes out some of the smell you occasionally find in vintage clothes. 

For readers who are interested in trying out vintage clothing, do you think there are some pieces that are easier to wear than others?

Definitely, go with the classics. A French chore coat or a Levi’s trucker jacket. Unless you’re shopping at the very high-end of the market, buying brands such as The Real McCoys or RRL, you can often get a vintage piece that’s cheaper and cooler than more mainstream items. Even a Levi’s trucker jacket from the 1980s is going to look better than a mainline Levi’s jacket in the same style, but new.

I also really like getting guys into bigger pants. The pendulum has swung so far into the slim-fit trend that guys can feel like it’s a revelation when they wear something fuller. Maybe a pair of fatigues isn’t right for the office, but they’re great for the weekend. For spring and summer, you can wear them with simple, canvas sneakers, such as Jack Purcells or Chuck Taylors. For fall, they look great with brown, plain-toe service boots. For me, the key to wearing fuller pants is that you don’t want a break. Otherwise, they can look really messy. If you roll them up a little, you get a fuller cut without any of the bagginess.

M-65 military jackets are also really easy to wear. 1950s and ‘60s military issue khakis. Denim chore coats. Especially with chore coats, if you’re not a connoisseur, you’re not going to care if a piece is from the ‘40s or ‘50s or ‘60s. The look is the same, which means you can come up on something that looks great, but is reasonably affordable. Again, they go great with jeans, sweatshirts, and heavy boots. They can fit a bit roomy, but I think that’s the charm.

I know what you mean. Sometimes when the fit is too precise, especially with workwear, an outfit can seem too precious. Ethan Newton once told me how he likes vintage leather jackets because they fit in idiosyncratic ways – which is just another way of saying they don’t fit perfectly. I think that can be good with certain looks.

I agree. We’ve spent so much time talking about effortless style, but sometimes guys get too worked up over details. Just put on the jacket and wear it. A lot of this is much simpler than sometimes it’s presented online. It goes back to the first day of school and wearing a jacket that makes you excited, a jacket that makes you feel cool. It can be about a feeling.

Thanks for your time, Brian. 

Readers interested in Wooden Sleepers can visit them in Red Hook, Brooklyn or shop from their new online store. They’re also on Instagram and Twitter, where you can keep up with their daily happenings. 

#Wooden Sleepers #New York City #Thrifting

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 12/11/20 - MINARI, THE MIDNIGHT SKY, LET THEM ALL TALK, WILD MOUNTAIN THYME, PARALLEL, WANDER DARKLY and More!

Honestly, I almost didn’t write a column this week for reasons I’ll probably be ranting about for a few more months, but the long and short of it is that I’ve now been writing movie reviews for 19 years, as well as writing a weekly column through most of that time, and I’m kind of sick of working my ass off, usually for very little money, and just not getting anything out of it.

This mainly came as I crossed 200 reviews for the year a few weeks back. As I was preparing to write this week’s column, Rotten Tomatoes, where most of my reviews have been available as FREE content for the past 17 years, decided to upgrade a number of critics to be “Top Critics”… but not yours truly. I have a lot more to say about this but don’t want to waste any more of my time or anger right now. I will be wrapping this column up and taking some time off for a month in January and deciding whether I want to keep wasting my time every week for no money and little feedback. It really just isn’t worth it anymore.

Fortunately, I saw a few good movies this week, and more than a few bad, so let’s start with one of the good ones, shall we?

This week’s “Featured Flick” is Lee Isaac Chung’s MINARI (A24), which like Nomadland last week will get some sort of virtual cinema release in New York and L.A., presumably that can be seen across the country. It will then get its official release on February 12, 2021.

The movie stars Steven Yeun from The Walking Dead as Jacob, a Korean father who brings his family to an Arkansas house in the middle of nowhere in the ‘80s, hoping to start a farm. His wife Monica (Yeri Han) is not happy with this decision but their kids Anne (Noel Cho) and David (Alan S. Kim) try to adjust to the new life. Things aren’t going well but then Monica’s mother Soonja (Yuh-jung Youn) shows up, that just adds more pressure on Jacob, and the kids, especially David, who hates the quirky older woman who acts nothing like a grandmother.

I’d been hearing about Minari going all the way back to its debut at Sundance, and though I remained skeptical, I finally saw it a few months ago an again over the weekend, and it’s one of my favorite films of the year, probably Top 5. To me, it’s somewhat in the vein of The Farewell, my number 1 movie of 2019, vs. the Oscar Best Picture winner, Parasite. It’s a very personal story for Chung who based some of the experiences on his own childhood, which once again proves the adage that if you’re going to write a movie, make it personal since that’s the most likely to connect with others. (Not always true, but it was great advice when I was given it.)

It takes a little time to understand why Minari is so beloved, since Chung takes an interesting approach where we see various scenes that don’t necessarily seem to tie into some sort of plot. Characters like Will Patton’s ultra-religious zealot who seems to be a bit lost when Jacob takes him on to help with his farm. Otherwise, we see various character interactions as things get tenser and tenser between Jacob and Monica, who are fighting all the time. Although the drama does get intense at times, there’s a lot of joyful and fun moments, particularly those involving the wacky grandmother and her dysfunctional relationship with her grandson. I also enjoyed the relationship between the two kids where Anne is always protective of her younger brother, who has some sort of heart illness. 

It's a beautiful movie with an equally gorgeous score, but it’s really in the last 20 minutes or so when we start to see where Chung has been going with all these seemingly disparate elements, which builds up to a wonderful ending. Yeun is terrific, and the fact he reminded me of my own father -- we’re neither Korean nor have I ever been to Arkansas -- shows why his subdued performance is so effective. Overall, the film proves that however many awful things life might throw at you, your family can always fix things. I love that message, and I hope others will find and love this as well.

After its one week in virtual cinema, Minari will get an expanded theatrical release starting February 12… hopefully, New York City theaters will be open by then and I can see it in a theater.

Film at Lincoln Center in New York also is starting its 49th annual “New Directors/New Films” series, which was delayed from March, although being virtual, the movies in it can also be viewed nationwide for the first time. I feel like a lot of movies that were scheduled to play ND/NF ended up being released already but there should be some interesting things in there.

George Clooney’s latest film THE MIDNIGHT SKY is based on Lily Brooks-Dalton’s novel Good Morning, Midnight, in which he plays Augustine, a scientist dying on his own at the Barbeau Observatory in the Arctic, who has to warn a group of astronauts returning to earth that it’s no longer safe for them to return.

Clooney has made a lot of good and great movies over the years, so that I’m one of those people anxiously ≠waiting for him to make something great again after the disappointment of Suburbicon. Midnight Sky is definitely one step forward and a few steps back, as it’s impossible not to think of previous Clooney movies like Solaris and Gravity, as well as The Martian and Passengers and Ad Astra. Yes, we somehow have gotten to the point where every year there’s some sort of space movie, and while Midnight Sky at its best is better than Solaris or Ad Astra (sorry, but I was not a fan), there’s enough that’s so quizzical and confounding I’m not sure people will be able to follow what’s going on.

Much of the first half of the movie involves Clooney’s Augustine alone at the Artic base interacting with a little girl (Caoillin Springall) who is completely silent. If it’s ever explained what the girl represents, I must have missed it. There are also flashbacks to Augustine’s earlier career as a scientist and explorer played by a somewhat only semi-impressive Clooney kinda look-alike in Ethan Peck.

The best moments of the movie involve the crew of astronauts on the spaceship Ether, including Felicity Jones and David Oyelowo, who are in a relationship, Demián Bichir, Kyle Chandler and Tiffany Boone, as they deal with various issues. This is really where comparisons to Gravity and The Martian are earned, but that’s such a mighty quintet of actors that these sections are far more interesting than sullen bearded Clooney with his young ward. The production design and visual FX in these portions of the film are also quite impressive.

The Midnight Sky throws a lot at the viewer but then tries too hard to be quizzical and enigmatic about how all of it ties together until the very end. I feel that some of Clooney’s more mainstream fans will be quite confounded and possibly even disappointed. The Midnight Sky is Clooney taking a swing and only partially connecting, and it might require multiple viewings to feel like it’s a worthy addition to his filmography.

Either way, The Midnight Sky will open theatrically in select cities this week and then be on Netflix on December 23, just in time for depressing everyone on Christmas!

Also hitting Netflix streaming this week is Ryan Murphy’s musical THE PROM, which I reviewed last week. It’s great, I loved it, and can’t wait to watch it again!

Next up is Clooney’s pal Steven Soderbergh, whose new movie LET THEM ALL TALK, will premiere on HBO Max this Thursday, December 10. It stars Meryl Streep as renowned writer Alice who is called to England to receive a prestigious literary award. Since she doesn’t fly, she’s booked on a cross-Atlantic trip on the Queen Mary II ship. Alice decides to bring her old friend Roberta (Candice Bergen)—whom hasn’t spoken to her in three decades--and Susan (Dianne Wiest) as well as her nephew Tyler (Lucas Hedges) to serve as her assistant so she can focus on her writing. Little does she know that her young agent Karen (Gemma Chan) is also on the ship hoping to find out what Alice is writing about with the help of Tyler, who is quite smitten with her.  

I’m not sure where to begin with one of week’s films that I probably had the highest expectations and ended up leaving me with the most utter disappointment. I wasn’t really that crazy about last year’s The Laundromat, and I’ve generally found Soderbergh’s work to be hit or miss over the last few years. I loved his thriller Unsanefor instance, and the Magic Mike movies were fun. This one, written by author Deborah Eisenberg, is just plain boring for most of it, offering nothing particularly interesting or insightful, as it’s basically another movie where Streep is playing a character who moans about how difficult her life is and how much better everyone else has it. I mean, if I wanted that shit, I’d spend more time on Twitter than I already do. And then there’s Hedges, one of my favorite young actors over the past few years, who seems to have fallen into a niche playing

In fact, my favorite aspect of the film was Gemma Chan, who plays a character with far more depth and dimension than normal, although much of her role is just to spy on Alice and fend of the subtle advances by the much younger Tyler. The two actors have some fun scenes together, far more lively than anything involving the older actresses, but you always know where it’s going. It’s kind of awkward and painful to watch Hedges bomb so hard. (At least he fared better playing a similar role in French Exit, but in that one, his love interest was Danielle Macdonald.)

The movie looks good with Soderbergh handling his own camera duties and cinematography as usual, and it’s scored with the same hipster jazz he might have used in one of his Ocean movies, but the movie just goes on and on and on, and it hs one of the most “what the fuck?” moments you’ll see this year.

If you can imagine one of The Trip movies without any of the laughs or the delicious food porn…but on a ship, that’s basically what you end up with. More than once while watching Soderbergh’s movie, I was ready to abandon ship.

And from pretty bad, we go to much, MUCH worse. Do you know what thyme it is? It’s WILD MOUNTAIN THYME!!!

John Patrick Shanley adapts his own play Outside Mullingar into a film that will be released in theaters and On Demand by Bleeker Street this Friday, and believe me, its biggest problems isn’t some of the awful Irish accents on display, but they certainly don’t help. Emily Blunt plays Rosemary and Jamie Dornan is Anthony, childhood friends who live down the street from each other in their Irish farming community. When they grow up, Rosemary’s father dies leaving her with a plot of land that forces Anthony and his father Tony (Christopher Walken) to have to use a gate to get to their home. Remember this gate, because it’s going to be mentioned so much over the course of the movie, you’ll wonder why the movie wasn’t called “Wild Mountain Gate.” (It’s actually named after a song that Blunt’s character sings for no apparent reason.)

First, you’ll have to get past the odd choice of the very non-Irish Walken in a key role as the dead narrator of the story with that aforementioned horrid accent. It won’t take long for you to start scratching your head how a noted playwright like Shanley could write such a horrible screenplay. Soon after, you’ll wonder how he convinced someone to finance making it into a movie. I’m normally a pretty big fan of Blunt, but this movie and role might be one of her biggest missteps as an actor to date. As a child, Rosemary was told by her father that she was the White Swan in Swan Lake, so of course that will lead to

It’s not long before Jon Hamm shows up as one of Anthony’s distant relatives who also has interest in Rosemary’s plot of land – nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Pretty soon we’re thrust into awkward love triangle rom-com that falls somewhere between Leap Year and The Holiday. Not exactly something you’d expect from the filmmaker behind the drama Doubt that produced multiple Oscar nominations for the cast, eh?

Instead, Shanley ends up trying to foist the… I don’t want to call it chemistry. What is the exact opposite of chemistry? Between Blunt and Dorman with one long boring conversation after another. At one point, they’re having a romantic chat about suicide, the next Anthony is telling Rosemary that he thinks he’s a honeybee. I mean, what the holy fuck?

Honestly, the whole thing is just grueling to watch, because you wonder how so much talent could falter so badly, particularly Shanley? Even the recent Shane MacGowan doc was a far more romantic take on Irish farming than this could ever possibly be.

One of the nicer surprises of the week is the sci-fi thriller PARALLEL (Vertical), which will be in theaters and On Demand this Friday, and it’s likely to be missed by a lot of people who would enjoy it. Directed by Isaac Ezban from a screenplay by Scott Blaszak, it follows four young people working in the tech sector of Seattle who discover a mirror in a hidden section of the house they’re renting that apparently allows them to experience other dimensions and other versions of their lives. Soon, they’re experimenting with different ways they can make money and achieve fame, although not all of them are cool about how they’re doing it.

Although Parallel opens like a home invasion thriller featuring the great Kathleen Quinlan, we soon learn that it’s a red herring before we meet the quartet of young entepreneurs working on a parking app with an almost impossible deadline. When they find the mirror that leads into an alternative dimension, they immediately start to experiment with figuring out what is happening exactly, and once they do, they realize they can make money by stealing from “alts” i.e. other versions of themselves. Soon, their success starts driving them insane with a desire for even more money and power.

Ezban’s movie benefits from a talented mostly unknown cast, including Martin Wallstrom and Mark O’Brien as boisterous alpha males. Georgia King’s artist Leena is far more than a love interest, although she does become an obsession for one of them eventually – and man, does she remind me of a young Reese Witherspoon. British actor Aml Ameen plays Devin, whose father committed suicide after being accused of corruption, and he’s also wary of some of the activities his friends get up to. There’s also the quartet’s main competitor Seth who gets suspicious of their success as they start producing all sorts of incredible technical inventions.

Parallel is a pretty twisted sci-fi movie that in some way reminded me of the ‘90s thriller Flatliners and even Primer a little bit, but the mirror aspect to it also will draw comparisons to Oculus, one of Mike Flanagan’s cool earlier movies. It doesn’t take long for the twists to start flying at the viewer, and once they do, your mind will be boggled and not necessarily in a bad way. I wouldn’t want to even begin sharing some of the crazy places where the film goes, but even gore fans won’t be disappointed by some of it.

It’s a real shame this terrific movie has floundered without distribution or deserved attention for so long, because there’s absolutely no question in my mind that Jason Blum should be talking to Ezban and Blaszk about doing something together. Parallel is the type of quality high-concept thriller Blumhouse thrives upon.

Another nice surprise this week was Ekwa Msangi’s FAREWELL AMOR (IFC Films), which debuted at Sundance earlier this year and barely got any attention, which is a real shame. It’s expanded from her earlier short, and it’s about an Angolan immigrant named Walter (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine), who is reunited with his wife Esther (Zainab Jah) and daughter Sylvia (Jayme Lawson) after 17 years. As they share a small New York apartment, Walter and Esther try to rekindle their romance while Sylvia tries to adjust to an American school.

Msangi’s film opens at Newark airport where the small family is reunited, Walter not having seen either wife or daughter in a decade and a half. He’s working as a cab driver, and he’s ready to rekindle the old flame and meet his daughter who was only a baby when he moved to the States. (Little does Esther know that Walter was in a relationship with another woman, a nurse who isn’t too happy about having to leave Walter’s life.)

One of the things Msangi does to keep things interesting is that she splits the film into three sections, one for each character that focuses specifically on them, and the story gets infinitely interesting as we learn more about each of them. Walter is somewhat at odds with doing the right thing by his wife and daughter, who is wanting to explore her love of dance that her ultra-religious mother forebids. For some reason, I thought Sylvia’s section would be the most interesting as she deals with the trials of being a teenager, but then Esther’s section shows her to be a far more layered character we might have assumed earlier. She also befriends a neighbor woman played by Joie Lee that helps her expand. The thing is that all three are clearly good people, and you never feel as if one is doing something bad in relation to the others.

Farewell Amor is a quiet but beautiful film that explores an immigrant story in a far different way than we’ve seen before. It’s a discovery film, and I hope people will not just presume it won’t hold their interest. It’s a wonderfully relatable human story, similar to Tom McCarthy’s The Visitor.

Sienna Miller and Diego Luna star in Tara Miele’s psychological drama WANDER DARKLY (Lionsgate), playing Adrienne and Matteo, a couple who recently had a baby. After they get into a horrible car accident while arguing, they end up revisiting the highs and lows of their relationship as Adrienne believes either she or Matteo or both are dead.

This is a surprisingly stranger film than I expected, delving into the supernatural not quite in the way as something like Wes Craven’s Serpent and the Rainbow or Jacob’s Ladder, but having a few elements in common. Although I haven’t seen Miele’s other films, this one feels very much like something Drake Doremus might have made to the point where I’m not sure I could say I fully understood what was happening from one moment to the next. The film seems to be exploring a couple’s relationship through a horrible tragedy but does in a strange way.

With the emotional performances by the two leads being enhanced by an amazing score by Alex Weston (who also scored The Farewell last year), Wander Darkly is more than anything, a performance piece with a decent script and further proof Miller continues to be one of the most underrated actresses working today. Despite those great performances, the movie’s strange premise might be too metaphysical and intense in execution for everyone to be along for the entire ride. In that sense, I probably liked last week’s Black Bear just slightly more.

I reviewed Steve McQueen’s ALEX WHEATLE (Amazon Prime Video) in last week’s column, and that will hit Amazon Prime this Friday, but I think I’m going to save Education, the last film in his “Small Axe Anthology” for next week’s column.  I was also hoping to review Tom Moore and Ross Stewart’s WOLFWALKERS (Apple+) this week, since it premieres on Apple TV+ on Friday, but I just couldn’t get to it. Story of my life.

I’m not sure if I could tell you how many of the Ip Man movies I’ve seen over the past 12 or so years, many of which I saw at the New York Asian Film Festival, but Ip Man is indeed back after last year’s Ip Man: The Finale, but that’s because IP MAN: KUNG FU MASTER (Magnet/Magnolia Pictures) is part of the spin-off prologue series starring Dennis (Yu-Hang) To, who looked enough like a younger Donnie Yen to start a whole sub-franchise. This one is directed by Liming Li, who is also directing a Young Ip Man: Crisis Time prequel movie that presumably stars someone younger than both Yen and To. Got it?

Okay, maybe this needs a little more explaining, although the nice thing about Kung Fu Master is that it works perfectly fine as a stand-alone in case you’ve never seen any of the other movies. This one takes place in the ‘40s as Man is a police captain in Foshan, dealing with the ever-present gang known as The Axes.  He’s framed for murder when the leader of the gang dies in prison, and his daughter, Miss Qingchuan (Wanliruo Xin), wanting revenge as she takes over the gang. Ip Man has other issues like being disgraced as a police officer and then the arrival of the Japanese army who have their own agenda. Ip Man ends up donning a mask to become the Black Knight to fight crime in another way.

I make no bones about my love of martial arts films when they’re not stupid or hoaky and sadly, the Donnie Yen franchise was getting by last year’s so-called “finale.” Kung Fu Master starts out with an amazing action scene of To fighting off what seems like hundred of axe-wielding gangsters, and it barely lets up, constantly throwing interesting and thoroughly entertaining fights at the viewer. Eventually, there’s a bounty on Ip Man’s head with whoever kills becoming leader of the Axes, but he has other issues, like his wife giving birth to their baby boy, just as the police chief and force shows up to arrest him. Cutting quickly between childbirth and kung fu action is just one of the interesting things Director Li does to make his Ip Man debut.

The resemblance between Dennis To and Donnie Yen is more than just facial as his wushu techniques are equally impressive, and sure, there’s a few more dramatic moments between Ip Man and his wife, but it’s Xin’s Miss Qingchuan who ends up being more of a formidable counter to To in just about every way, including a few fight scenes where axes are flying through the air.

Ip Man Kung Fu Master is fairly short, less than 90 minutes, but it still feels long because it feels like it finds a good ending, and then tacks on an epilogue and then another one. There were times I thought it might end on a cliffhanger to set up Ip Man’s inevitable next movie. The abundance of evil antagonists Ip Man must fight in this one tends to become a bit much, but it’s hard not to be thrilled by the martial arts on display and Li’s terrifically stylish visuals that keeps the movie interesting.

Ip Man Kung Fu Master will be available digitally Friday through a variety of platforms.

Filmmaker Adam Egypt Mortimer, who released Daniel Isn’t Real last year, returns with ARCHENEMY (RLJEfilms), starring Joe Manganiello as Max Fist, who claims to be a hero from another dimension that fell to earth. He ends up spending time with a teen brother and sister, Hamster (Skylan Brooks) and Indigo (Zelee Griggs) who want to clean the streets of the local drug syndicate, led by The Manager (Glenn Howerton from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia). It’s a strange and quirky dark superhero movie that includes appearances by the likes of Paul Scheer and Amy Seimetz, and though I ran out of time to review, I do have an interview with Mortimer at Below the Line.

Time to get to some docs, and there are definitely some you’ll want to check out, although I don’t have as much time to write that much about them, and some of them I wasn’t able to watch yet.

Another great doc out of the September festival circuit is Ryan White’s ASSASSINS (Greenwich Entertainment), which follows the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, half-brother to North Korean leader Kim Jon-un in 2017 at a busy airport in Malaysia by two young women. Although the two women had never met before, they were jointly charged with attacking the North Korean ex-pat with a lethal nerve gas called VX but White’s investigation takes him all over South-East Asia trying to get answers to how the two women were tricked into committing the assassination. This is a pretty masterful display of doc filmmaking by White, not just in the sense of the way the story is paced and edited like a good political thriller, but it’s one that keeps the viewer invested even as the last act deals with the trial of the two young women and the bond that forms between them.

I’ll have more about this film over on Below the Line sometime very soon, but it hits theaters and virtual cinema this Friday and then it will be on PVOD on January 15

I saw Seamus Murphy’s doc PJ HARVEY: A DOG CALLED MONEY way back in March when it was supposed to open at New York’s Film Forum, but it’s finally getting a virtual cinema release there. Murphy travelled across Afghanistan, Kosovo and Washington DC with singer/songwriter PJ Harvey as she prepared material for her 2015 album, The Hope Six Million Project, which she produced with Flood and John Parish as an installation at Somerset House where people can walk by and view the recording process.  This is an amazing doc that allows you into the process of writing for an amazing recording artist who has given Murphy and the viewer unprecedented access into her creativity. I had fully lost track of Harvey over the years, even though I was a huge fan of hers when she first hit these shores – in fact, I saw her play a concert where Radiohead opened for her… and there as another band (Gallon Drunk) after them! Because of that, I wasn’t familiar with the album, but I just love good music docs, especially ones that take us behind the scenes of a talented artist, and Murphy has created quite a fascinating film even outside the recording studio, whether it’s following Harvey around (narrated by her own poetic observations) but also with commentary by others they encounter. I found the Washington DC segments particularly interesting, since that’s the one place where I’ve spent the most time.  An absolutely fantastic doc whether you’re a fan of Harvey’s or not.

Also playing in the Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema this week is Thomas Balmés’ SING ME A SONG, the filmmaker’s second doc set in the Himalayan village of Bhutan that’s been isolated for centuries. He returns to update on Peyangki, the 8-year-old Buddhist monk from his 2014 film Happiness, now a teenager who has fallen under the sway of technology including pop music and smartphone games, as he begins a WeChat romance with a young singer, which makes him consider leaving the monastery.

Also premiering on Netflix this Friday is Jim Stern and Fernando Villena’s doc GIVING VOICE, tying into the streaming premiere of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom next week. It follows six student actors auditioning for the August Wilson Monologue Competition, which brings thousands of students from twelve U.S. cities together to perform the Pulitzer Prize winner’s work.

Joshua Faudem’s doc THE LAST SERMON (Gravitas Ventures/Will Kennan) follows the director and Jack Baxter as they follow 14 years after making their 2004 documentary Blues by the Beach, in which the two ended up in a terrorist attack by British Nationals on Mike’s Place, a bar next door to the National Embassy on Tel Aviv. This event sends Baxter and Faudem across Europe to refugee camps and mosques in order to understand the essence of Islam and the truth about the international terrorists that almost killed them.

Drew Barrymore plays a dual role in THE STAND-IN (Saban Films), directed by Jamie Babbitt (But I’m a Cheerleader). While under normal circumstances, Wild Mountain Thyme would have been the dog of the week, then this movie came along. Yikes. Barrymore plays Candy Black, a comedy star best known for her pratfalls in bad movies (ala Melissa McCarthy). She also plays Paula, Candy’s much sweeter and almost identical stand-in. Candy is a nightmare to work with and after a fall from grace, she holes herself up in her Long Island Estate for five years, while Paula’s own fortunes falter without having that work. I’m sure you can figure out where it goes from there.

Yes, folks, we have what is now one of the worst iterations of a Tale of Two Cities not made by Barrymore’s frequent co-star Adam Sandler, although there are times where you wonder if she is actually playing a version of Sandler with Candy. Eventually, either Candy or Paula or both decide that Paula can take Candy’s place in her attempt to return to work, but the results are just far worse than The Hottie or the Nottie, as Paula also stands in for Candy on dates with the man she’s fallen in love with online through their love of woodworking. (I didn’t make that up.) You almost always know where it’s going and can’t help but groan when you’re right.

Basically, there’s one Drew that’s glammed-down and the other talking in an annoying wispy voice, so there really isn’t getting away from the awfulness even for a second.The thing is that, like the worst comedies, The Stand In is not funny, and it’s sad to see a decent director like Babbitt being dragged into this one. It’s just a terrible overused premise that’s executed quite poorly. Not only that, but the movie also co-stars TJ Miller, who has fallen so far from grace himself, that it’s shocking to see him in another movie.

Besides guaranteeing Barrymore a double-dose Razzie nomination, The Stand In also leaves her with cow shit on her face, much like her character.

Movies I just didn’t have time to get to this week:

Funny Boy (Array/Netflix) Gunda (NEON) Safety (Disney+) Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (HBO Max) 40 Years a Prisoner (HBO Docs) Through the Night (Longshot Factory) To the Ends of the Earth (KimStim) Rompan Todo: The History of Rock in Latin America (Netflix) The Wilds (Prime Video) Nasrin (Virgil Films) Finding Ying Yin

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

#TheWeekendWarrior #Movies #Reviews #Minari #TheMidnightSky #LetThemAllTalk #VOD #Streaming #WildMountainThyme #Parallel #TheStandIn #IpManKungFuMaster

[trishvaylar]

"I wish none of this has happened"

"So do all who live to see such times, but is not for them to decide. What they have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to them".

Lord of the Rings.

One may think I have been rewatching my favourite trilogy...I haven't. I am actually thinking about Tom Keen and Keen2, which is heartbreaking...as death did them apart.

I know that many people in TBL fandom do not like Tom or Keen2 (and I am not refering specifically to shippers of other TBL OTPs, just to those fans who do not like/or hate/ Tom and his relationship with Elizabeth). What I do believe is that the reason for this is the same as to why many people hate Elizabeth herself - they do not understand them as characters, as Tom Keen and Elizabeth Keen. They do not relate to their stories, choices, character arcs. It sounds fairly simple, but it not. The question, the main and pretty much the only question there is, is who is Tom Keen. If one answers that question objectively, then any dislike towards Tom AND his relationship with Elizabeth should be stripped away.

So who is Tom Keen? Is he Christopher Hargrave, stollen from his home, adopted, and given the name Jacob Phelps, then running the steet where he is chosen by the Major and made into a prefessional undercover operative, hired by Red to saveguard Liz, then working for Berlin, marrying Liz, being shot and imprisoned by her, but still in love with her, saving her a few times, becoming someone else in order to do that, then having a kid with her, trying to run away from Red, but not quite managing it, then dying because he only wanted to help his wife find the truth?

No, that is the sequence of his live's events but that is not who he IS.

Then maybe the gifted spy is who he is? No, that is his talent and job, not who he IS.

Is he simply a dangerous opportunist, very good at manipulating people, who has his personal agenda when it comes to Liz? In a way that is true, that is what the Major saw and valued in him (without the Liz part which cost him his life). But again, that is decsribing his certain qualities, not who he is.

Then who is he?

Well, to answer that, we need to go right to the very start of the show. What information are we given? Red insists for over halph a season that Tom is posing a threat to Liz, but as of yet we do not know exactly what threat. Tom seems to know his wife very well, he reads her easily, and that knowledge and understanding were aquired in the span of only two years of marriage. Obviously he is a very observant man, paying attention to details. When we are finally given to understand, through Jolin Parks, that there is more to Tom then meets the eye, we should remember the Gina Zanetakos episode, where Tom is risking everything to persuade Liz he is being truthful. That is a quality of an undercover operative of great resoursfullness and courage. Then we see just how dangerous and decisive he could be. He kills Jolin, kills Red's man, he knocks out Liz in order to save himself but continue the mission. And then he makes one small mistake and...Liz knows. She wounds him, hides him, chains him up and interrogates him, he commits murder to protect her, for killing is instinctive for him - like it is for a cornered beast. But through all that he has one weaknees - Elizabeth! She is his greatest weakness and eventually his greatest strength. They find their way back to each other, this time for real, because their love for each other is stipped of all the lies, pain, hurt, deceit. He is like an onion in her hands. He removes the outer layers to show her his true self, the man behind all the masks. That final transformation begins when she gets pregnant and decides to keep the baby. Then everything Tom Keen does is done for his wife and child. He repeatedly goes undercover just to save or to protect his family. No more secrets between them, no more lies. He openly askes her for the passports and she gives them to him, saying that she was afraid of those guys before, now she is no longer afraid. She knows that whatever he calls himself, he would never hurt her or Agnes. That is just a job he does, the same as Liz does hers. Eventually even Red comes to accept the fact that Tom and Liz live each other and are made for one another. He sees Tom finally for who he is - a man ready to give up all of it for his nearest and dearest, just like Red himself does for his child.

And then..."until death do us apart". Tom gets killed and Liz is left with a torn heart, a daughter half-orphaned, and a gaping hole in her chest where Tom used to be. That loss is unfullfillable because it was filled by Tom and only Tom. Liz is incomplete and it doesn't matter if she will have another love interest in the future or not. Because their love withstood so many trials and suffering and still was real, deep and true.

Some call this love Stockholm Syndrome on both sides. It isn't. It is what true love should be - practically all-forgiving and unconditional in the end. Yes, there were a lot of lies, hurt, deceit, games with each other. But in the end they were a loving couple with a child whome they both adore.

This is why I love Keen2, but one may think I got sidetracked as we the study the question who is Tom Keen. I assure you, I did not get sidetracked, because Keen2 is the easiest answer-route to who is Tom Keen.

What I described were his choices, his emotions, his inherent loyalty. But we go back to Who is Tom Keen.

And the answer is: Tom Keen was a lost soul, no family, no ties, groomed for being whatever he chose to be, but not who he really was. The he placed on a mission to befriend, then spy on (by another employer) Liz Keen, who subsequently has become his wife (easier to put tabs on her that way). But the life of Tom Keen the teacher and a husband has a certain allure to it. He reads Liz easily and at the same time falls in love with her despite his orders. She makes him weaker. But although she makes him stronger. And eventually through her and Agnes he redescovers himself. His true self: a man, who is capable of passionate selfless sacrificial love, readh to risk it all or even die to protect his family, his true family, who is finally accepted by Red, and who knows for sure who he is: Tom Keen, professional spy, married to an FBI profiler Elizabeth/Masha Rostova, with huge personal intricasies of her own, Father to Agnes Keen, who he would die to protect, a man ready and capable to take responsability for every decision he makes, with such qyalitues as wit, denerousity, loyalty, resourcefullness, bravery, cleverness, certain ruthlessness as demanded by his special occupation, and understanding what being faithful really means. Yes, still not wise enough to regret the mortal would he and Liz almost inflicted on Red. He had no chance to grow older and wisen up.

I have never before seen in any show a bigger character grows then with Tom Keen.

Yes, I disliked him sometimes, when he came inbetween Red and Liz. But then again, he wasn't old or wise enough not to do it.

Tom Keen is a complex, compassionate, loyal, loving, faithful man, whose...death was so casually drastic that it throbbes inside my heart to this very day. Tom Keen remade and rediscovered himself thanks to his wife and to his own efforts. Tom Keen had done some bad things, made some decisions, right and wrong, being human, thus fallible. But inside he was good and he met a woman capable to bring that good in him to the light of day and he allowed her to do it!

That is who Tom Keen really is - an essencially good person who lived in a very trying time and being faced with a huge lot of difficult situations, but who managed to do good and right while he had the time. And it was Love that made him a better man. As it should!

If people can not sympathize with such a character...I feel quite sorry for them.

#The Blacklist #TBL #Tom Keen #Keen2 #Elizabeth Keen #a small attempt to answer a big question #why people dislike Tom Keen #why they do not understand him #Who is Tom Keen #to risk to love is a way to survive #and learn to live #so one' death is not in vain #Thank you Ryan #you were superb

[dukereviewsmovies]

Duke Reviews: A Christmas Carol

Hi Everyone, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Where We're Continuing Duke's Yultide Reviews...

And I Have A Slight Problem...

On Today's Show I'm Doing Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, But Here's The Thing There Are So Many Adaptatons Of A Christmas Carol That If I Do All Of Them I Will Basically Be Doing The Same Review About A Billion Times So, Here's What I'm Going To Do I Am Going To Do What I Believe To Be The One True Christmas Carol Adaptation And Do That...

Sure, There Are Those Once In A Lifetime Adaptations That Do Something Completely Different With The Tale With Some Being Good And Others Being Different And Yes, I Will Be Talking About Some Of Those Another Time...

But What Christmas Carol Adaptation Do I Believe Is The Best? Well, Charles Dickens (Acting Like Patton) You Magnificent Bastard, I Read Your Book!

As Much As I Think That I Really Don't Have To Go Over The Plot For This Story As Everyone Basically Knows It I'll Go Over It Anyway For Those That Are Watching This Film For The First Time, George C. Scott Plays Ebenezer Scrooge, A Miserable Old Miser Who Is Visited By The Spirit Of His Former Partner, Jacob Marley Who Tells Him That He Will Be Haunted By 3 Spirits...

Just 3? I Was Hoping For 999...

Who Will Help Scrooge Repent His Evil Miserly Ways, Will They Succeed?

Let's Find Out As We Watch A Christmas Carol...

The Movie Starts Exactly Like The Novel Does With Jacob Marley Being Dead As A Doornail, Our Viewers Must Know This Or Nothing Wonderful Will Come From The Story That I Am Reviewing...

Our Story Starts In Scrooge's Counting House, As Bob Cratchit (Played By David Warner, Who Most People Know For His Role As Mr. Lovejoy In Titanic) Recounts For His Boss, Ebenezer Scrooge That 7 Years Ago That Day, Scrooge's Former Partner, Jacob Marley Passed Away...

Asking Cratchit To Get Back To Work, Bob Goes To Get Some Coal For The Fire Before Going Back To Work, Scrooge Tells Him No, Stating That Coal Is Too Costly And Therefore They Will Not Burn Any For The Rest Of The Day...

Being Visited By His Nephew, Fred Who Wishes Him Merry Christmas Scrooge Only Tells Him

I Realize That This Isn't From This Movie But It's The Only Scrooge Saying Humbug I Could Find So Bear With Me...

But With Fred Saying God Bless It, He Invites His Uncle To Dinner But Scrooge Declines Stating That He'd Rather See Himself In Hell First. Not Happy To See His Uncle So Resolute Fred Leaves Wishing Scrooge A Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year...

Going To The Exchange, Bob Hands Mr. Scrooge His Hat To Which Scrooge Realizes That Bob Will Want The Whole Of Christmas Day Off Tomorrow While Not Too Happy About It, Scrooge Tells Bob To Take The Day Off But To Be There Early The Next Morning...

Arriving At The Exchange, Where After He Talks With Some Businessmen About Corn, He Talks With 2 Gentlemen Collecting Money For The Poor (One Of Them Being Played By Alfred Pennyworth From Tim Burton's Batman) But Refusing Them, Scrooge Exits...

Leaving Work, Bob Meets His Son, Tiny Tim Outside Of Scrooge's Office As He Tells Him That He's To Have The Whole Day Off Tomorrow...

Wow, That Line Sounded Like The Kid Read It Off Of Cue Cards...

Walking Home, Scrooge Soon Hears A Voice Calling His Name, Eventually Arriving At His House, He Soon Sees The Knocker On His Door Change Into The Face Of His Former Partner, Jacob Marley...

Going Upstairs To His Room, Scrooge Puts On His Best Dressing Gown, Only To See The Face Of Jacob Marley Within The Fireplace As Bells Start Ringing Eratically And Chains Are Heard Throughout The Place As Scrooge's Bedroom Locks Are Unlocked So The Spirit Of Marley Can Appear Before Him...

Oops, Wrong Spirit...

I Meant To Say The Spirit Of Jacob Marley, Not Bob Marley...

(Start At 3:20, End At 8:46)

And Just As He Came, Marley's Ghost Leaves...

Not Buying It All For One Minute, Scrooge Goes To Sleep, Only To Wake Up At 1:00 To See Nothing At First However A Bright Light Soon Shines To Reveal The Ghost Of Christmas Past, Who Takes Scrooge Back To His Childhood At Boarding School...

Watching Himself Grow Older As The Years Pass By, Scrooge Watches As His Sister Fan...

Fan? I Know I'm Probably Asking A Moot Question Here But Who Names Their Daughter Fan? Fran, I Can Understand As That's A Name But Fan Just Is Not A Name A Fan Is A Way To Keep Yourself Cool When It's Hot But It's Not A Name...

But As I Was Saying, Scrooge Watches As His Sister, Fan, Takes Ebenezer Home In A Carriage With His Father (Who Looks Like That One Guy With The Weird Eye That Always Appears In Adam Sandler Movies) Who Has Gotten Him An Apprenticeship At Mr. Fezziwig's Establishment...

So, Going Forward In Time, We See Scrooge At Fezziwig's Establishment Where They Prepare For Their Christmas Eve Party...

And It's There That Scrooge Met Belle...

Not Her!

But As I Was Saying, This Is Where Scrooge Met Belle And Fell In Love With Her...

Going Forward In Time Once More We Watch As Belle Breaks Up With Scrooge, Believing That He Loves Money More Than He Loves Her...

Now, I Get Why Belle Does What She Does The Story I Get It, But In This Version It Seems Like Despite Loving Money He Still Has Feelings For Her And It's Like She's Trying To Make Him Choose Between Having Money Or Having Her Which Is Just Ridiculous...

It's Like Having To Choose Whether To Have A House Or Live On The Street And I'm Sorry But I Think Any Logical Person Would Choose Having A House...

Not Liking What The Spirit Is Showing Him, Scrooge Kills The Ghost? I Don't Know But He Winds Up Back In His Room, Only For The Second Ghost To Appear, The Ghost Of Christmas Present...

Taking A hold Of The Spirits Robe, They Go One Day Into The Future To Christmas Day As He Takes Him To Bob Cratchit's House As Him And His Family Sit Down For Christmas Day Dinner...

Quick 'll mFact: Cratchit's Wife Is Played By Susannah York, Who Played Marlon Brando's Wife Lara In Both Superman The Movie And The Original Richard Lester Cut Of Superman 2...

Asking About Tiny Tim, The Spirit Tells Scrooge That If These Shadows Remain Untouched, The Child Will Die...

Moving On, They Travel To The House Of Scrooge's Nephew, Fred Where Him, His Wife And Their Friends Play A Game...

Travelling To One More Place Before The Spirit's Time Is Up, He Takes Scrooge To The Poor Row...

(Start At 0:14)

With The Spirit's Time Up, He Abandons Scrooge Where He Is But Not For Long As The Final Ghost Appears Before Him, The Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come...

Taking Scrooge Into The Future To The Exchange He Hears The Gentlemen Talk About Someone Who Has Died Yet They Never Mention Who...

Taking Scrooge Back To His Room To See The Man Who Has Died But He Does Not Wish To Do That Saying That He Understands However There Has To Feel Emotion Over This Man's Death And Asks The Ghost To Take Him To That Person....

The Spirit Takes Him To See His Maid Selling Some Stuff That Belonged To The Man In Question...

Upset That This Is Not Sadness But Greed And Advirice, Scrooge Asks The Spirit Again To Take Him To Someone Who Cares About This Man...

This Leads The Spirit To Take Scrooge To Bob Cratchit's House Where Scrooge Discovers That Tiny Tim Has Died...

Taking Scrooge To A Cemetery After Showing Him That, The Spirit Shows Him The Grave Of The Man That Died When Scrooge Asks Him Who Is The Man That Died?...

Discovering It To Be Himself, He Tells The Spirit That He Is Not The Man That He Was And That From This Day Forth He Will Honor Christmas...

Waking Up In His Bed, Scrooge Has Been Reborn...

(Start At 0:39, End At 1:38)

Getting Dressed, Scrooge Meets The Boy And The Poulturer And Tells Him To Take It To Bob Cratchit's, Saying That It's From A Friend...

Walking Through The Streets, Scrooge Runs Into The Gentlemen Collecting Money For The Poor, Apologizing To Them And Offering A Unique Sum Of Money...

With The Turkey Arriving At Bob Cratchit's, He At First Believes It To Be A Mistake, But Explaining Everything, They Decide To Cook It For Christmas Dinner. While Scrooge Goes To Fred's To Have Christmas Dinner With Him And His Wife...

(Start At 4:13, End At 7:23)

The Next Day, Scrooge Arrives At Office Before Bob Cratchit And Decides To Play A Little Prank On Bob, By Acting Like His Former Self For A Second Only Instead Of Firing Bob For Being Late, Scrooge Offers Bob A Raise And To Help His Family Anyway He Can..

And That's A Christmas Carol With George C. Scott And Despite One Or 2 Nitpicks I Absolutely Love This Adaptation....

What Say About It? The Way They Handled The Story Is Great, They Had A Good Cast, What Special Effects They Had Were Fantastic I Just Honestly Love This Movie And I Say See It...

Before We Go, I Would Like To Talk About Some Other Adaptations Of The Tale That I Believe Are Worth A Watch...

The Jim Carrey Version, Which Is Probably The Second Most Accurate Adaptation Of Charles Dickens Story Despite People Hating It Because It's Jim Carrey, Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol, Basically A Musical Version Of A Christmas Carol With Mr. Magoo In It, The Stingiest Man In Town, Another Musical Version Of The Tale Done By Rankin-Bass With Walter Matthau As Scrooge, Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol, A Version Of The Tale Which Has The Looney Tunes As All The Characters From The Book, A Flintstones Christmas Carol, The Flintstones Put On A Play Of The Novel While Hijinks Go On Backstage, The TNT Version With Patrick Stewart, Another One Of The Better Adapted Versions Of The Tale With An Amazing Performance From Patrick Stewart As Scrooge, A Christmas Carol: The Musical, A Musical Version Of The Tale That Aired On NBC That Starred Kelsey Grammar As Scrooge, Jason Alexander As Jacob Marley, Jane Krakowski As The Ghost Of Christmas Past, The Flash's Jessie L. Martin As The Ghost Of Christmas Present And Geraldine Chaplin As The Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come With Lyrics By Little Mermaid And Beauty And The Beast's Alan Menken...

Now, I Know I Didn't Mention A Few Versions Including The Disney Version And The Muppet Version But Because I'm Going To Talk About Those And Ones That Are Different But Follow The Same Storyline Like Scrooged With Bill Murray Another Time...

So, Until Then, This Is Duke, Signing Off

#a christmas carol #charles dickens #ebenezer scrooge #merry christmas #Movie Reviews #movie #movies #christmas

[racingtoaredlight]

RTARL’s NFL Week 7 Extravapalooza

I know this is a football post, but the World Series looks like it’s gonna be great. Verlander, Cole, and Greinke vs. Scherzer, Strasburg, and Corbin is RAD. Especially now that MLB has decided to switch back to the non-juiced baseballs. Nothing says “we care deeply about the integrity of competition” quite like drastically fucking with the league’s official equipment when the games matter most!

The Stros and Nats are very evenly matched in my opinion, but I think I’m gonna take Washington to win based on nothing more than pure bullshit and approximately 25 seconds of thought. Nationals in 6, baby! TAKE IT TO THE BANK!

[looks at my record of picking things]

Congrats to the Houston Astros and their fans!

My picks are in BOLD, and all betting info comes to you courtesy of Vegas Insider.

Last Week’s Record: 6-7

Season Record: 35-49-1

Arizona Cardinals at New York Giants (-3)

Ooh, this is a spicy little meatball of a game. Neither of these teams are what I’d call “good,” nevertheless this one rates very highly on the “Watch ‘Em Up Index” patented by my colleague Starkweather. 

The combination of the “West Coast team travelling East to play an early game” scenario and the triumphant return of Saquon Barkley led me to choose New York to prevail in a shootout. 

Houston Texans at Indianapolis Colts (-1)

Another good game! The Colts deserve all the credit in the world for not going completely into the tank after Andrew Luck decided to call it a career weeks before the season started. They’re legitimately feisty, and it was wrong for me to ever doubt the powers of Jacoby Brissett. 

One thing the Colts do NOT do well is pressure the QB, as they sit at just 26th in the league in Pressure % ( QB pressures (hurries + knockdowns + all sack plays (half and full for players, just full sacks for teams)) per dropback). This leads me to believe that DeShaun Watson will make it through at least one more week without literally exploding into chunks on the field, and when he avoids that he’s usually very good. 

Miami Dolphins at Buffalo Bills (-17)

Holy shit, when was the last time the Bills were favored this heavily? The WAGONS HAVE BEEN CIRCLED! Buffalo QB Josh Allen has played the Dolphins twice in his young career so far, and both times have resulted in an absolute statistical bonanza for fantasy footballers, so if you play DFS or feel like placing any prop bets, I would advise hopping aboard the Allen Train today. 

The Dolphins make me sad. Note that they don’t make me CRY, because I’m not Hootie from Hootie and the Blowfish.

Minnesota Vikings at Detroit Lions (-2)

Man, I feel bad for the Lions. They were boned out of a divisional win on Monday, and now they welcome an even tougher divisional foe on a short week. I still think they’re a good team, but this is a tough spot. My man Kerryon Johnson has NOT had a chance to get it going so far, as for whatever reason the Detroit offensive coordinator is insistent upon trying to run him straight up the middle in obvious running situations as opposed to trying to get him the ball with a bit of space to operate. Seems like a functional running game would take some pressure off of Staff Daddy! Why yes, I am an aggrieved Kerryon Johnson fantasy owner, why do you ask?

The Vikings coming to the realization that their best bet for success is to let Kurt Cousins chuck it all over the yard is hilarious to me, because you know damn well it’s going to cause HC Mike Zimmer’s other eye to explode. His demeanor in press conferences following games where Minny wins after Kurt throws 30+ times could best be described as “just watched his wife’s autopsy.”

Jacksonville Jaguars (-4) at Cincinnati Bengals

Oakland Raiders at Green Bay Packers (-4.5)

I am VERY disappointed that the Raiders have actually been a somewhat competent team so far. Watching Jon Gruden seethe on the sidelines each week was supposed be a major part of my autumn, god damn it. I suppose there’s still time for things to go sideways, but it doesn’t seem like it’ll devolve to quite the level I’d like. 

The Packers’ rush defense isn’t very good, which is unfortunate given that they find themselves up against enormous Oakland RB Josh Jacobs this week. Conversely, the best way to attack Oakland is through the air. Despite having Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay isn’t really in a great position to take advantage of this, given the fact that they have basically zero healthy pass-catchers. This game feels like a low-scoring, field-position battle that ends up being decided by a field goal.

Los Angeles Rams (-3) at Atlanta Falcons

I can’t shake the feeling that this game is going to be a blow-out win for the Falcons, and my instincts are NEVER wrong. You know who the Rams’ back-up QB is? That’s right, it’s BLAKE BORTLES! I know it isn’t likely they’d make a switch given Goff’s huge contract, but how many more stinkbombs are they willing to endure before they begin to feel themselves swaying to the siren song of BORT? Jalen Ramsey may demand another trade if that were to happen.

I truly have no idea what the Falcons will do from week-to-week. I mean, I clearly don’t know what ANY team is going to do, but with Atlanta it’s like, EXTRA uncertainty.

San Francisco 49ers (-9.5) at Washington Football Team

The narrative around this game has mostly been “Kyle Shanahan hates the Washington franchise with the fire of 1000 suns and he desperately wants to crush their hopes and dreams,” which is DELIGHTFUL. This game probably isn’t going to be any fun at all for Case Keenum, and then it will be even less fun for poor Dwayne Haskins if the team throws him in there.

The field at Washington is a notorious piece of shit to begin with, and evidently today it’s extremely soggy there. The Over/Under is currently at 39, and pounding the under doesn’t seem like the worst investment in the world if the game’s gonna be a slop-fest featuring one team that wouldn’t be likely to score a whole hell of a lot even in ideal conditions.

Baltimore Ravens at Seattle Seahawks (-3)

In theory, Seattle has the speed and athleticism along their defensive line and in their linebacking corps to keep Lamar Jackson from completely running wild on them. If that’s the case and Lamar is forced to try to beat them mostly with his arm, I don’t think he can do it. Especially given that his best WR, Marquise Brown, is out for this one.

As far as Seattle goes, Russell Wilson is the best. Evidently the national NFL media reads this picks column, because the “Wilson is the MVP frontrunner” chatter began in earnest on all of the talking-head shows this past week following my praise of the mighty DangeRuss. Clearly, nobody was aware that he was good until I brought it to the world’s attention. I’m predicting this is going to be a breakout game for rookie WR DK Metcalf. TE Will Dissly was a big part of Seattle’s passing offense, and those targets have to go somewhere. That coupled with Baltimore’s extremely shaky pass defense likely focusing the bulk of their meager stopping power on Tyler Lockett leads me to believe that DK will feast. 

Los Angeles Chargers at Tennessee Titans (-2.5)

In last week’s post I joked that it would be hilarious if San Diego blew a lay-up of a game against the thoroughly depleted Pittsburgh Steelers. Well, it turns out that it wasn’t hilarious, it was actually kind of depressing. Do NOT watch any of this game for any reason.

New Orleans Saints at Chicago Bears (-4)

Trubisky BACK! Whether or not that’s actually good for the Bears long-term is certainly up for debate. At the very least, he’s a much more capable scrambler/runner than Chase Daniel, which I think will come in handy today. 

Alvin Kamara being out is huge, obviously. Teddy B not having him around as a world-class safety valve in the face of Chicago’s fearsome pass rush is going to be an issue, I reckon. 

This game has the week’s lowest Over/Under (37) for a reason. 

Sunday Night Game: Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys (-2.5)

Neither of these teams are playing particularly inspired football as of late, which is nice. At least some of the Cowboys’ issues can be chalked up to injuries to key players, and it appears they’re going to have everyone back for this one. La’el Collins and Tyron Smith coming back is huge (literally LOL!!!) for the offensive line, and Amari Cooper returning to join Michael Gallup gives them a legitimately dangerous pair of WRs. 

I’m picking the Cowboys to win here, which feels kind of gross, BUT I think in the long term it will only help from a comedy perspective because it increases the odds of Jason Garrett getting a contract extension.

Monday Night Game: New England Patriots (-9.5) at New York Jets

via GIPHY

#NFL #Sports! #Football

[wbwest]

New Post has been published on WilliamBruceWest.com

New Post has been published on http://www.williambrucewest.com/2017/05/05/west-week-ever-pop-culture-review-5517/

West Week Ever: Pop Culture In Review - 5/5/17

In TV news, we got the first trailer for Marvel’s The Defenders series on Netflix. I dunno, y’all. I’ll be the first person to tell you that I’m behind on these shows. At this point, I’ve only seen Daredevil season 1 and Jessica Jones. No DD S2, no Luke Cage, and no Iron Fist. Sorry, kids, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Daredevil was a worthy bingeing experience, as each episode ended on a cliffhanger that MADE you have to check out the next episode immediately. Jessica Jones, not so much. It took me about 3 months to get through that show. Now, I enjoyed it, but it didn’t demand that I consume it immediately. I’m eager to catch Luke Cage, but I wanna go in order, so that means I’ve got to meet the Punisher and Elektra first in Daredevil season 2. So, even though The Defenders comes out in August, I’ll be lucky if I get to it in 2017. Anyway, I told you all that to make you see that my level of enthusiasm for this probably isn’t as high as yours because I’m so far behind. That said, I thought this trailer looked hokey as Hell. The scene where Murdock comes into Jessica’s interrogation felt like a bad fan film. Shit, the whole thing felt like a bad fan film. Remember when Playstation Network aired that Bendis Powers show? Yeah, it looks like that. Something about the cinematography of it all. And then they had to do another goddamn hallway fight. WE GET IT ALREADY! I just don’t know about this one right now..

In other TV news, there are talks of a Roseanne revival, with ABC and Netflix interested bidding on the project. Laurie Metcalf, Aunt Jackie herself, reported that contracts have been worked out, so now they’re just trying to sell the series. Right now, Roseanne (does she currently have a last name?), John Goodman, and Sara Gilbert would star, while Metcalfe says she’s on board in some capacity. It’ll be interesting to see how they pull this off, ya know with Dan being dead and all. Still, it ended with one of the most maligned series finales in television history, and they’ve got a chance to basically erase it. How many shows can say that? Anyway, I was never a huge Roseanne fan. They were just so poor and depressing. Are they gonna lose the bike shop? Are they gonna lose the loose meat restaurant? Is Fisher gonna stop beating up Jackie? I know their struggles resonated with certain folks, but not me. I actually liked the Lottery Season because I could say “Thank God their lives aren’t such shit anymore!” Anyway, I’d bet money on this happening, so it’s now just a matter of where it’s gonna air. The big question is in which “universe” it will be set. After all, the finale basically laid out that everything since about season 4 of the show had been a lie, since Darlene actually ended up with Mark, Becky was the one with David, Jackie was a lesbian, etc. So, would we get the “true” Roseanne, or just more of what we’re used to? And with Mark dead, and David on The Big Bang Theory, I don’t really expect much from those characters anyway. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

I was on my own last weekend, so I took the time to watch TV and catch up comics. Well, I didn’t really watch TV, but it was on in the background. It provided the soundtrack to my comic time. What did I watch? CMT – Country Music Television. Yeah, yeah, you hate country. I don’t care. I grew up on it, so it has a special place in my heart. Anyway, when I saw Brad Paisley’s new video for “Last Time For Everything”, I KNEW I had to share it with y’all. This thing is a love letter to children of the 80s, complete with tracking/tape distortion lines. I don’t wanna spoil anything, so just check it out. Don’t worry – the song’s not about drankin’, or a dead dog, or his wife left him; it’s just a song about appreciating things when you have them because they won’t always be there.

The backdoor pilot for the Black-ish spinoff aired this week. Oh, you don’t know what a “backdoor pilot” is? It’s when an established show gives up one of its episodes to try to launch a new show. Since it already has a built-in audience, it kinda tricks viewers into watching a new show that they otherwise wouldn’t have checked out. Married…with Children had, like, 4 of them. Anyway, in Black-ish, Zoey went off to check out college, made a new best friend, and pissed off the Black Student Union. The whole episode was kinda hokey, but it worked. Chris Parnell was the spineless dean, which is basically every Chris Parnell character these days. And I love how they worked Deon Cole’s Charlie into the plot. If the spinoff gets picked up (I mean, why wouldn’t it?), I hope he gets a bigger role there than he has on Black-ish. If Black-ish is a modern-day Cosby Show, then this is its A Different World. And there ain’t nothing wrong with that, really.

If you like useless gimmick items as much as I do, then make sure you pick up your Frork from McDonalds today. To celebrate the release of their three new Signature Crafted Recipes (Pico Guacamole, Sweet BBQ Bacon, and Maple Bacon Dijon), they’re releasing a utensil that they know nobody needs, but hey, why not? The Frork is basically a fry holder, where the fries act as the tines of the fork. In the infomercial, complete with Anthony Sullivan appearance, they claim the Frork will help you scoop up the toppings that fall off your overflowing sandwich. I swear Anthony Sullivan killed Billy Mays ‘so he’d get ALL that sweet infomercial work. But I digress…If you would like a Frork, check this link to see if one of your local McDonalds locations is giving them out today.

Things You Might Have Missed This Week

HBO has hired writers for FOUR potential Game of Thrones spinoffs. So, get ready for Match of Chairs, Bout of Seats, Mother of Dragons and, my personal favorite, Tits & Swords.

Warner Bros has pushed back its theatrical animated Scooby-Doo film two years to 2020.

Girl Meets World is officially dead, as creator Michael Jacobs was unable to find a new home for the series.

While this news is about a month old, FXX has decided against a fourth season of Man Seeking Woman, which wrapped up its 3rd season in March. The season finale was a fitting series finale, so I ain’t mad.

Hot on the heels of its premiere, Hulu has renewed The Handmaid’s Tale for a second season.

Surprising no one, Fox canceled the freshman drama Pitch, about the first female major league baseball player. Following on their heels, NBC canceled the Wizard of Oz update Emerald City.

It was reported that Gabriel Luna’s Ghost Rider will be returning to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for the season finale

Speaking of Marvel TV, we got our first cast picture from Inhumans. KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!

We also got our first look at the cast of Marvel’s Runaways on Hulu. They look like the comic, but I still hate that they aged Molly. I like her more as a precocious child to balance them out.

A strike by the Writers Guild of America, which would’ve affected all corners of entertainment, was narrowly averted at the 11th hour

Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski revealed that they’re engaged. Man, they shit in the company ink! That’s the saying, right?

The biggest TV news of the week was that Ryan Seacrest was announced as Kelly Ripa’s permanent cohost on what will now be called Live with Kelly & Ryan. This bothered me so much! First of all, I was really kinda hoping an underdog, like Fred Savage, would get it. And if they had to go with a media person, they had Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen on the list. But Seacrest?! The dude’s empire is based in LA and, yes, he has an empire. He’s a modern-day Merv Griffin, producing Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Shades of Blue, and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest. He also has a daily syndicated radio show, On Air With Ryan Seacrest, as well as hosts the weekly American Top 40 countdown. With all that going on, you’d think he’d stay in LA instead of taking a job from a New Yorker. Instead, iHeartMedia has built a radio station in the ABC Studios building so that he can do his radio show immediately after taping Live. The plan is for him to stay in New York Monday-Thursday to film Live, he’ll pretape Friday’s show on Thursday, and then he’ll spend Friday-Sunday in LA.

But that’s not ALL the Seacrest news this week. You see, talks of an American Idol revival have heated up again. I wrote about it a few weeks ago, when NBC and Fox were both interested in the show – NBC especially because they could, then, reduce The Voice to one cycle a year. Those talks fell through, but now it appears that ABC has gotten into the game, with one stipulation: there’s no Idol without Seacrest, so the show would have to move to New York so he could continue to host. The show’s production company, Fremantle, insists that it stays in LA. ABC wants to announce it during the May upfronts, which occur in two weeks, for a Fall 2018 premiere (yeah, it ain’t gonna be ready by this Fall). So here’s the plan on how that would work: Fremantle wants to air Idol on Sunday nights from LA, where Seacrest would then fly to NYC after the show in order to make it in time to film Live Monday morning. After filming Monday’s Live, he would then fly back to LA for the Idol results show. Once that’s over, he would fly back to NYC in time for Tuesday’s Live. My God! The live portion of Idol is only 10 weeks, but that is a grueling schedule that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. So far, however, it seems that ABC’s plan would be to air Idol on Mondays, to go head to head with The Voice, so this plan wouldn’t work.

Say what you will about Seacrest, but I’ve always admired the dude’s work ethic. He doesn’t seem to know the word “no”, and he’s constantly building his brand. With the exception of the short-lived On Air With Ryan Seacrest TV show (which is conveniently missing from his Wikipedia entry), he doesn’t really fail at anything. I guess hard work and determination really can take you places. I’ll tell ya, back when he was hosting Click and Gladiators 2000, I had NO CLUE he would become as big as he is. He makes me wanna go out and get 3 more jobs. Then again, I wouldn’t have his net worth of $330 million, but it’d be a start. Anyway, for taking all the jobs, while growing in power, Ryan Seacrest had the West Week Ever.

#80s #Comics #Country #Marvel #Music #Television #West Week Ever