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callmeelle22 · 3 years

Text

Blue Dream VII

Pairing: Iris West x Barry Alen

Rating: E

Chapter Word Count: 9, 034

Summary: A series of sporadic dates between Iris and Barry turn into something more, a story in its own making.

Chapter I: Primetime

Chapter II: It's Cool

Chapter III: Anything

Chapter IV: Comfortable

Chapter V: The Way

Chapter VI: Say Yes

Chapter VII: Brave; They fuck with the rain like a soundtrack behind them, like a song that swells and stretches, telling their story, but you're so brave; stone cold crazy for loving me; yeah, I'm amazed; i hope you make it out alive, a song that rises and rises, that sounds too good to be real, that might destroy you, but only in the best way. (Read below or on AO3 linked on the chapter title.)

Chapter VIII: Blue Dream

Brave

Broken hearts are made for two

One for me and one for you

Tell me have you heard the news

We are now in love

Fall break from school is scheduled during the last three days of the last week of October. Before she can take some time off, Iris has midterm articles to write and grade. Barry is busy testing DNA samples or whatever it is CSIs do so they don’t see each other for several days after he leaves her house the morning after Wally’s party.

On the Wednesday of Fall Break, the first day off, Iris lets herself sleep in until almost 10, and then she packs up her bag, stuffing a notebook, a couple of pens, and her laptop in, before dressing comfortably in a pair of dark leggings, and a white oversized CCU hoodie she stole from her brother. Throwing on a pair of white low-top Chuck Taylors, Iris heads out to Jitters. It’s a rainy day, and other than workers who’ve no choice, not many people are out. A storm is brewing for later in the night, the sky dark and cloudy, but for the moment, it’s just a steady rain that has Iris walking carefully to her car and driving a lot slower, thanking her lucky stars that she finds a parking spot right in front of the coffee shop.

Back in high school, especially once her dad had gotten her a used car during the beginning of senior year, Iris and Linda would come to Jitters to do homework or stare at the college boys who would come in. The coffee shop has expanded since then, buying the small antique store that had been next door and adding more seating and a bar that specializes in alcoholic coffee brews. It’s still one of Iris’s favorite places to work because now the manager is a young Black woman with wild curly hair always dyed in one bright color or another and a soft spot for mid to late 90s R & B female singers. The shop is comfortable, with couches and overstuffed chairs in mismatched browns and beiges and blues set up near the walls and windows and several tables, two- and four-tops, taking up the space in the middle. Two of the walls are exposed brick and the others are painted stark white and feature framed prints in wild colors. It’s changed since she was a child, but Iris likes to think that she’s changed with it, that as this integral part of Central City has grown and added light and color and comfort, so too has Iris.

Today, her plan is to outline at least two entire stories from interviews she’s completed over the last couple of weeks before she even thinks about leaving the coffee shop. She settles into one of her favorite spots, a soft navy armchair behind a small circular table. She sets up her laptop, her notebook with her notes, her pens, and once a waiter drops off her brown sugar latte and a chocolate muffin, she lets the sound of the rain, and the Erykah Badu playing on the speakers, get her into her work.

“Hey, beautiful.”

Iris looks up just as Barry stops beside her. She’s been at Jitters for just over three hours now, and her shoulders are cramped and she’s coffee high and hungry. The rain is still pounding down, so hard that it looks like it’s raining sideways, and Iris curses her inability to get any work done in her own home. Besides all that, she’s reeling. She’s just outlined a story of a man explaining the story of the woman he’d loved his entire life: from growing up together in a small city in North Carolina, to becoming best friends and de facto siblings when his parents died and her dad agreed to foster him; from not dating but seeming like it in high school, to falling for other people in college; from having other spouses and children to one night of passion before they found their way back to each other when she decided to leave her husband after his wife died. It was a ride from start to finish, such a roller coaster of feelings—of love and pain and joy and heartbreak—that make Iris feel a bit heavy with them, a little loopy with them.

Barry stands to the side of her, towering above her, in as simple an outfit as what she’s wearing, a pair of black joggers and a white sweatshirt. She’s startled that he's there because she figures that he should be at work, but her heart does tick up at the sight of him. That is, until she lets her eyes rake over his lean frame. He looks a little...down, like a physical manifestation of the story she’s just outlined. His hair is messier than usual and his eyes aren’t carrying their usual sparkle, in addition to the darkening bags that frame them. He’s also a little stubbly, his jaw covered in a fine layer of coarse hair, his pallor a bit ashen.

(Iris will also admit that she thinks he looks sort of, well, good, like this; but that’s neither here nor there and she feels terrible—and maybe a bit perverted—that she’s lusting after him when he’s obviously going through something.)

“Hey,” she responds softly, and she stands up to assess him further. He seems so much taller than her like this, when they’re both in sneakers. She hasn’t seen him since the morning after Wally’s party a week ago when he dropped her back off at her car after spending the night at her place. They’ve talked a bunch and FaceTimed once, but she’s missed him. She reaches up into his hair, rubbing at his scalp a little until his eyes close and he lets out a soft little moan. She keeps at it and then touches gingerly at his face, at some of the moles dotting his cheeks, at the stubble he’s grown. He reaches up to stop her, eyes still closed, and it startles her a little bit. She goes to pull her hand back, but then he holds on to her wrist to bring her hand down and presses a kiss to her knuckles.

She’s never seen him like this. He’s always so open and, maybe not happy, but never so melancholy. There is always a pep to his step, as her grandma used to say, a smile on his face that always said that he feels some sort of contentment in his life. And obviously, people are allowed to have days like this. But it does something to Iris, to see him this way. She wants to lash out at whoever has made him look like this, like he’s drowning in emotions that he can’t easily pull himself out of.

“Bear, you okay?”

He nods, a little woefully, and he catches her eyes again. She bites at her lip as she stares back at him and, on impulse, she leans up to kiss him. It’s just a little more than a peck, something to tell him that she’s there with him; but he takes it a step further, kissing her harder, biting at her lip enough that there’s more pain than she’s expecting. She moans at him and he pulls back, breathing labored.

“I’m sorry,” he speaks. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It’s fine,” she says. “You didn’t hurt me. Well, a little, but I didn’t hate it.”

That gets a more real smile out of him, and he thumbs at her bottom lip. “Hmm, I guess my good girl is a little bad.”

Iris rolls her eyes and gives him a look, sobering for a minute. “Bear, what’s up? You okay?”

He doesn’t answer her question. Instead, he nods at her table and asks, “you get a lot of work done?”

She eyes him, wanting to ask again. But she knows how she is when she doesn’t want to talk about something and so she lets it go. For the moment.

“Yeah. Or, at least, I’ve done most of what I set out to do.”

He nods, casts his eyes out of the glass, looking at the rain for a moment, watching it fall in heavy sheets. Normally, Iris likes the rain. It’s soothing and she enjoys how it makes the world take a moment to slow down. When she was a little girl, her grandma (her dad’s mother who grew up somewhere at the bottom of Georgia) used to say that when it was raining, and particularly when it was storming, that the Lord was doing His work and that it was the time to be still. They’d have to sit quietly, usually with the TV and the lights off, and just be. And while life doesn’t allow her to drop everything because it’s started raining, there is always a hushed feeling that comes over her when it rains, something tranquil, but also a little turbulent, a little uncontrollable, quite like the very rain she’s reveling in.

“Wanna come over?” he wonders, voice unsure.

She nods readily. “Okay, yeah. Sure.”

He goes to return her mug and plate while she packs her bag back up. He meets her at the door, opening up a large umbrella and throwing an arm over her shoulder to lead her out into the rain. She walks with him past her own car as he takes her a short black away to where his Jeep is parked. He helps her into the Jeep first, watches as she tucks her bag under the seat, and then closes the door before walking around to the other side.

They ride to his house in silence. He lives far on the south side of town, a good twenty or so minutes from downtown if they hit the highway. Instead, he takes the streets, adding another ten minutes to their drive. Iris doesn’t mind; as she said, she likes the rain, and in this big Jeep, tires sluicing easily through the flooding roads in a way her car definitely can’t, she’s enjoying the ride. He had silently connected her phone to his car’s Bluetooth, so she took it to mean that the music choices were hers. She contemplates finding something that he might like, but she figures he likely wouldn’t even be paying much attention. So she decides on one of her slower playlists, ones with songs that dip and fade, that take listeners on a journey of highs and lows, and she lets it play. The lyrics tell too much, so i guess that i should mention; that i am in no condition; to put you in this position; i might fuck this up, although with the heavy weight on Barry’s shoulders right now, she can’t tell if she’s talking to him or vice versa.

He takes them past one of the major shopping districts in the city, past the Apple store and the Michael Kors shop and the one restaurant her dad took her to when she graduated college where pasta dishes run nearer to forty dollars. These shops, and the nicer mall and a couple business buildings that rise as tall as those downtown, lead into longer stretches of road where trees interspersed with beige or cream apartments begin to take up where businesses once stood. He turns into the familiar subdivision that she remembers; it’s a little older than some, which makes sense if his parents were able to buy and pay it off before they were gone. That also means that none of the houses are the same cookie-cutter versions that tend to make up most subdivisions these days, where houses are identical save for the color and the trim and what children’s toys litter the front yard.

He presses a button on his visor and the garage opens as he maneuvers the car so that he can back up into the driveway. He stays in the driveway, though, the music cutting out—but whatever the case, you're my favorite mistake; more than happy to make you—when he turns the ignition off. She waits for him to come around with his umbrella and he half picks her up to pull her out, holding on to her as he walks her through the garage.

She’s as quiet as he is, taking in her surroundings, trying to get a better sense of who he is by what he’s got going on in his house. There isn’t much in the garage; there are a bunch of boxes neatly stacked on one wall, a couple bicycles in another corner. There is a wall full of tools and a couple tables that have science looking tools on them, like a microscope and several bunsen burners and petri dishes, though nothing looks as if they’re currently being used.

He leads her through a door that opens up into the kitchen as he presses another button to close the garage. His house is as cute on the outside as it is on the inside, although she wonders how he might feel if she were to call it cute. The kitchen is large, done in white, gray, and green, with steel appliances, gray marble countertops, and the look of a place that doesn’t get a lot of use. They both stop to toe their shoes off right outside of the kitchen where a couple other pairs of Barry’s shoes lie. His living room is pretty big: a wide space that features a real stone fireplace as the focal point and a large screen television situated above it; a huge sectional in a slate gray with a few throw pillows; and a big square wooden coffee table. It’s masculine and clean without being gaudy or too bro and Iris wonders if he did this himself because even if she never knew her, she doubts a woman who loved flowers as much as his mother would decorate her living room this way.

The dark curtains on the windows are open wide and Iris can see the backyard but the rain coming down in sheets keep her from being able to make out much besides the patio with what looks like a grill and wicker furniture. Iris remembers being told that his dad had been a doctor and his mom some sort of university researcher and the house matches that.

Barry lets her hand go to tug his sweatshirt off, revealing a plain white t-shirt that rises up over his taut belly. She doesn’t avert her eyes, giving herself permission to track how the sweatpants hang off his slim hips and how he isn’t so much sculpted as he’s hard and tight, with just the beginnings of abs. He catches her staring and he smirks at her before dropping down in the corner of the couch, one leg spread out along the seats of the chair.

“Come here,” he tells her, and she moves toward him, sitting so that her back is pressed against that hard chest and his arms are wrapped around her. She grabs a hold of his forearm with both her hands and settles her head in the crook of his elbow. She’s surrounded by his scent, lemongrass and clean cotton, and for a while, the only sounds are his breathing and the pounding of the rain. He touches her, the hand she’s not holding on to stroking up and down her thigh. Her leggings are pretty thin and she feels his touch fully; if she concentrates enough, she can feel those beloved calluses on his hands. He rubs his hand towards the juncture of her thighs and then over her hip and then back again, and like always, his touch ignites something in her, even as she’s wondering how she might be able to help him out of whatever funk he’s found himself in.

“You ready to tell me what’s up?” she wonders a while later.

“Hmm,” he hums, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Not yet. Tell me about your day.”

She shifts so that she can look back at him, noting the way his eyes have darkened a touch, become grayer like the sky outside, and it’s different from the bright blue-green she remembers from the day of the festival or the wicked blue-gray they always are right before he pushes hard into her.

He blinks down at her and licks his lips slowly. It’s not an explicitly sexual act, even if her body thinks it looks that way, and Iris finds herself lost in it, in whatever he’s emanating. It’s erotic in that it’s intimate, a whirlwind of whatever hurt made him seek her out at Jitters, of whatever still lies unexplored between them, of the attraction that doesn’t ever seem to dissipate.

When she pulls herself out, she tells him, “I was working on a story today. One that made me feel a little bit like how you might be right now.”

“Yeah?”

Wanting to look at him more comfortably, she uses his pause so that she can turn around fully and seat herself on his lap, straddling him. His hands automatically go to her hips, one sliding inside the waist of her leggings so that he can touch her skin.

“Tell me about this story,” he requests. She knows that he’s asking so that he can think about something other than what’s on his mind, so she does, giving a little more than she would originally, working out how she might want to tell the story in her blog.

“It was a couple,” she starts, “that grew up together, in the country. They bonded by playing together in the lake, climbing trees, and playing pranks on each other. And then they start to grow up. Their swimming becomes fraught with tension, the bathing suits showing the same skin, but more, ya know, both of them recognizing the differences, cataloging them, thinking about them, remembering them. They don’t act on it, because they’re friends, and he doesn’t actually understand what it means, that he’s 13 and he keeps dreaming about her at night, waking up with a wet bed and a pounding heart. And then his parents die and her dad, who’s a do-gooder in the community and had been his parents’ best friend, takes him in. Now they’re siblings, but of course not. Regardless, it makes it all harder and odder because she sleeps right down the hall from him, their shared bathroom always smells like her, and he understands now, that he likes her smile and the way she speaks and the curves she seems to develop out of nowhere.”

Barry squeezes at her and she pauses as he asks, “And what about her? How does she feel about him?”

“Well he doesn’t know it, but she’s there too. At first she thinks that she’s just conflating it, confusing their friendship. Because she doesn’t laugh with anyone else like she does with him and she never has as much fun with anyone else as she does him and she never feels as comfortable with anyone else as she does him. He’s her best friend. But she sees him, one night, in his room where the door hasn’t fully closed and he’s, well, he’s masturbating, touching himself, eyes closed and moaning, and for the first time outside of the books she’s read, she feels something. And she knows it’s not just because she’s seen him naked because she’s kissed boys before, she’s felt them hard under her before, but something about this feels different for her.

“But she doesn’t act on it. And he doesn’t either, because remember, he only thinks this is one-sided. They graduate. They go to the same college. But their majors are different and their friends are different. She joins a sorority; he gets into a couple of clubs. Their paths separate, even if they still laugh and talk and be when they’re home for the holidays. Then she gets a boyfriend.”

“She never had a boyfriend before this?” Barry questions.

Iris shrugs. “Sure. But it was high school and the beginning of college. They were mostly hookups that didn’t last. This guy is serious. He’s a couple years older, got his own place, and eventually she moves in with him. Heartbroken, he gets a girlfriend too, one of her friends. That doesn’t last long because she figures out that he’s a little bit in love with the main girl, and then he moves on, to someone sweet, someone who’s been not so subtly hinting that she wants to go out with him.”

Barry seems to be engrossed now. She can’t say that the dark look he was sporting is completely gone, but she can see that he’s not as deep in it, interested in the story she’s weaving.

“They go on to marry these people, even if their hearts are not fully in it. His wife has a kid first, her baby comes next. And meanwhile, they’re still friends. Her dad is still his guardian, so to speak; they are together for whatever holidays they don’t spend with their spouses’ families. They still laugh and talk and be. They still look a little too long and want a little too much.

It comes to a head one Christmas. The gods or fate or just some movement on their parts mean that they both go home to her dad’s house with their spouses and children coming in the next day. But her dad is called in to work so they order take out and watch movies in front of a fire. And they laugh and they talk...and they hug and they kiss and they…

“Be?” Barry tries, a tiny little smile on his face.

She matches it. “Yeah. And it’s beautiful, transcendent. But they’re married. To other people. With kids. So they vow to forget it, to never bring it up again. A couple of years pass. They don’t laugh as much, don’t talk as much. She’s having troubles in her marriage. He is too. He actually consults a divorce attorney because he thinks that it’s unfair to both him and his wife, to live like this. And then the wife dies in a car accident.”

“Oh damn,” he mutters.

“Right,” she agrees. “He’s wracked with grief and more than a little guilt, because he loved her but was never in love with her and she had no idea he was going to leave her.”

“What about her? The one he loves?”

“She’s there for him. She consoles him, cares for him, takes his kid when it gets too hard. Her husband doesn’t like it though. Thinks she’s doing too much, thinks that there’s another reason she’s over at his so much. Later, he learns that this wasn’t a new accusation, that even before she and her husband got married, the husband would question their closeness, would wonder what, if anything, had ever happened between them.

“Eventually she gets tired of it. Her kid is older, in their teens now, and she leaves her husband, packing her things and her kid’s too and moving back in with her dad for a while.”

“And what happens between them?” Barry wants to know.

“He and his son come over more. They hang out more, the four of them, going to dinner and to the movies and to the arcade together. And when their kids are gone, at sleepovers or game nights with their friends, they laugh again, talk again. Fall in love again.”

The ending is implied. Iris closes her eyes when she’s done, letting Barry continue to rub at her back, his fingers so so warm on her skin.

“It's a happy ending,” he says, eventually. “But getting there was a little...depressing.”

Iris chuckles softly, lightheaded again at having gone through that again. It likely didn’t make Barry feel any better, but she��ll take the win that it took his mind away from his own problems, if only for a little while.

“Yeah, it is,” she agrees. “But it reminds me that just because it’s not easy and just because it takes some time, it doesn’t mean that things aren’t worth it.”

He nods, slowly, thinking.

“What about things that are...easy? That come like breathing? That start as a simple dance and just, just keep going?”

She stares down at him and she knows that this is rhetorical. She can see the question in the depths of his eyes, feel it in his hands still kneading her flesh. It would be easy to retreat, to tell him that nothing is ever easy, even if the reality is that it is because they are, because they fall into each other so effortlessly, that she’s terrified. There are always hiccups, obstacles, and the fact that she can’t find any keeps her on edge, waiting, anticipating trouble she knows must be coming. She doesn’t want to believe it, wants to stand firm in them—stand firm in the lyrics she keeps hearing, if you decide to stay, know that there is no escape; there's no one here to save you—and she holds onto that as he asks,

“Don’t you think it’s worth it, Iris? Even if it’s this easy?”

She can’t speak, but his eyes are imploring her to answer. Pleading with her for a response. And however terrified Iris is, or however much Iris tells stories, she is not a liar. So she nods and whispers to him, “yes.”

Without waiting for her to say anything more, he kisses her. He squeezes at her waist and leans up to capture her mouth. She meets him with his same fervor and it’s different, this kiss. She knows the passion of his mouth when he’s high, the boldness when he’s teasing her. But this is new, this is fervor, warmth and agony and doubt and pleasure, all wrapped up together.

(Something also tells Iris that there is another word for this, that this is the part of the story where feelings would be laid on the table, where hearts would be splayed open and she’d say it, or he would, and the other would respond in kind, with declarations of adoration, of infatuation, yearning, of any other word that means what she can’t say yet.

But she feels it, what she’s wanting to say, what she thinks he is saying, in this kiss. It is slow and nasty, all tongue and mouth. Her eyes flutter closed at the feeling, at how he licks into her mouth and then sucks on her bottom lip, at how he licks against her tongue and then holds her face to bring her closer to him. She feels it, she feels it, she feels him…)

He stands, holding on to her, and she wraps her legs around his waist, tightening her arms around his neck as he carries her through the house. The kisses don’t stop, though they become shorter, more mouth now, and he takes her down a long hallway past several doors until he turns into one at the end of the hall. She makes a quick note of the light gray and burnt orange decor, the side tables holding books and knickknacks, the one window that spans nearly the entire wall, but she focuses most heavily on the king-sized bed on which he throws on her, the soft comforter half hanging off the bed.

Her clothes come off first, Barry pulling her sweatshirt over her head and yanking her pants over her hips. He comes out of his own clothes as she discards her underwear, and then he’s between her thighs again. But she wants something else first so she taps his shoulder to flip them and then she’s hovering above him.

She gives him a kiss, slow and sweet, and then she makes her way down his chest, kissing as she goes. She loves the feel of his skin against her lips, likes how his skin tastes as she presses tongue kisses on him. His belly clenches and unclenches under her ministrations, and by the time she’s looking back up at him from her position near his crotch, she can see the way his chest rises and falls with his heavy breathing.

She reaches for him, wrapping her fingers around his dick. It’s long like the rest of him, and thicker than she would have expected just looking at him. It’s a pretty dick, the base the same color as him, the head slightly pinker. It’s a little veiny, but the skin is smooth, and already he’s starting to leak. She lifts her eyes to find him watching her, his own gaze hooded. In her peripheral, she sees his hands grip the bed sheets and she revels in how she hasn’t even done anything and his control is starting to slip.

“Tell me what you want, Bear.”

She says the words softly, but Barry doesn’t miss the cheek that lies under it, if the slight smirk he gives her is any indication.

“Your mouth,” he says. “I’ve been dreaming about that pretty mouth wrapped around my dick.”

She shudders at the tone of his voice, at the vision of her on her knees for him. She likes it.

“I bet you have too,” he guesses.

Without a response, she licks him, holding him at the base and running her tongue up one side of him. She does it again, and then one more time, acquainting herself with the taste of him and the satiny feel of him on her tongue, and then she adjusts and covers the whole of him.

“Fuck,” he breathes out.

She hums around him and she sucks him down, taking him until he hits her throat. Then she pulls back until just the tip remains. She licks around his head and sucks him there, letting the spit pool in her mouth, letting it mix with his own wet. She opens her mouth and lets it slide out, dripping down onto him, and her own body starts to drip at his wrecked whisper, “god, baby, look at you.”

She adds her hands, palming his testicles in one and rubbing her spit down the length of him with the other. She finds a rhythm, sucking him down, inch by inch, hollowing her cheeks as she goes, and then stroking his back up. Barry keeps his hand clenched in the sheets, but he cants himself into her mouth, rocking his hips lightly. She’s getting into it, loving the way he responds to her.

“Come here,” he says, suddenly, reaching for her, and she pulls back with a soft pop.

“Barry?” she furrows her eyebrows in question.

He gives her a gentle smile and grabs at her arm; Iris moves at his request, crawling up his body.

“But you didn’t finish,” she says, pouting a little.

“I know. I want to come when I’m inside you.”

She’s mollified by that, and he settles her on his lap.

“You were so good though, baby,” he says, kissing her. “My good, good girl.”

He reaches down to touch her, slipping his fingers easily into her sex. He groans into her mouth at the feel and he pulls back to ask,

“Is this all for me? Did you get wet sucking me off, good girl?”

She nods, rocking her hips against his hand, against his sex still hard beneath her. “Can, can you…?”

He tilts his head at her, fingers still caressing inside of her. “Can I?”

She huffs out a small laugh because he’s always fucking with her. “You said you wanted to come inside of me,” she reminds him.

“I did, didn’t?” He takes his time removing his fingers, eyes on her as he does. Even with the window curtains wide open, the dark sky has the room dark

(and she doesn’t dismiss the fact that the window faces the side of someone else’s house, where they could be seen if the neighbors were so inclined to watch)

and his eyes look a little like molten lead in the faint rainy light like this. He goes to reach over to his bedside table but Iris stops him.

“I want to feel you,” she says.

He licks his lips and she doesn’t mistake the twitch of his dick she feels under her. “You sure?”

“Yes. I’m on birth control. And I trust you.”

He nods once and again, and then he takes her by her hips and slides her down his cock.

After, Iris decides that this time is the single most erotic experience of her life.

They fuck with the rain like a soundtrack behind them, like a song that swells and stretches, telling their story, but you're so brave; stone cold crazy for loving me; yeah, I'm amazed; i hope you make it out alive, a song that rises and rises, that sounds too good to be real, that might destroy you, but only in the best way.

She rides him, and he’s so full in her like this, so deep in her like this. His back is against his fabric headboard and she’s so close to him, her knees jutting into the headboard, her thighs holding around his hips, her breasts rubbing against his chest, nipples pebbling with each brush on those hard planes.

She holds on to him with her hands holding the back of his neck, softly scratching at the nape. But he’s touching her, always touching her, his hands caressing her spine, and then holding her waist, and then squeezing her hips. He guides her: keeps his favorite pace, smooth and languid; bring her up to the tip and fucks her back down; shows her how he wants her to roll her body when he’s full in her, so her clit is brushing the soft hairs on his pelvis, the sensation incredible.

He uses his mouth too: to kiss her throat, deep tongue kisses that’ll leave marks she knows she’ll have to cover up; to whisper against her mouth, “see how easy this is; see how good, baby; fuck, see how good this is; yes, yes, yes, my good girl.”

And Iris feels so caught up in it. She can’t stop looking at him, loving when the lightning slashes across the room and illuminates those eyes, the constellation of moles on his skin, his wet, pink mouth. Her body hums with pleasure, soaking her thighs and his, tightening around his dick as if it never, never wants to let him go. She voices her satisfaction, in soft sighs and heavy pleas, and his name on her tongue like a chant, or better, a song, “Bear, Bear, Barrryyy.” They’re so close, her skin sticking to his wherever they’re touching, chest to chest and ass to thigh. She feels full and whole and filled...with him and with desire and with, and with love, the thought of it making her shudder and close her eyes.

“No,” Barry whispers. “Don’t. Just let it, just let it...stay here with me. Can you do that for me? Be brave for me?”

She nods, head heavy as her body starts to reach its climax, as her body loosens at the same time that it tightens and she has to fight to hold on to him. “Yes,” she moans again, holding his gaze again.

He touches at her face, holding her cheek and staring back. “Good girl.”

She doesn’t know whose climax triggers the other. She just knows that at the same time that her body explodes, fluttering wildly around him, he comes too, so hard that she feels him throbbing against her walls, that she feels him filling her up with his cum.

He doesn’t let go of her right away. He just holds her, hands at her hip and her face, and then he kisses her, cementing what they’ve just done, cementing what Iris feels for him.

“It’s the anniversary of my mom’s death,” he says, out of the blue. “And when I went to visit my dad earlier, I found out that he’s sick, something with his heart, and I’m-I’m reeling.”

It’s been a long while since they separated and Iris climbed off of him to pad into his bathroom and warm a hand towel under warm water to clean them both. They’ve been lying in his bed, only half under the covers as they let their bodies cool. It’s quiet now, so quiet that Iris has thought he’d fallen asleep; she’d almost fallen asleep. But when he speaks, she blinks wide and then turns her head to face him.

“14 years today,” he adds. He’s looking up at the ceiling as he talks, but Iris feels the hand that’s settled at her waist tighten, the move bringing her closer to him. She understands that he just needs the contact, so she turns so that she’s all the way curled on him, one of her legs thrown across him, her arm tossed over him too, hand settled on his heart. It’s beating slow, steady, and so she strokes his bare chest, right it.

“How’d you find out?”

“I was still at school,” he tells her. “It was a Friday and some of my friends had convinced me to go to a football game, so we were there pretty late. Games could run until 11. I was 17 so I had my own car. It was an old car; we’d bought it from a guy she worked with. By this time, my dad had been gone for a couple years, and my mom was always working late at the lab, so when I got home around 10:30 that night and the lights were out, I wasn’t surprised.”

He shifts a little and continues. “I took a shower, put some leftover pizza in the microwave, and just as I was sitting down to eat, the doorbell rang. It was the police looking for her next of kin to tell them what had happened.” He sighs heavily. “I got lucky. The courts let one of my friend’s parents take me in until I graduated a few months later. I was able to get a work study job in college to pay my bills since the mortgage was already paid off.”

He says it all like he was lucky, but there is nothing lucky about losing both of your parents in that matter, even if one of them was still physically alive. Iris knows from experience that he doesn’t want pity, doesn’t want anyone to feel sorry for his story. But she can’t help the way she wants to comfort him, and so she lets herself do that, tightening herself around him, snuggling even more into his chest.

“How are you feeling about your dad?” she asks, mumbling against his skin.

“Devastated. He looked like, like, I don’t know, like he’s giving up. I don’t get to go see him too often, every couple of months, really. And he looked so different from when I saw him last: smaller, frailer. I think there might be something he’s not telling me. Like he’s been sick longer than he says he has.”

“Is he supposed to get out soon?”

“Another couple years. But I don’t know if he wants to hold on that long.”

She feels them first, the tears. She tries to hold him even tighter, tries to crawl into his skin almost, trying to stem his pain. He doesn’t cry for long, just a few sobs, and then he’s inhaling deeply and wiping at his eyes. But it must be enough because he sounds a little hollow when he says,

“And truthfully, I’m not so much sad as I am mad, that he seems to be giving up. On getting out. On me.”

She hums, not dismissively, but because she understands. “Wanna know a secret?”

“Yeah.”

“Sometimes, I hate my mom.”

He sort of jerks up at that. Not fully, he looks down at her, eyes widened in shock. However inappropriate it might be, she finds herself laughing a little at his expression. Then she explains.

“I know that addiction is not a moral failing. I know that she struggled right up til the end. I know both of those things as completely as I know anything else. But sometimes I wonder why my dad wasn’t enough, why me and Wally weren't enough. I wonder what she was trying to find in those pills that she couldn’t find in us, and I get so pissed that she let it take her away from us.”

She’s startled when he moves. He pulls himself from under her, letting her fall onto her back, and then he’s hovering above her, holding himself up on his elbows. He falls into the spread of her thighs, his sex nuzzling comfortably against her still warm center.

“I’ve seen some of the worst effects of addiction,” he says, “when their bodies end up on a slab of metal and it’s my job to dissect the things around them, to even sometimes help detectives dissect their lives to figure out what happened. And something I’ve learned is that it’s always, always about them. Never about the people they love.”

He searches her face, brushing a piece of hair back from her forehead. “And whatever your mom was or wasn’t thinking, you are enough. You are more than enough, Iris.” He leans down and gives her a kiss, deep and dirty, and she moans in frustration as he pulls back from her. He gives her a grin, one more reminiscent of the Barry she’s used to.

“Repeat after me,” he commands. “I, Iris West…”

“Really, Barry?”

“Yes, come on. I, Iris West…

She sighs, but says it. “I, Iris West…”

“Am more than enough.”

She licks her lips then, blinks, works to not let the tears that have suddenly gathered in the corner of her eyes escape.

“Am more than enough,” she whispers, finally.

Barry’s smile turns fond. “Good girl.”

She shakes her head because she doesn’t know what else to do besides kiss him. Which she does, deeply, reaching down to grip him in her palm. She pauses, just for a moment, to tell him “you know that you are enough too, right?” and she kisses the look of awe off of his face. It’s a long while before she stops kissing him, and then it’s only to moan into his mouth, to let him whisper his dirty somethings into her ear.

“What are your plans for tonight?”

They’ve just shared a shower. Barry is throwing on another pair of sweats and a hoodie and Iris puts her own leggings back on, sans underwear, and thumbs through Barry’s closet for another sweatshirt to put on.

(There’s no reason that she can’t put hers back on, but she’s feeling particularly sentimental and she wants to take something of Barry’s with her, something that smells like him, that feels like him.)

“None, really.” She pulls out a red sweater that reads Central City University Track & Field and throws it on over her bra. “Why? You kicking me out.”

Barry rolls his eyes. “Of course not.” He glances down at the watch on his wrist. “Wanna get dinner? And then go with me to my tattoo appointment? It’s at 8 tonight.”

She smiles at that. “Sure.”

They take the highway back downtown. The rain is still beating steadily and there is still the occasional rumble of thunder, the sporadic flash of lightning. He parks a bit further in the arts district, in front of a restaurant specializing in wood-fire pizzas and craft beers. This time, she knows to wait for him to come around and open the door for her so that she can walk under his umbrella. Once he locks his jeep, he grabs her hand, and they walk the couple doors down and into the restaurant.

The place is brightly lit, in direct contrast to the dark sky and even the faint light that had been on at Barry’s place. The weather assures that it isn’t densely packed, just a couple booths of families and what looks like a couple, so they’re seated quickly and easily. They eat fast since they’ve only got an hour before his appointment. In the meantime, they both keep the conversation light. It’s been a day, for the both of them really, and Iris doesn’t think that she can cry twice in a day.

After he pays, she goes to the bathroom and he tells her he’ll wait at the door for her. She goes in and it’s as brightly lit as the rest of the place and she quickly does her business and washes her hands before heading back out to where he knows Barry is waiting in the little space between the outer door and the door to the restaurant.

She walks through the place and out of the restaurant door, likely too quickly and without really looking. She takes several steps, straightening out Barry’s sweatshirt again, and then she’s bumping into what feels like a solid wall, almost falling backward. A quick hand reaches out to catch her, the hand large, easily wrapping around her forearm.

“Shit,” she says, shaking her head to clear it as she looks up. “I’m sorr..Scott?”

He doesn’t move back right away and so she has to look up, up at the man holding on to her. Scott Evans is the literal definition of tall, dark, and handsome. He’d been her editor when she’d work at CCPN right out of college, and she’d had the biggest crush on him. Tall with dark caramel skin and a neatly trimmed beard, he’d been the one to help guide her in the ways of mass story-telling. They’d gone on one date and Iris is not actually sure why they’d never gone on another.

“Iris West.” He says her name slowly, his grin widening at the same pace. He gives her a once-over, slow and heated. “How’ve you been?”

“R-really good,” she says, stumbling a little at that grin. Even if she doesn’t actually regret never seeing him again, Iris can admit that a man this good looking makes her a little tongue-tied.

“Yeah? I’ve been catching your blog when I can. It’s some good shit, West. I can see why you left our little paper.”

“Please,” Iris rolls her eyes with a little laugh. “There’s nothing little about Picture News.”

He shrugs, humble all the way. “Still, I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks, Scott. I appreciate that.”

“It’s the truth.” He looks down at her, swiping at his lips with his tongue, and she suddenly realizes that they’re still too close. She steps back fully from him, glancing over Scott’s shoulders to see Barry watching them, his expression unreadable.

“Um,” she speaks, catching his attention. “I gotta go Scott.”

“Oh yeah; of course. We should get together soon. Maybe do dinner.” Scott looks back out of the window where rain steadily pours. “It’s still raining out. Can I walk you to your car?”

Her eyes don’t leave Barry’s and he tilts his head, waiting for her answer. “Scott, I’m not alone.”

He turns as if he’s just realizing that Barry is standing there. Barry is still quiet and only lifts his eyes to look at Scott when he mutters, “oh, hey man.”

Barry nods. “What’s up?” Then he looks at Iris. “You ready?”

“Yeah, I am.” Her voice is soft, cautious, and she throws one more glance at Scott. “It was good to see you.”

He graces her with that smile again. “Yeah. I’ll see you around.”

Barry takes her hand and they walk back to the truck. They’re on the road again, driving to a neighborhood near her own. For a second, she thinks he’s going to take her home, but he passes the road to her apartment and goes on to a neighborhood featuring several bars and little shops that cater to the college crowd. He pulls into the parking lot of a place called Black Gold, the lights inside near as bright as those in the pizza place.

Again, she waits until he comes around and turns as if to get out. He stops her though, holding the umbrella high, standing in front of her open legs. He does his thing, his stare like he's trying, and succeeding, to get inside her mind.

“That your ex-boyfriend?” he wonders.

She shakes her head. “Ex-boss.”

His expression doesn’t change. “All your bosses look at you like that?”

She swallows at the sudden feel of his hand on her thigh. The rain is pounding and drops fall on them, but she’s not noticing it. Instead, she’s caught in the storm that’s returned to his eyes, in the feel of his hands inching steadily toward her center.

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous,” she says, instead of responding to him.

One corner of his mouth lifts, and the confident, bordering on cocky, Barry is looking at her now, even if that sparkle hasn’t returned quite yet.

“Nah,” he says. “Not jealous. You’re here right now. And you were with me earlier, moaning for me, coming for me.”

He slides his hand between her thighs and because she is, almost literally, always thirsty for him, wet for him, her legs spread easily. He fingers at the crotch of her leggings, and she knows that he can feel her warmth through the thin material. He thumbs at her until she gasps against him, finding her clit in a way that reminds him that he knows her body better than she knows it herself.

“He ever touch you like this?” Barry asks, voice a whisper above the rain. “Make you whimper even without getting your clothes off?”

She is whimpering, as he keeps his thumb on her clit, rubbing on her in slow circles. That’s all he’s doing: touching her with one hand, looking at her with those eyes that tell as much as they conceal, with his voice a deep rumble that rivals the thunder. He might be turned on, but he’s proving a point, naming himself as someone who, well, who owns her, even if she recognizes that no man should claim any power over her.

Heat spreads through her, a low, simmering sort of heat, but it’s enough that her folds grow slicker, start opening like the flowers of a petal waiting to be plucked. He keeps rubbing at her, staying on her clit, staring in her face, so much that she can’t hold his gaze. Because it feels better than it should, and her wet is soaking through these too thin leggings, and her breaths are coming in longer, coming in heavier.

“Tell me he hasn’t, Iris,” he says, commands, and Iris throws her head back, legs widening at their own volition, hips canting against his hand. “Tell me.”

“No,” she moans, eyes fluttering closed. “He never even touched me at all.”

“Tell me it’s just me,” he adds and she’s too far gone to note the pleading in his voice. “Tell me no one has ever touched you like this.”

“No,” she shakes her head. “Just you, Barry, shit, just you.”

“Good,” he groans. “Good, good girl.”

Even if touch is the word he’s using, Iris understands that it’s more. She understands that they’re both wrapped up in uncertainty, never too sure of where they lie in others’ affections, never too sure of where they lie in life at all. She understands that he’s asking her if she feels it too, if she’s there with him, if this too easy, this too natural, feeling is a first for her too.

He’s asking if she’s brave enough to tell him the truth, if she undertands is meaning-understands that I'm no walk in the park; all these scars on my heart; it’s so dark here-even as she’s wondering the same, as she’s feeling the same, wondering if the churning feelings of abandonment make her unworthy somehow. Wondering if he’ll come to see that unworthiness.

Barry leans forward, just a touch away from her mouth, eyes blazing.

“There’s only you too, Iris,” he says, unprompted. “I swear I’ve just been waiting for you.”

He closes the distance to kiss her and that’s enough to take her over. It’s not a powerful orgasm, not like usual, but it does make her shut her eyes tight, make her limbs seize up as she rocks her hips through it. She breathes out, and she can’t stop the little laugh that comes out.

“You really are a dick,” she muses, opening her eyes slowly.

“A polite one, though,” he says, as he stands straighter and holds his hand out to help her down from the car. He holds the umbrella high over her. “See how I’m making sure you don’t get wet.”

“You didn't think of that earlier.”

His grin is devastating but it doesn’t hide the plethora of emotions in his eyes: the simmering lust, the faint traces of insecurity, the grief that’s been hovering all day...the love she doesn’t think he wants to hide anymore.

She hikes up on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his cheek, and then she walks beside him into the parlor, words flashing in her head like a sign, but if you’re a warrior, there’s nothing to fear; nothing to fear.

And later that night, as she cuddles up next to Barry is his large comfortable bed, she listens to his soft breathing, the sound a melody to the rain still pattering against his windows. She listens and she stares at him, taking in his features, softer than they were before, the stress of today easing away with every second he’s lost to sleep. A flash of lightning lights the room, and it catches her eyes again, the new tattoo, the purple ink bright on his skin, covering the space from a lily on his shoulder to just over his heart. It goes dark again, his room blanketed once more, but in her mind’s eyes, she can still see the vibrant ink on his skin, the pretty drooping petals of an iris.

Cause you're so brave

Stone cold crazy for loving me

Yeah, I'm amazed

I hope you make it out alive

#westallen fanfiction #westallen #barry x iris #iris west #strangers to lovers

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raeynbowboi · 4 years

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Bob’s Burgers 10th Anniversary Retrospective

After ten years, Bob, Linda, and the Kids are just as delightfully wacky and endearing as they ever were, and show no signs of slowing down. So I wanted to put together an ultra mega review of the series. I’ll give an opinion on main and recurring characters, as with a cast this big, there’s been a lot of endearing characters to grace the show over the years. However, I will only be counting characters that have appeared more than once. After ten years, there’s been some real gems, and some real misfires. So, I’ll be counting down my top 10 best episodes, and the bottom 10 worst episodes. I’ll also go through as a Highlight Reel, by picking a best and worst episode of each season, as well as crowning the Best Season with the most good episodes.

Bob Belcher

Honestly, Bob was a very easy character to mess up. He’s the straight man to his wacky family’s antics. But the show does a really great job making Bob simple and lowkey without making him boring or a stick in the mud. He may be resistant to weird things, but he puts up with it anyway to make his family happy. While he’s the serious straight man, they don’t fail to give Bob his own eccentricities and quirks that make him relatable and funny in his own way. Whether he’s making things talk, getting weirdly excited about Thanksgiving, or his awkward way of speaking, Bob is genuinely a good and relatable character. It’s also nice to see that Bob is a great husband and a loving father. He and Linda argue from time to time, but they’re not trapped in a loveless marriage for the kid’s sake like most shows. And even shows where that’s not a selling point like American Dad, Bob shows more remorse for things like forgetting their anniversary than Stan does for Francine. Bob is supportive, loving, and forgiving. Which is just amazing to watch. The times when his kids really need him, he’s there for them, and he helps them through their problems. While Bob might fight with and get mad with or annoyed by his family, Bob never treats them like people he’s stuck with. Frankly, Bob blows most animated TV dads out of the water. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Stan or Francine give quiet supportive talks to Steve or Hayley ever in American Dad. Peter used to at least try to be a decent father, but now is a negligent toddler. Likewise, Homer used to be a great father who cared about his kids, but later seasons have really stepped away from the family angle the Simpsons used to have. In a sea of adult animated families that are toxic and destructive, Bob’s genuine love for his family came as a breath of fresh air.

Linda Belcher

Linda is by far the best Adult Animation TV mom there is. For one thing, she’s funnier than Francine, Lois, and Marge combined. But more importantly, she’s not the butt of the joke when it happens. I can only really remember laughing at Francine when they make dumb blonde jokes with her, but Linda’s jokes come from her character. She could have easily been the gender inverted Homer or Peter, but the writers are careful to make her gullible, trusting, and goofy without making her a moron. When the kids do something wrong, Linda busts out the tough mom act and you genuinely believe that the kids are in trouble. She’s not faking it. She’s not off in her own little world. She’s a bit of a goofy dreamer, but she’s able to be the tough disciplinarian when she needs to be. Her relationship with Bob is also better than most adult animation wives. She’s more independent than the other housewives, and even though her job is working with her husband, it never feels like it robs Linda of her own power, autonomy, and freedom. But the best thing about Linda is that I think most people can agree, she has an extremely strong and charming personality that endears us to her.

Tina Belcher

I really wish I could say I liked Tina more. She’s a creative romantic, just like me. I should love her. But her monotone deliveries and awkwardness isn’t as endearing as Bob’s. I like her better in episodes like Teen-A Witch and Broadcast Wagstaff School News where she has a bit stronger of a personality. But unfortunately, Tina is my least favorite member of the Belcher family, which isn’t to say that I hate her, she just doesn’t shine as bright as the rest of her family. She’s just not very funny or interesting on her own. But on the plus side, at least I don’t find Tina to be annoying or terrible except in the rare bad episode.

Gene Belcher

Gene is the only member of the family that can regularly get my dad to laugh, and with good reason. If he wasn’t such a well of nonsequitor punchlines, Gene would probably be the worst member of the family, but boy howdy do those random jokes pick up the slack. Gene is genuinely hilarious, even if I’d only rank him above Tina in terms of favoritism. However, I find that most Gene-centric episodes to be lackluster or below average. I think Gene’s best episode is probably Y Tu Ga-Ga Tambien, but of the best episodes, none really come to mind that specifically star Gene. Gene is really better suited for a supporting role, and his times as the star showcase why comic reliefs aren’t the main character. They’re support characters for a reason. That’s not to say Gene-centric episodes are terrible. They just tend to range from about average to bad. Though Y Tu Ga-Ga Tambien is a pretty good one.

Louise Belcher

Bob and Linda saved the best for last because Louise is the breakout star of the show. Funny, interesting, and the focus of many of the better episodes, Louise stands proudly on the first place podium with Linda in 2nd and Bob taking 3rd place. I think Louise’s strengths are especially due to her standoffish and naughty personality, which has lent itself to a lot of good character growth episodes. Season 10 Louise seems a lot more mature than Season 1 Louise. I think Louise works because while she does often have clever or sneaky solutions to problems, they don’t forget that she’s 9, so unlike Stewie, her age does present hurdles and barriers to her schemes and plans.

The Best and Worst of Bob’s Burgers

#10 WORST: Pro-Tiki/Con-Tiki (S6e15)

Why couldn’t Warren Fitzgerald just put that $100,000 into advertisements or to help Bob buy better equipment for his restaurant? My biggest issue with this episode isn’t the episode itself, it’s that the ending makes no sense. Warren wants to help Bob because he has a form of riches Warren lacks, and Bob doesn’t want a corporate sponsor to make changes to his brand. But why can’t Warren just give Bob the money to make choices he wants to make? They could stay as business partners, but Bob doesn’t have to sacrifice his personal vision for the restaurant. It’s just really frustrating when they’re both being too stupid and stubborn to see the obvious solution in front of their faces.

#10 BEST: Teen-a Witch (S7e03)

One of Tina’s best episodes, as someone who had a goth phase myself and dabbled a tiny amount in ‘witchcraft’, this episode brings back memories of high school and the desire to make the world what I wanted it to be. But on top of that, Tina with a backbone is when she really shines as a character, mostly because it means her humor isn’t being derived from her being awkward.

#9 WORST: Live and Let Fly (S9e05)

Mr. Frond embarrasses the kids, and they team up with Up-Skirt Kurt to get revenge against his sister and Mr. Frond. I’m not a fan of Kurt, so I already don’t care much about his feud with his sister, but I also just find the episode kind of boring. I don’t care about Kurt, I don’t care about his feud, and the kids call off their revenge, so that ends up not mattering either. Even Bob and Linda’s side plot is only middle-of-the-road quality for Bob’s Burgers.

#9 BEST: Wharf Horse/World Wharf II (S4e21-22)

The very first two-part episode Bob’s Burgers ever had, the season 4 finale is a great watching experience. It has some fun songs, funny character exchanges, suspenseful drama, and some heartfelt moments. It feels like a short movie, and that’s a good thing for a two-part episode to do. Even Fanny and Felix are interesting villains. But even after everything Felix did, I don’t find myself loathing him in later episodes, and that’s a hard thing to accomplish.

#8 WORST: Tina-Rannosaurus Wrecks (S3e07)

This is the only bad Tina episode where the problem isn’t Tina herself. My biggest issue with this episode is more just the subject matter. Bob lies for insurance reasons about who was driving his car, and the entire episode is just Bob and Tina digging a deeper and deeper hole for themselves. The solution to the issue is clever enough to redeem the episode somewhat, but the majority of the watching experience is just kind of an awkward dance of watching these two getting tangled up in a web of lies.

#8 BEST: The Taking of Funtime One Two Three (S9e02)

Bar none, this is the single best ‘Heist’ episode of Bob’s Burgers, and it’s kind of crazy that Bob’s Burgers has actually built a repertoire to where I can make a list of ‘heist’ episodes as an archetype. This one feels the most like an actual heist movie, and the ending is legitimately clever and unexpected. But even more than that, if you’re paying attention, you can see the twist before the characters even reveal it. That is the kind of tight writing that makes the list for best episodes.

#7 WORST: A Fish Called Tina (S10e12)

Tina spends an episode trying way too hard to make someone like her, to the point that she almost humiliates a 4th grader in public just so she can live out some fantasy. It’s really uncomfortable and sickening to watch Tina do this. This will be a recurring issue with Tina’s low-point episodes. There’s nothing fun about watching a character make a complete idiot out of themselves by coming on too strong. It even makes me groan when Kaylie shows up in another Season 10 episode because I don’t want to have to think about this awful episode.

#7 BEST: Stand By Gene (S6e12)

Something about this episode really just brings back memories of my childhood. Memories of walking through the outdoors, just exploring and wanting to find things. The characters are funny, and Bob and Linda’s relationship is put to the test. Plus, I loved that for the entire episode, you don’t know how it’ll end. It really makes this a personal favorite and one of the episodes I knew had to make it on my list.

#6 WORST: The Grand Mama-Pest Hotel (S7e13)

Linda ruins things for Tina by being an overbearing annoyance. Are you noticing a trend with Bob’s Burgers’ worst episodes? I don’t like it when good characters make complete jackasses out of themselves in the name of ‘humor’. It’s not funny. It’s annoying and makes me dislike them. Thankfully, the worst of it is only in the latter half of the 2nd act and the entire third act, but Linda’s behavior just makes me cringe and ask why they had to do Linda dirty like this? It just puts me even more squarely on the side that Tina is entirely in the right and I don’t want to deal with Lind either.

#6 BEST: Broadcast Wagstaff School News (S3e12)

From Tina at her lowest point to Tina at her best, Broadcast Wagstaff School News is my favorite episode of the first 5 seasons. Tina’s funny and engaging, Gene is absolutely shining as Little Bob, and while Louise and Linda play supporting roles in this episode, they’re still funny as well. Plus, the mystery is a good one, and this episode is even referenced in later seasons.

#5 WORST: Mazel-Tina (S4e13)

Tina ruins Tammy’s birthday and steals her party. This is Tina at rock bottom. Tina is so despicable, cruel, and selfish in this episode that it reminds me that behind that creative awkward girl is a selfish brat who doesn’t care if she hurts other people if she can live out her fantasies. If other episodes didn’t rescue Tina from being so unlikable, I probably would hate Tina as a character entirely for her behavior in this episode.

#5 BEST: The Silence of the Louise (S8e02)

Movie parodies are some of the best, and The Silence of the Louise is the queen of all the movie parodies. When Mr. Frond’s therapy dolls are mutilated, and the school staff calls off the waterpark trip until the culprit is caught, Louise teams up with psycho Millie to figure out whodunnit. This is also one of the first time Millie wasn’t strictly an antagonist, and she genuinely felt like someone who could be Louise’s friend someday.

#4 WORST: Boywatch (S8e16)

Tina ruins things for other people by coming on too strong. The only reason this is ranked higher than Mozel-Tina is because in that episode, she just wanted to be at the party, and just kind of ended up as the star of the party and let it go to her head, whereas here, she is actively ruining things for other people in pursuit of her own delusions and fantasies. Tina has no desire to be a junior lifeguard, but cute boys causes her to behave like a troublemaker. She’s entirely out of character, and her teammates’ hate for her behavior is something I agree with. I don’t want to hate the main characters, so why does this show keep pushing to make Tina a nuisance who ruins experiences for other people?

#4 BEST: The Quirkducers (S7e06)

If the Silence of the Louise is the queen of film parodies, then The Quirkducers is the king. Not only is it a clever parody of The Producers, but it also has some damn good musical numbers, especially the edited end credit version. But it’s Tina’s song at the end that stands as one of my favorites of all Bob’s Burgers’ songs.

#3 WORST: Bed & Breakfast (S1e07)

If a Fish Called Tina is bad, then Bed & Breakfast is flaming garbage. Linda turns their apartment into a Bed and Breakfast, and Linda goes berserk when the guests don’t play into her expectations. This episode verges from below average to detestable as Linda goes insane and locks people in their rooms, and Louise drives a grown man to attack workers by preying on his fear.

#3 BEST: The Hauntening (S6e03)

This is hands-down the best Halloween episode that Bob’s Burgers ever made. This show turns out some amazing holiday episodes, and this is one of the best the Belchers have to offer. I won’t dare give away anything about this episode. If you’ve seen it, you know why it’s top of the heap, and if you haven’t, then all I can say is what are you waiting for? Delayed gratification has to pay off eventually.

#2 WORST: Every Which Way But Goose (S9e14)

Tina falls in love with a goose. Who smoked crack before writing this episode, and who huffed enough paint thinner to approve this episode for production? This is the absolute dumbest concept for an episode I have ever come across. Who thought this was a good idea? I can’t even pinpoint the flaws because this entire episode is just so flawed. At least Mazel-Tina and Boywatch enrage me. This just baffles me.

#2 BEST: A Few Gurt Men (S7e11)

When Mr. Ambrose accuses Mr. Frond of stealing his yogurt from the faculty lounge, the case is brought before student court, and Louise is tasked with acting as Defense Council for Mr. Frond. One thing Bob’s Burgers does well is mysteries, and this is a good one as Louise has to figure out a way to prove Frond’s innocence. This is just an absolute personal favorite. Every character is just on point, and I get excited when the episode starts to que up.

#1 WORST: Moody Foodie (S2e07)

Did you ever want to watch the Belchers commit a felony? Then boy howdy do I have an episode for you! A picky food critic responsible for shutting down restaurants comes to Bob’s Burgers. Bob messes up the order, and a visit to the critic’s house to get him to try his burger again leads to a hostage situation with the critic tied to a chair and gagged in his own home. Words cannot describe the depth to which I hate this episode. The entire episode feels dirty and vile. I feel the need to scrub my skin raw after sitting through this episode. The instant I realize that it’s come on, I skip the the next one. I have literally only sat through this episode once. This episode disgusts me. This episode has the main character, abduct somebody in their own home. Then they take a second hostage when a mailman delivers the guy’s package. Luckily, Bob’s Burgers has a lot of good episodes to make up for this one bad egg, but this episode enrages me to the point that if the family wasn’t so charming and endearing most of the time, I might have stopped watching based just on this one episode.

#1 BEST: The Bleakening: Part 1 & 2 (S8e06-07)

The first time I saw these episodes, they played back to back without any credits in between them, and I thought it was one episode, and I didn’t even realize it was the length of two episodes. Between the amazing songs, the brain bending twists, the creative creature, the dark elements that contrast the bright lights of the holidays, and the uplifting ending, this pair of episodes stands paramount as the single greatest viewing experience that Bob’s Burgers has to offer.

Favorite Friend of the Kids: Regular-Sized Rudy

First appearing in Carpe Museum, Rudy came back in The Kids Rob a Train, where he has remained a friend of the kids since. Rudy was the first to join the kids if you don’t count Andy and Ollie who seem to dip in and back out as to whether they’re included in the friend group. Rudy was thus the first to be made a main member of the kids’ friend group.

Favorite Schoolyard Seven: Jocelyn

The Schoolyard Seven is the friend group of the three Belchers, Jimmy Jr., Zeke, Tammy, and Jocelyn. Not counting the Belchers, it was a close call between Zeke and Jocelyn. Tammy and Jimmy Jr. tend to be typecast as serving one niche thing, but Zeke and Jocelyn are often the comedic gold. However, while Zeke is more interesting of the two, I just enjoy Jocelyn too much to not give her the win. Even if Jocelyn’s humor is just a walking dumb blonde trope, like Gene, Jocelyn has a knack for funny one-liners. If the groups has another name, I’m not privy to it.

Favorite Friend of the Family: Micky

Though he’s less connected to the family now, Micky has been a friend to the Belchers since Bob Day Afternoon, and returning in Bob Fires the Kids. Since his introduction, Micky has gotten a job at Wonder Wharf, where he has remained since.

Favorite Recurring Villain: Logan Bush

First appearing in Ears-y Rider, Logan has been a fun and interesting frenemy for Louise to match wits with. In a show where most other villains are the same age as the main characters (Millie, Tammy, Chloe, Jimmy Pesto, Hugo) Logan stands out as a legitimate bully. Yet, even he was willing to work with Louise in Mother-Daughter Laser Razor, showing that there is wiggle room for the two of them to even join forces and spread havoc together.

Favorite Tina Love Interest: Duncan

Earnest if not a little awkward, Duncan seems like a sweet boy for Tina to possibly end up with. Sasha Whiteman is another character I could easily see being a good boyfriend to Tina because his quick wit and social graces make him a great foil to Tina, and he excels where Tina falls short. Zeke has a good chance to be a good boyfriend, but Tina still spits his name when she greets him, so I doubt she’d take interest in him unless something happens to change their dynamic. I liked Josh, but now that he’s said he doesn’t like her anymore and she agreed that she feels the same, I doubt we’re going to see them date further in the future.

Favorite Side Character: Nat Kinkle the Limo Driver

First appearing in Season 8 episode 8 V for Valentine-detta, I must not be the only fan of Nat’s because she made two appearances in the 10th season, in episode 1 The Ring (But Not Scary) and episode 17 Just the Trip. Currently with only 3 appearances, she’s still only a side character, but I get the feeling that like with Rudy, Courtney, Darrel and Alex before her, Nat will keep becoming a more frequent character. She just has a great vibe, and her charisma is intoxicating. She meshes great with the family, making her an absolute delight to watch.

Favorite Bit Character: Marshmallow

Although she’s appeared in multiple episodes since her introduction in Sheesh, Cab Bob, Marshmallow has never gotten much more than a couple lines, with her biggest role being in The Bleakening where she had more to say. She was also the first major LGBT+ recurring character on the show, which also made her a joy to see, whenever she returned to Bob’s Burgers.

Favorite Headcanon: Gene is Genderfluid

Gene’s jokes have been centered on his gender or sexuality since the first season finale. A joke once in a while is one thing, but ten years of the same sorts of jokes tells the sharp viewer that there’s more to it than just a running gag. With how many jokes have Gene talk about having boobs, synching his cycle, or calling himself Tina and Louise’s sister or Bob and Linda’s daughter, it’s my opinion that Gene is genderfluid, or possibly even transgender. The only reason I say genderfluid over a transgirl is because he still also addresses himself as a boy or a man as much as he does girl jokes.

Best Song: Twinkly Lights (Ms. XXX-Mas)

Not only does Toddrick Hall absolutely kill this performance, but I also love the meaning of the song about POC inclusivity and pride in the LGBT+ community. As the final song in The Bleakening, it’s one hell of a closing number, and I can’t help but dance in my seat whenever it plays. I’ve even listened to it independent from watching the show, and honor I don’t bestow on every song.

Best Episode Archetypes:

The Best Heist: The Taking of Funtime One Two Three

The Belcher kids have stolen a number of things. Chocolate, a bounce house, but the absolute creme de la creme of their heists is the procuring of the Dunebuggy from Family Funtime. When Family Funtime unplugs the macchines whenver the kids get too many tickets from them, the kids decide to pull off the heist of a century to make off with the biggest prize of the arcade: the dune buggy.

The Kids Tell An Anthology: Moms, Lies, and Videotapes

From the Gayle Tales to The Handyman Can, the kids have told a number of anthology stories, but the most impressive of the bunch is their stories of the mother’s day plays into three interesting stories. Though true to form, Gene’s is the weakest of the three, as his usually are. I don’t recall any time when his anthology was the best of the kids’, but then, Gene is not the most creative of the three children. His best story is probably in The Frond Files where his story’s world is colorful and fun to observe.

Best Musical Episode: The Bleakening

Not only do these episodes have a lot of musical numbers, but there is not a single one that doesn’t hit a home run. But more importantly, the entire episode is a musical, with each number helping to tie and bridge together the narrative, which is the entire purpose of musical numbers in a proper musical, which makes this the single best musical episode mainly because it’s the only episode that’s a true blue musical.

Best Holiday Episode: The Hauntening

With The Bleakening already taking the top spot for musical episodes, that leaves the Miss Congeniality of the holiday episodes to take the crown. I didn’t spoil anything about this episode above, and I won’t say a thing about it now. This episode is solid gold.

Best Film Parody: The Quirkducers

Not only is this episode clever in the way it uses its source material, but the family all have moments to shine despite the stars being Louise and Gene. The show also makes good use of the Schoolhouse Seven (the main group of the Belcher Kids, Jimmy and Zeke, and Tammy and Jocelyn), and each of them brings something great to the episode. It undoubtedly earned its place in the top 10, and will likely hold its place for years to come.

#bobs burgers #Bob's Burgers #belchers #the belchers #bob belcher #Linda Belcher #gene belcher #tina belcher #louise belcher #seymores bay

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ultrahpfan5blog · 4 years

Text

Rewatching TDK Trilogy

Easily my favorite superhero trilogy and arguably one of my favorite trilogies of all time. I think in terms of superhero trilogies, Captain America is the one that comes closest because I love all three movies, but they aren’t a trilogy in the normal sense in that Civil War is essentially Avengers 2.5 and neither Civil War nor Winter Soldier can be understood without having watched Avengers and Age of Ultron. But even putting that aside, I adore TDK trilogy and it still ranks as my favorite superhero movies. The trilogy, obviously starting with Batman Begins, is what put introduced me to Nolan. I hadn’t seen Memento and Insomnia till then so Batman Begins was literally my first introduction to him.

I was always a big Batman fan as a huge follower of the DCAU cartoons with Kevin Conroy voicing a really badass Batman throughout the 90′s and into the early 2000′s. While I enjoyed the first 4 Batman movies as a kid, yes even B&R, I always wanted to see the more somber version from the cartoons. Batman Begins hit me at the perfect time where I started to have longer attention spans and wasn’t just looking for the next action scene. Rewatching the movie, it amazes me that Batman doesn’t show up for half the movie. I think that was a really brave call given pretty much all previous Batman movies introduced Batman almost immediately. I genuinely love all the prelude to Bruce becoming Batman. I liked that we got to see his training extensively and we are introduced to the city and see the dynamics of the rich and the poor, the police, the mob, the lawyers etc... It really gives Gotham a very grounded personality. I think Nolan really killed it at the casting level. By getting Caine as Alfred, Freeman as Fox, and Oldman as Gordon, he created a superbly acted support structure around Bruce/Batman, so we aren’t just always waiting for Bruce to show up. On top of that, they had Liam Neeson as Ra’s, who is effortlessly compelling, as well as other strong supporting actors like Cillian Murphy as a scene stealing Scarecrow, Tom Wilkinson as Falcone, Rutger Hauer as Earle etc... All giving personality to a difference facet of the city and Bruce’s life. But this truly is Bale’s movie. I didn’t know him at all prior to this film, but I have been a fan ever since. He carries the movie on his shoulders and he delivers the ferociousness of Batman and the humanity of Bruce Wayne effortlessly. If there is someone who doesn’t make a big impression, its Katie Holmes. I didn’t find her terrible, but rather the character isn’t exactly well written which bleeds into the next movie with Maggie Gyllenhall as well. My favorite Batman performance. Rewatching, what surprised me the most is the amount of humor in the movie. This is actually reflective of the entire trilogy. The movies deal with darkness and death, but there is actually plenty of humor sprinkled throughout these movies which prevent it from being dour. There have been a lot of superhero origin stories, but this still remains the gold standard of superhero origin stories. A 9/10 for me.

There is nothing I can say about The Dark Knight that hasn’t been said a 100 times over. It quite literally is the best comic book movie of all time. But it basically is at heart a drama about Gotham. Whereas BB acts as a character centric piece, this film is about all the characters living in Gotham. Arguable, the character that has the biggest arc in the film is Harvey Dent. Again, the casting department knocked it out of the park with the casting of Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent. Unfortunately, Eckhart never really capitalized on his performance here because he really was terrific in the film, both as Harvey and as Two-Face, to the point where you wished you had more of Two-Face. Gary Oldman gave his best work in the trilogy in this movie. The desperation as the situation spins out of control is fabulous. Freeman also has a very meaty role in the movie and continues to add a lot of weight to the scenes as well as plenty of humor, as does Michael Caine. Christian Bale continued to be terrific. There were some complaints about his voice, which I feel have been overexaggerated over the years. I definitely think his Begins voice is better, but barring one or two scenes, I never really had an issue with Bale’s voice in this film. He delivers a very nuanced performance. Maggie Gyllenhaal took over from Katie Holmes in TDK and while I think she is a far better actress than Katie Holmes, I think the character itself is not very well written. In both movies, Rachel comes off as very judgmental. Whereas in BB I can understand her reason in being so, given Bruce was ready to commit murder and later was out being a playboy in front of her for the sake of appearances, in this movie she is judgmental towards Bruce even though she knows what he has been doing to help the city. Also, she did come off a bit flaky in the whole Bruce/Rachel/Harvey triangle. And then there is Heath Ledger. There are very few performances that I consider perfect. This is one of them. I think every choice Ledger makes in this movie, be it intentional or unintentional, works amazingly well. Like him licking his lips to keep the make up on. It just adds a creepy quality to his character, even if it is completely unintentional. There are so many ticks and quirks in Ledger’s performance that make this a phenomenal performance. I don’t see any villain performance having matches that since 2008. I think the closest I have seen prior to that is Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs. It really is a performance that adds such a big extra edge to the movie. I love that Nolan sticks to certain details such as Bruce never actually drinking alcohol and throwing it away at the part and then Joker showing up and taking a glass and him spilling almost all of it. It gives a lot of personality to the characters. If I have any complaint about the movie, it is that Bruce does at times feel like a stationary character as he does not have as big of an arc as a Harvey Dent. And if you want, you can pick apart the holes in the series of events that happen that cause the chaos. But the drama of the film is just so intense that you forget all of that behind. I give it a 9.5/10

The Dark Knight Rises to me is the film that gets often maligned just because it isn’t TDK. And that is a crazy yardstick to compare it to. But as a movie on its own, its pretty damn awesome. TDKR is where the film truly steps away from being a version of the comics to being an Elseworld story with Batman having been absent for 8 years and then Bruce retiring and leaving Gotham at the end of the movie. But I don’t think there was any way for Nolan to close out his trilogy without it becoming an Elseworld story and it really didn’t matter because I always figured that as long as Bruce is out there, if Gotham needed him, he would come back. Its not as if there aren’t existing comic book stories of Bruce having retired or left being Batman behind. Again, there is some superb new casting. JGL ends up being surprising integral and he is terrific. Tom Hardy is awesome as Bane. He manages to provide a terrifying presence. I actually loved his voice. I love that a terrifying brute of a man has a polite, gentlemanly sounding voice. It gave him a unique personality. Marion Cotillard is pretty good as Talia/Miranda. She has an awkwardly filmed death scene but she’s good throughout the rest of the film, particularly during the reveal scene. But the casting of the movie for me was Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle. I knew Anne Hathaway mostly from the Princess Bride movies till then even though she had gotten an academy award nomination by then. But I really didn’t envisage her as Selina Kyle but she blew me out of the water with her performance. She was seductive, yet very likable. I love the clever costume design of her goggles looking like cat ears when she puts them up. I also love Nolan’s version of the Lazarus Pit. Certainly Bruce’s climb out of the pit is one of the most compelling scenes of the movie. You truly feel the emotion. The film also has one of the best acted scenes I have scene between Michael Caine and Christian Bale in the hallway. Its the scene I remember first whenever I think about TDKR. Oscar quality acting by both in that scene. The returning cast is all terrific but Michael Caine has a few gut wrenching scenes, including this one and the scene at the funeral at the end. Oldman and Freeman continue to be stalwarts throughout the movie, I really admire that Nolan did not waste these actors and given them very substantial roles in all the movies and all these actors really respected the material to not sleep walk through the roles. I think Bale’s performance here rivals his performance in Begins. Particularly in the scenes in the Pit. You get to see a full range of emotions, from pain, to despair, to anger, to hope. Its a superb performance. The film isn’t flawless. Its just a tad too long and there is some clunky editing at times. None of the three films can be said to contain very memorable action sequences because Nolan is not known to have great action sequences in his film until more recently, but the drama in the action negates that. Like, the Bane vs Batman fight where Bane breaks Batman, isn’t the greatest action scene in terms of fight choreography, but there is a lot weight to these characters which is what makes it incredibly compelling. Same is true to an extent for the climax at the end. When Batman beats Bane, I felt a sense of satisfaction after what I had witnessed in the previous fight. Overall, I genuinely feel that I love the last act of TDKR the most out of all three films. The Batplane, Batpod, and Tumbler chase scene was thrilling and it was cool to watch all three Bat vehicles in operation. The ending montage also ends the movie on a real uplifting note for all characters, which is very satisfying. I really love the movie. A 9/10.

It has to be said that Zimmer’s score across all three films contributes enormously to these movies. All in all, these set of movies are still my favorite superhero movies and my favorite Nolan movies till date.

#batman #batman begins #the dark knight #the dark knight rises #christopher nolan #christian bale #michael caine #heath ledger #morgan freeman #gary oldman #anne hathaway #tom hardy #joseph gordon levitt #liam neeson #cillian murphy #hans zimmer #katie holmes #maggie gyllenhaal #aaron eckhart

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geektalk · 3 years

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Top 10 Must Have Android Apps which I use daily.

Productivity Apps

1. Solid Explorer File Manager. [Free & Paid] 🔐http://neatbytes.com/solidexplorer/

Playstore – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.solidexplorer2

PlayStore Rating 4.4 / 5

Best Features

Solid Explorer covers almost all of the beats you’d expect from a file manager nearly flawlessly. Collections allow you to view all of your photos, music, and videos in one place. You can connect your cloud storage accounts like Dropbox to manage your files remotely. It also has support for remote access protocols like FTP and you can even use it as a root file manager. Even for advanced users, it packs a punch.

On top of all this, it’s also gorgeous. While most file managers have a design stuck somewhere between 2009 and the stone age, Solid Explorer makes it a priority to adhere to Google’s Material Design spec. You can also customize your themes and colors and even choose between light and dark themes, because there’s really no reason a file manager should blind you.

Improvements required areas

While we prefer to choose a free app when we can, Solid Explorer doesn’t fall into that camp. You can try it for free for two weeks, but after that, you’ll have to shell out $2 to keep using it. On top of that, the company also charges for some plugins like Mega, and even offers additional icon packs for more money. This is annoying, but most of the add-ons are either free or optional. The upside is that you at least know where Solid Explorer is getting its money from. Since our last pick was pulled for adding sketchy adware, we’ll call this a mixed blessing, rather than an outright negative.

The Competition.

The free version of ES File Explorer may have lost our recommendation, but if you don’t want to say goodbye, you should at least check out ES File Explorer Pro. For a small amount, all of the embedded app “suggestions” and junkware are removed, and there are no ads. It still has all the bells and whistles we used to like, including remote file access, ZIP support, and an app manager. Of course, most of those same features are in Solid Explorer for a dollar less.

2. Safe In Cloud Pro [Password Manager] [Free & Paid] 🏅

https://safe-in-cloud.com/en/

Playstore – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.safeincloud.free

PlayStore Rating 4.8 / 5

Features and utilities

Despite being free for desktops and very competitively-priced for mobile devices, SafeInCloud still offers a great selection of extra features. For starters, it can be used to store passwords, but also to remember credit card numbers, ID details, and pretty much any other sensitive information. These can be added fast and efficiently with one of the built-in templates.

SafeInCloud also features a powerful password generator and strength analysis tool. In short, this assesses the strength and estimated crack time for each password, flagging those that are too weak.

The program is also compatible with Apple Watch and Android Wear smartwatches. Browser extensions are available to streamline web use and provide autofill functionality, and you can even import existing data from other programs to the desktop app.

Interface and performance

SafeInCloud works with a Windows 10 laptop and the Google Chrome browser extension. The desktop interface is somewhat outdated, but it remains simple and intuitive. Important options are available across the top of the window, passwords and accounts are listed in the center, and different password/information categories can be accessed via the panel on the left of screen.

When it comes to performance, SafeInCloud is great, and adding a new password is extremely easy. Simply type the website, username/email address, and password into the app and hit enter. Login details for saved websites can then be filled with a single click on the browser extension.

3. Soul Browser [Free & Paid] – A little gem you’ve probably never heard of .. 🥇Playstore – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mycompany.app.soulbrowser&hl=en_IN&gl=US

PlayStore Rating 4.5 / 5

The most important thing in the browser is pleasant content viewing. To achieve this goal, Soul Browser offers a variety of features. All features are fast and powerful. Intuitively designed for ease of use. Every effort has been made to provide the unique value of the Soul Browser.Soul Browser wants to be a valuable app that has been loved for a long time. Clean Mode, Fast and Clean. Built in cleaner is optimized for the browser. The filter is updated automatically periodically. Using this browser Videos can be Downloaded, no additional software needed.

In addition to general features like pause, Powerful features such as limiting concurrent downloads and reserved downloads.

Video Player, A web player and a local file player are provided. Gesture control is possible. Various functions such as repeat play and PIP mode are provided. Powerful Incognito Mode. which help to easily protect your privacy. You can protect your personal information, such as your visit history and download history. Various locking methods are supported.

You can choose to your liking. Supports Dark Theme, Protect your eyesight. Full dark theme support. Both app UI and website are fully supported. Text To Speech Listen comfortably by voice. When you click the text displayed in the browser, it is read by voice.

You can view images on the web like a book. If you use it like a comic site, you can feel like you are reading a real book. You will have a new experience. Save all images. You can save images from the web at once. Album creation is also provided. Manage your images efficiently. If you download multiple images, you may have difficulty managing images. Using the album feature solves the problem.

TV Cast This app is TV cast-enabled. Soul Browser is a TV cast-enabled app which lets you stream your favorite entertainment from your mobile device to your TV.

Both local files and web streaming are supported. Change Font .You can change the font of web pages. You can change the font with TTF files in internal storage or SD card.

Gestures suppport, You can move pages and tabs with gestures.

4. TickTick : ToDo List Planner, Reminder & Calendar [Free & Paid] – Best Todo So Far

Playstore – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ticktick.task&hl=en_IN&gl=US

PlayStore Rating 4.6 / 5

Finding a to-do app that’s right for you is as much about finding an app you like as one that has the right features for the way you work. TickTick is a cross-platform and collaborative to-do app that has a few neat features suited to the Getting Things Done method of working. You can create custom task views, for example, and there’s an inbox for jotting down anything that pops into your head. Overall, TickTick is a good app, but its free version has too many restrictions to be worth using long term. There’s more room for improvement beyond beefing up the free app, as some features didn’t work as expected or were hard to find. If TickTick doesn’t quite meet your needs, try one of our two Editors’ Choices: Todoist Premium or Asana.

TickTick offers a free account, as well as a paid Premium plan that costs $2.79 per month or $27.99 per year. The Mac app lists the price as $2.99 per month, but I can confirm I was billed $2.79 via the web app.

To read the full article please visit here https://binoyanto.net

Please visit our Tech Facebook Page https://fb.com/geektalk.me/

#Androidapps #Adroid #android applications #popular apps #android roms #android themes #android battery

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panfishonthefly · 3 years

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Fly Tying Friday: The Wee Frog

When it comes to topwater flies for panfish, anything goes. That is one of the things I love about warm water fly fishing. Panfish, bass, and other warmwater predators like pickerel and pike are not concerned that your offering is not an exact replication of the last thing they ate. If it looks alive and can fit in their mouth, they will often have a go at it.

The lack of demand for realism in fly patterns is one thing that sets warmwater fly fishing apart from trout fishing. We are far more concerned with matching the hatch and delivering a proper presentation in the trout world. Warm water fly fishing is a more rough and tumble affair. Fly selection based on whim and fancy can be just as effective as attempting to match what the fish are currently eating.

Looking into one of my warmwater fly boxes, you see a lot of whim and fancy. Garish colors like chartreuse, fluorescent yellow, bright pink don't often occur in the natural world. Based on the contents of my fly boxes, you would think that panfish live in a world filled with psychedelic colors. There is no doubt that these brightly colored, un-natural looking flies work. If they didn't, they would not take up so much room in my fly boxes. However, if you look close enough, you will find more natural-looking flies mixed in with that kaleidoscope of colors.

Maybe the decades spent chasing trout keep me coming back to more natural-looking flies that imitate the things that panfish eat. I enjoy tying and fishing patterns like damselflies and dragonflies, two essential food items for warm water fish. Also mixed in with the odd-looking foam and hair creations, you will find a smattering of flies that you can readily recognize as terrestrial insects like hoppers, beetles, and ants. The natural-looking flies that stand out the most are the frogs. My frog patterns are instantly recognizable as the amphibians that are meant to represent.

Everyone knows a bass or a pickerel has a hard time ignoring a properly presented frog pattern, but panfish? You can make the argument that most adult frogs are too big of a prey item to be eaten by most panfish. However, there are smaller species of frogs whose habitats mix with that of panfish. In my area, the Northern Cricket Frog is one such example. While technically a tree frog, it does not take to the branches but prefers a more aquatic existence. They are often found along the muddy banks of ponds and slow-moving streams. As an adult, they range in size from three-quarters of an inch to an inch and a half, which firmly puts them in the size range of something big bluegill would try to eat.

If you search the pages of this blog, you will find several small frog patterns that I tie and fish exclusively for panfish. Most are created using a foam or preformed body. The fly pattern in today's post has been teased in a few recent posts and on social media. Each time I show a picture of it, I receive messages and emails requesting more information on the pattern, so I figure it is high time I share it with the world.

This pattern is tied using flat foam. I have tied small frog patterns using flat foam in the past but have never been entirely satisfied with them. Thin 2mm foam does not have the bulk needed to imitate a chunky little frog, and the thicker foam I have worked with in the past was tough to work with on the small scale in which these flies are tied.

After joining Semperfli's team of fly tiers, I was introduced to a new type of foam. Semperfli's flat foam is a closed-cell foam, but the air pockets or cells are larger than what is found in most fly tyers foam. This characteristic means the foam compresses easily. Their foam is also remarkably strong and resists tearing quite well. Because it compresses so well, I can use thicker foam, in this case 4.5mm, to create a frog body on hooks as small as a size 12. Combine a body made from this thick foam and Pat Cohen's Creature Frog Legs; you have the perfect panfish-sized frog pattern.

You could tie the fly very simply with just those two materials, but I like to add an underbody that adds a little sparkle and movement by using a material like Semperfli Straggle String or Straggle Legs. It gives the fly a finished appearance along with added color, movement, and flash. Rubber legs are a must because a topwater bluegill fly without rubber legs doesn't feel right.

I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of warmer weather and the return of my favorite pastime, topwater fishing for panfish. There is something about bluegill taking a fly off the surface that puts a smile on my face every time. Finally, it appears my wait is over, and mother nature has warmed things up to the point that my favorite fish have returned to the shallows and a looking up for their next meal.

One of the things I love about fishing tiny frog patterns for panfish is the take. Bluegills often slide under a topwater fly and suck it off the surface with an audible slurp. Not the case with a frog pattern. They seem to know that this type of prey can elude them if they're not careful, and they grab them off the surface with a vengeance, more like the take of a bass. I am often surprised when a big bluegill comes to hand, mistaking the violent take for a bass.

Fishing Frog Patterns

When fishing frog patterns, I prefer to cast parallel to the bank instead of casting out into the middle of the pond. Frogs are found along the bank, seldom straying far from it, and this is where I find these flies to be most effective. My favorite way to fish them is to slip on a pair of hip boots or waders and walk out a short distance from the shoreline. I then slowly make my way along the shore, casting ahead of me as I move. My first cast will put the fly as close to the bank as possible. I then fan out my casts until I reach a point 10 -15 feet from shore. I will then move down the shoreline a short distance and repeat the process. Fishing from a float tube or kayak is also a good option for this type of fishing as you can bring the watercraft close to the shoreline and use the same method. Fishing from the bank is usually problematic as there are generally too many obstructions to grab a fly line or rid tip.

A plus side to fishing frog patterns for panfish is that you will attract predators like bass and pickerel. Even though a size 12 frog is not much of a meal for a bass, they seem to recognize an easy snack and seldom pass it up. I have found that pickerel are so fond of these tiny frogs that I refrain from fishing them in waters where they are present in good numbers as I lose far too many flies to these toothy predators. If tiny frog patterns are not part of your topwater panfish arsenal, they should be. Give them a try; you won't be disappointed!

Pattern Recipe:

Hook: Size 10 or 12 Firehole 618 or comparable hook

Thread: 6/0 Semperfli Classic Waxed Thread in the color of choice

Frog Legs: Cohen’s Creature Fog Legs size micro or mini depending on hook used

Underbody: Semperfli Straggle String or Straggle Legs

Legs: Round Rubber

Body: Semperfli 4.5mm Flat Foam in the color of choice cut in a teardrop shape using a foam cutter or trimmed by hand with scissors, craft knife, etc.

Thread Treatment: Solarez Bone Dry UV Resin or Solarez Bone Dry Plus UV Resin

Tying Instructions:

The first step is to prepare the body. You want an appropriately sized teardrop shape piece of foam. You can cut the shape out by hand, but I like using a spider body foam cutter. The largest size spider body cutter produces a perfectly sized body for a size 12 frog.

Start your thread on the hook shank and wrap it down to the bend of the hook. At the bend, tie in your frog legs. Note: I add color to the legs before tying them in. I get the best results using fabric markers as the colors will not fade even after repeated dunkings in the water.

Optional: Before tying in the frog legs, you can add a small loop of stiff monofilament. This loop may help keep the frog legs from fouling on the hook shank (something that is seldom a problem on a fly this small), and it gives you a convenient tie-in point for adding a dropper. The legs are then added on top of the loop.

After tying in the frog legs, I bring the thread back towards the eye, stopping an eye length or two from the front of the hook.

Capture a small piece of the wide end of the foam body with thread wraps and lash it down to the front of the hook. When working with foam, don't use a lot of pressure on the first few thread wraps to avoid cutting the foam. Lightly trap down the foam with a wrap or two, then increase the thread pressure with subsequent wraps to further compress and secure the foam. Semperfli foam excels here as it compresses easily without bulk.

Once the front of the body is tied down, tie in a short piece of Straggle String right at the tie-in point for the foam.

Leaving the Straggle String in place, advance the thread to a point mid-shank and tie in a pair of rubber legs, bringing the thread back to the bend once the legs are secured.

Wind the Straggle String down the hook shank, careful not to tie down the rubber leg material. When you reach the frog legs' tie-in point, you can tie it off and cut away the excess.

The final step is to fold the body back and lash it down. Once secured, trim away excess foam (if using a foam cutter there will be a small tab of foam remaining), whip finish, and cut away the thread. A drop of thin UV Resin like Solarez Bone Dry protects the thread and keeps everything in place.

Note: There is probably no need to color the body as the fish likely only see the underside of the fly. Despite that, I always add some froggy-looking spots to the fly because I think they look better, but I doubt the fish care. I usually add custom colors once the fly is completed.

#Wee Frog #topwater #frog pattern #Micro Frog #foam bugs

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dwtsfun · 4 years

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Dancing with the Stars Season 29 Week 10: Let’s Talk

So I spent some extra time really thinking about how I want to approach talking about this week. There are many parts and I want to address and I wanna do it as thoroughly as I can. So first let me get the trivial things out of the way. Tyra looked amazing. I loved the judges’ entrance. CAI looked incredible too. Bruno looked great. Derek’s suit would’ve looked better if it were a different color. Maybe a darker and cooler color would’ve been better, like a green, blue or purple.

Okay now let me address the elephant in the room. Nelly. So here’s where I stand. He deserves to be in the final as much as anyone else that is there right now. Period. You can dislike it all you want, but he earned his spot. He is not a Skeleton type where he hasn’t improved, can’t dance for shit, talks shit about EVERYONE and expects to be rewarded high scores for terrible dances. From what we have all seen, Nelly seems to be genuinely shocked that he’s being received well and at the fact that he is doing as well as he is. And he’s hasn’t shown a sense of entitlement that Skeleton always had surrounding him. Plus, he minds his business and doesn’t bad mouth the other celebs. So I’m going to fully reject that comparison. It’s asinine.

“But he was the worst dancer left!” Okay. And? Your point? This is not new. We have had plenty of celebs who were not one of the best dancers make it to the finals. Kelly Osbourne made the finals over Aaron Carter and Joanna Krupa. Cristian de la Fuente made it over Mario. Marie Osmond made it over Sabrina Bryan and Jennie Garth. Jerry Rice made it over Lisa Rinna. Bristol Palin and Bill Engvall made it over everyone. Candace and Alek beat out a ton of people. Noah made it in over Nastia. Ginger dumbass (I actually have real issues with this lady) made it in over Wanya. David Ross got second place. Lauren Alaina got in over James van der Beek. And Nelly making it as far as he has should not be shocking. He’s got the biggest name of everyone on the show. He’s not a bad dancer (he’s actually pretty decent and better than most of the people that I just listed). And his journey is the quintessential DWTS journey. The audience loves a person that comes in with no experience, embraces the experience and improves as the weeks go on. So it’s very strange to me that Nelly is garnering this type of reaction because he’s “the worst left”. It’s almost like a lot of fans have never watched this show before. So I have to wonder what is driving this issue with him (I know why and I’m sure you all know too). It’s the same thing that drove (and still drives the uproar) for Jacoby placing higher than Aly back in season 16.

“But what about his sexual assault allegations! He shouldn’t succeed because of those.” Yes, I know those are surrounding him. Yes, I know he’s been arrested. Yes, I know it likely happened (and for those of you that are going to come in here acting like I’m doubting survivors, I am not. But I have a platform and I’m not trying to be sued if anyone on his team comes across this post). I am not absolving him of that. BUT, many of the fans don’t know that. To them, he’s just the really famous rapper that made those couple of songs that they like and has worked with Tim McGraw. He might even be their favorite rapper. We also cannot suddenly choose to take the moral high ground when it comes to Nelly, while still watching and supporting this show. This show has casted several different types of abusers, racists, downright hateful people and alleged MURDERERS since it’s inception. And it sympathizes with them. This is actually a shoe where many stars go so that they can try to rehab their image. So that moral high ground approach just doesn’t work for this show. Especially not when there is another alleged abuser sitting right next to him. You can make the personal choice not to vote for him for whatever reason. That is fine. But you also have to know that your continued support of the show is going to allow them to keep casting these types of celebrities.

“But Skai and Johnny were just better.” Yes. That is very true. AND people weren’t voting for them in the way that they were voting for everybody else. Each of them had already had at least one bottom 2 appearance. It made sense for them to both end up in the bottom 3 on double elimination night and be sent home. It’s actually what should have happened to Ally last season when she ended up in the bottom 2 with James.

“But his dances sucked!” I will get to his dances from Monday later on in the post. But his dances throughout the season largely did not suck. I will give you his first paso. That was a mess. The rest of his dances were decent to very good.

“Women have it harder than men on this show!” Well see, here is where need some more nuance. White men (pros and celebs alike) get rewarded for the bare minimum on this show. The judges will (and have) rip apart a Black, Indigenous or Asian man very easily. I would actually say that white women are more fairly treated than any other group besides their white male counterparts. The rest of us fall below everyone else in the social hierarchy.

Okay. I’ve gone on a lot so I’m going to make these rankings pretty short.

1. Skai and Alan- I am ranking these based on my personal enjoyment of both dances, So if you’ve followed me for a long time, you know that I love me a good Viennese waltz. And this was beautiful. Skai’s top line is gorgeous. She was very elegant. And the balance of confidence and vulnerability was something I have not seen from Skai this season. Her cha-cha was a definite redemption. I thought she did a great job with her hip action. She was loose. She was sure of herself. She was confident. I’m glad Skai got to have a week where everything was just top notch. If she had to leave, this was the perfect note to leave on.

2. Johnny and Britt- I really loved both of these dances as well. I was shocked at how well their salsa went. Johnny seemed to do a much better job of understanding the movement of it and executing it. As for the jazz, it was amazing. I loved it. And I loved that it didn’t seem like the freestyle lite routines that we’re used to seeing when couples are assigned jazz. These two should be incredibly proud of everything that they accomplished. I spent the season comparing Johnny to Evan Lysacek and while I think Evan beats Johnny in ballroom, I think Johnny was the overall better dancer.

3. Justina and Sasha- I really really liked this tango. I’m not sure if I would’ve given it a 10, because there were definite issues with her frame throughout. But, it was a huge improvement over their last one, so I’m okay with it. She wasn’t hopping throughout the dance and there was a difference in the way she embodied it that I just liked more. Maybe it was the lack of the character thrown on top of a dance that already has a distinct built in character. As for their contemporary, it was very pretty. I don’t care much for that style, but the perfect score was well deserved.

4. Nelly and Daniella- Like everyone else tonight, Nelly definitely brought his A-game. That paso was a huge improvement from the first time that he did it. There was way more artistry this time around. He was shaping properly minus a few moments. He was smooth and intentional. It was actually very good. His feet still need work, but this was a very nice dance. I liked that Daniella left his shirt off because we really got to see all of the shaping. He is also very nice to look at lol. I honestly felt like this could have been a very solid 27. I could even see Bruno throwing in a 10 because of how attentive he was to the smaller details of this dance. As for the jive, this was actually the dance where I felt Nelly was most at ease. To me, this was their best dance of the season. That final gear that I could sense they hadn’t tapped into yet, was finally realized. Now from the way a lot of the fans were talking, you’d think this dance was a disaster. But it was far from it. He messed up the choreography a few times, so I don’t think it should’ve gotten a 30. But it was no less than a 27. Everything else he did was actually really good. Daniella put in a lot of content into this dance and he really nailed it. Also, recently there have been a ton of dances that were given perfect scores that may not have deserved them (including a few this season). So I don

5. Kaitlyn and Artem- Their paso was a definite improvement over the first time they did it. And I think it was technically the best dance of the first round. However, I still wasn’t feeling it. It was still too restrained for my liking. And while Derek tried to explain it away by saying that was the character of the dance, I just can’t let that slide.Their contemporary was beautiful though. By the time we got to their dance, I was all contemporary’d out because it was the last of three. So I didn’t appreciate it as much at first. But upon my second and third viewing of it, I actually really liked it. Everything that I had wanted from her in the paso and the Argentine tango was sitting right in this dance. I wish she had taken some of that and put it into those two dances as well. I might’ve actually been able to truly get behind her.

6. Nev and Jenna- Their foxtrot was an improvement but like my feeling with Kaitlyn, I just didn’t care. It was good. I don’t feel anything when he dances. It feels very hollow. His contemporary was nice but of the three contemporaries, I liked it the least. It didn’t really stand out. It was there. It was good. Perfect even. I wasn’t all that impressed though. I wish he would stop lying about his dance experience.

So that’s it. Let me know your thoughts on the night and I will talk to you all soon.

#dancing with the stars #DWTS #skai jackson #johnny weir #Justina Machado #Nelly #kaitlyn bristowe #Nev Schulman #jenna johnson #artem chigvintsev #daniella karagach #sasha farber #Britt Stewart #alan bersten #season 29

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neoduskcomics · 5 years

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Ranking All 10 Star Wars Movies

The final installment in the Skywalker Saga (as it is now retroactively being christened) is upon us, and so I’ve decided to do a bit of a retrospective on all the films leading us here.

The purpose of this personal ranking is not to put down any particular films or to invalidate anyone else’s opinions. In fact, I will be focusing largely on what I like about each movie, rather than what I think was wrong with it. I’ll still touch on criticisms of each film, but know that even if I don’t think they’re all objectively amazing films, I still like every single one of them, and have watched each one numerous times.

The fandom, as it always has been, is so weighed down with hatred and lashing out and segregation, that it overshadows the unabashed joy and love that many still hold for that galaxy far, far away. And so, I’d like to put that anger away for a second, and just talk about why each of these movies holds a special place in the Star Wars saga.

10. The Phantom Menace

Chronologically the first film in the series, and also the first on this list. I saw this movie when I was pretty little, and I have to say, it’s the first Star Wars film I ever saw that I actually enjoyed. When I was a kid, I never cared for the original trilogy. Those movies bored and, to be honest, kind of frightened me. But Phantom Menace was replete with colorful visuals, whacky humor and loads of CGI action. That appealed to me quite a lot.

Yes, in retrospect, the plot is contrived, the characters are incredibly bland and pacing is all over the place, but it was my gateway drug into the magic that the rest of the franchise had to offer. And I’m gonna say it -- Jar Jar Binks was probably half the reason the movie kept my attention for as long as it did. All the other characters were so stuffy and stoic, and all they talked about was an overly complicated plot of political intrigue; Jar Jar added some much needed humor and levity for my childhood self to stay interested. It’s heavily flawed for sure, but I can’t rag on this movie too much when I have it to thank for the love that I have for the series now. Besides, Darth Maul kicks ass, right?

9. Attack of the Clones

Is it controversial to rank this above The Phantom Menace? My reasoning is twofold: 1) The movie has an actual emotional throughline to follow, that of Anakin being frustrated with his feelings of fear, resentment and love; and 2) There’s a lot more action. The Phantom Menace was my first step into the shallow side of the Star Wars pool, but this movie is what got me to dive in headfirst.

Is the dialogue embarrassingly terrible? Yes. Is it 75% CGI fluff? Yes. And as a kid, I ate all that stuff up. Plus, honestly, the movie’s not all bad. People started liking Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan with this movie, as the charming, dry-humored, slightly exasperated mentor. We got a load of lightsaber fights, and chases through cityscapes and asteroid fields. There was a ton to think was cool about this movie. Sure, it’s still messy and awkward, and it’s loaded to the brim with outbursts of teenage angst, but this is the film that really got me to think lightsabers, starships and bounty hunters were just the most awesome things ever. You can bet I had a few specific items on my Christmas list that year.

8. Solo

I saw Solo a second time this year, and on a re-watch, I actually enjoyed it quite a lot more. It’s fun and frantically paced, there’s loads of Star Wars fanservice, and the lead actor actually does a pretty good impersonation of a young Han Solo. The supporting cast is pretty likable, too, and the dialogue is always snappy. The action sequences were exciting, and while the movie does go out of its way to try to answer every single question about Han-related trivia, I still think it’s fun to see how things unfolded.

Sure, the movie is pretty hollow when it comes to its themes. Han doesn’t get a very solid character arc in the movie, and we definitely don’t see a very cohesive transformation from relatively altruistic kid to completely self-centered nerf-herder -- and that’s a real shame. But honestly, as a Star Wars side story and blockbuster action film, I think it’s a pretty solid couple hours of entertainment. If you shrugged this movie off when it came out or weren’t impressed and haven’t seen it since, I say maybe give it another chance. You might still not like it, which is totally fair, but maybe tempered expectations and a slightly more lenient attitude will allow you to enjoy it a bit more this time around.

7. Rogue One

Now, as much as I enjoyed Solo as a relatively shallow but fun Star Wars action movie, it is not my favorite Star Wars movie of that brand. That honor goes solely to Rogue One. This movie is pure Star Wars fan service. You got X-wings, TIE fighters, stormtroopers, AT-STs, AT-ATs, star destroyers, new ships and infantry armor, and let’s not forget Darth Vader. That scene with him at the end of the film is one of my all-time favorite scenes in any Star Wars movie. I got chills watching that sequence. It was everything I’d ever wanted from a Darth Vader cameo.

Now, Rogue One might be almost nothing but action and fanservice -- most of the main cast of characters is not terribly interesting or memorable -- but that’s okay. This is a lot of people’s new favorite Star Wars movie, and I don’t think it’s hard to see why. It’s basically everything fans loved most about the prequels -- the spectacle, the new worlds, the new weapons, the new soldiers, while still trying to keep true to the spirit of the franchise, and making nods to its roots. The characters can be bland, and some of the fights drag on a bit, but it’s still a thrilling ride. Also, K-2SO is probably the funniest character in any Star Wars film.

6. The Last Jedi

This movie has some of the greatest, most powerful moments in the entire franchise. Rey’s relationship with Kylo Ren and their confrontations with Luke were an incredible emotional foundation to the story. Many of the visuals were dazzling, and not all but many of the jokes landed pretty well. Luke was provided with a realistic and interesting character arc that gave room for actual growth and depth and struggle -- not simply making him another wise old Jedi Master with a padawan who turned to the dark.

This movie took a lot of risks, and not all of them panned out for sure. I disagree with a lot of the narrative choices in this film, especially when it comes to how Kylo Ren and Rey’s relationship ends up by the end of the movie, and what they did with Poe and Finn. However, I cannot understate how great I think other elements of the story were. This is the movie that made me actually start to feel like Rey was a more fleshed-out character, and it made Kylo Ren my new favorite character in the sequel trilogy (also I really like the fight with the praetorian guards, which I guess is a controversial opinion?). While the movie is deeply flawed, it also has a lot in it that is deeply good, and that is definitely worth something.

5. Return of the Jedi

It was very close for me between this movie and The Last Jedi, but I settled on placing episode 6 higher because, to me, it just presents a more elegant narrative with a more cathartic resolution. Return of the Jedi gives us a strong and satisfying conclusion to Luke’s story, and is probably full of more heart and love than any other installment in the series, showcasing bonds between Han and Leia, Leia and Luke, and a reforged bond between Luke and his father. The team is reunited, and it feels so good.

That being said, the movie does have its share of flaws, many of which are in common with The Last Jedi. A lot of the movie feels like needless padding and sort of wasted screentime for the main characters, aside from Luke, who didn’t get much of a meaningful role in the story. However, I feel that it’s counterbalanced by the fact that this film also has some of the most powerful drama in the series. Luke’s confrontation of Vader and the Emperor is wonderfully tense and exciting, and it comes to a stirring conclusion. Plus, Han, Leia, Chewie, C-3PO and R2-D2 are all still their lovable selves, bantering away and getting in way over their heads. It’s kind of hard to not find the film charming. All in all, a great way to wrap up an iconic trilogy.

4. Revenge of the Sith

I remember when this film came out, some critics even went so far as to say it was “better than the original trilogy.” While that’s certainly up for the fans to debate, I do think this movie demonstrated a sense of clarity that was lacking in either of the other prequels. It’s a story all about one thing -- Anakin wants to stop his wife from dying a certain death, and will do whatever it takes to make that happen. The resulting story is filled with incredibly potent pain, fear, anxiety, suffering and darkness, as Anakin fights and eventually gives into temptation.

Okay, yeah, the dialogue is still mostly terrible, and the acting can still feel forced and awkward, but I think if you’re able to look past that, you’ll see what it easily the strongest narrative in the prequel trilogy. It also has a lot of things that the other two prequels were missing: humor (the entire beginning sequence is a fun and largely comical ride not found in the other prequels), memorably dramatic scenes (“Did you ever hear of the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?”) and the wickedly over-the-top Emperor finally taking the spotlight with his cackling and pontificating. It may not be the most gracefully crafted movie in the series, but it does have one of the most powerful stories to tell, and I think that’s what ultimately shines through.

3. The Force Awakens

I love this movie. The action, the effects, the characters, the humor -- it is a cavalcade of blockbuster science-fantasy wonder. Abrams did an outstanding job retooling the original trilogy to suit a modern audience, with new, creative takes on the faceless, nameless stormtrooper, a Darth Vader stand-in who knows he’s a stand-in and hates it, and a burgeoning hero doesn’t run toward adventure but away from it. There is an energy, a sort of vitality, to this film that I don’t think you can find in any other installment in the series. It’s dazzling, powerful and full of spirit.

And yes, it has its own fair share of flaws. The political situation is weirdly under-explained, the movie heavily relies on the original films as a template for the plot’s structure, and Rey could’ve used more coherent development as the protagonist of the film. However, I wholly and heartily believe that the movie more than makes up for all of that with its unique and charming cast of original characters. I loved Poe Dameron, Kylo Ren, Finn, and the returning Han and Chewie in this story. They all did wonderful performances with snappy dialogue, great performances and thrilling fights. It would’ve been great if the studio had tried to stray from the norm more, sure, but The Force Awakens, in my eyes, is still an exhilarating, warm and entrancing entryway into the territory of a new era for the franchise.

2. A New Hope

This one was tough to place. If I’m being completely honest, I think I probably actually like The Force Awakens more as a film, but it just doesn’t sit right with me to not give priority to the original. And I think credit should be given where credit is due: this movie, for better or worse, revolutionized cinema. It’s the movie that started it all, defying all odds and expectations. It’s the ideal archetype of the hero’s journey; a boy from humble beginnings meets with an old mentor who shows him a much bigger, brighter, and scarier world that he must face for the good of the world he lives in. Along the way, we meet some of the most iconic and memorable characters in the history of film -- Han Solo, Princess Leia, C-3PO, R2-D2 and the ever-lovable Darth Vader.

Now, has this movie been overly mythologized? Yes. Has it in many respects aged poorly? Sure. It totally has. The dialogue can be goofy, the action can look hokey and the pacing can feel terribly slow. But a lot of people will throw statements around like “It’s only famous because it was the first” when looking at movies like the original Star Wars, or the characters contained within. But I think that line of reasoning is misguided. Cheesy sci-fi features, space operas, action movies, roguish characters, princesses and humble heroes were not invented by Star Wars or George Lucas, just as people with superhuman abilities were not pioneered by the creators of Superman. And yet, this movie stood out in all of moviemaking history, proving that it had accomplished what no film like it had before. It is not a beloved film simply because it was the first. It’s the first because it was beloved.

Honorable Mention: The Clone Wars

Not the movie, the series (because the movie was basically just the pilot to the series that honestly shouldn’t have been shown in theaters). It doesn’t technically qualify for this list, but I just have to mention it (honorably). This series took a look at the prequels, for all their flaws, and said “I can make people like this era of Star Wars.” And you know what? They succeeded. The versions of Obi-Wan, Anakin and the many clone troopers featured in this series are now often the versions people think of when remembering the Clone Wars era of the saga. It was a rollercoaster of a series, with surprisingly dark and dramatic stories, as well as shockingly good action and visuals.

Sure, there were a lot of subpar episodes, but those aren’t what people remember. People remember a version of Anakin that made him a likeable hero, a new Jedi padawan for the audience to identify with, new stories that deepened and expanded upon the lore of the universe, and some really cool warfare that honestly blows a lot of what we saw in the actual prequel films out of the water. If you haven’t seen it yet, get a free trial of Disney + and start binging.

1. The Empire Strikes Back

Okay, okay, yeah, we all saw this coming. Not exactly an original opinion, is it? Still, I can’t deny that I solidly believe The Empire Strikes Back to be the best-made Star Wars film. It may not have the razzle-dazzle of the prequels or the sequels, and it may not have the satisfactory finality of Revenge of the Sith or Return of the Jedi. But what this film does have is care. It’s a movie that feels like it was carefully crafted from top to bottom, with every scene, every narrative throughline, every theme and every line of dialogue.

This is where we got “Do, or do not. There is no try.” This is where we got “I am your father.” This is where we got “I love you/I know.” This is where Vader really cemented himself as the end-all-be-all big bad of the Star Wars galaxy. This is where Han and Leia became the cinematic couple of a lifetime. This is where we really learned about the Force, the Jedi and what sorts of trials Luke would have to face were he to take on that legacy. It’s a magical film, full of wonder, hope, darkness, tragedy and love.

I won’t say it’s a perfect Star Wars movie, because it’s not. No Star Wars movie is. But that’s the beauty of the franchise. Everyone values something different about Star Wars. Everyone has their own favorite movie or series or book or comic or even theme park ride. It’s a phenomenon that spans generations, each one looking back fondly on the era that came before. There were people who grew up on the original trilogy, and now we have people who grew up on the prequels. And in just a few short decades, we’ll have people who grew up with BB-8, Kylo Ren and Rey, and that, to me, is just fantastic.

I know many of you have already written off Star Wars, or at least the new movies, but I am both nervous and excited to see where this all goes in seven days. And I know that there are many of you out there still celebrating Star Wars, holding it dear to your hearts, and not forgetting the feeling it gave you whenever you first fell in love with the franchise. I hope that feeling stays with us, and that it cuts through all the hatred and shouting and derision.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to watch today’s episode of The Mandalorian.

#star wars #ranking

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crazy-loca-blog · 5 years

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Personal thoughts on… 2019 releases (Part II)

Note: As the title says, these are just personal opinions on Choices books and chapters. Of course, you may agree or disagree with them, I only use this platform to express my thoughts on what I read every week.

Welcome to the second part of this three-part post. As I said in the first post, I will include current releases and books that were released on 2018 but finished in 2019. The list is organized in alphabetical order and it doesn’t include the VIP Books (as I don’t have access to the feature) or the seasonal books (as I’ll talk about them in another post, after all of them have been fully released). You may see Part I here.

PS: I’ll do my best to upload Part III today (Dec. 31), but I can’t make any promises because I won’t be home on New Year’s eve.

Desire & Decorum, Book 3 (August 4, 2019 - December 1, 2019): This is the only wedding book that made real sense to me this year… and it’s definitely my favorite wedding book of the year. It was the perfect closure for a series that didn’t convince me that much at first, but that I learned to love over time. We had this whole new plot with Harry that was a little weak, but at the same time it was a smart move, as it helped to keep a balance and to not overcharge things with the wedding. But can we just talk about the final chapter? It was simply adorable, I loved every part of it (honestly, I haven’t heard of anyone complaining on the final chapter yet). If I have to criticize something, I’d say the writers went too far with Mr. Sinclaire. The man went through hell in the first two books, I thought they would give him a break in the third one… I was so wrong! But overall, I really liked this book, the new characters such as Harry, Briar’s mom and Hamid’s mom gave some fresh air to the story and new plots such as matchmaking Luke and Anabelle’s sister were a nice twist. I’m pretty happy with this book.

High School Story: Class Act, Book 1 (October 8, 2018 - January 14, 2019): New cast, same school. I couldn’t actually say if I like or dislike this book more than the previous series because I actually feel it’s just impossible to compare them. The writers had a very difficult work to do, as they needed to make this cast different from the HSS one within the same environment, and I’d say they succeeded. Not only you can see the problems are different, but also the way they address their relationships is different, and it’s quite evident that they are younger kids that are transitioning into their teenage years more than teens thinking about graduating and going to college. We also went from this super popular MC and being prom king/queen to a MC who embarrasses himself/herself quite often and whose friends (except for Rory) are probably amongst the most unpopular kids in school. Finally, the fact that the story focuses in one specific school area (the theatre club) was a pretty smart move to not make this story a mess. So overall, it’s not one of my favorite books, but I enjoyed reading it and I appreciate the writers’ effort to make this series different from the first one.

High School Story: Class Act, Book 2 (February 11, 2019 - May 20, 2019): This is the theatre book where theatre is not seen anywhere. I’m not sure if this is the weakest book in the series (I think I still need to realize how Book 3 will end in a few weeks), but I admit I had to review the chapters’ summary because I couldn’t even remember what the book was about. The plot was simply lame, there are no big highlights in the story, we spent like half of it in the middle of a fight between Rory and our twin because they both want to be school president (can we talk about the fact that Maria is graduating?) and we appeared on TV. Our MC simply didn’t shine or did anything truly remarkable during this book. If it weren’t for Ajay’s parents’ divorce and the role our MC played on supporting his/her friend, this book would have been easily forgotten.

High School Story: Class Act, Book 3 (October 30, 2019 - Present): Honestly, I’m not a fan of mixing both HSS gangs in Book 3. It feels weird not to be able to control a MC that I was able to manage in the past. I also understand all the hype for going to London, but did we really need as many people as we see in this book? Where are people like Natalie or Danielle? I mean, I don’t like them, but they’ve belonged to this group since day 1. Anyway… I’m guessing this is the way the writers found for us to say goodbye to this series. After six books, I think it’s the perfect time to put High School Story to rest for a while, before it becomes a mess. Even though there are some chapters left, I can already tell what my favorite thing about this book (and this series) is: the issues these kids have to face in their personal lives are serious stuff. In the past, Rory’s mom had cancer and Ajay’s parents got divorced, and now we talk about Skye coming from an abusive family and our twins trying to find their roots. That was enough. I don’t think we needed Rory and Ajay facing new problems in this book. Instead, I would have preferred to see Rory working with Maria or Ajay dealing with the fact that he became “the man of the house” after his parents’ divorce. The idea was to see them “growing” throughout the series; unfortunately, this hasn’t happened yet.

It Lives Beneath (October 10, 2018 - January 30, 2019): This is the only book in the list I haven’t read… and there is a very specific reason for it. When It Lives In The Woods was first released, I noticed that a lot of the screenshots people were posting included spiders… a lot of them. As an aracnophobic myself, I just couldn’t even begin the first chapter of that book. Then, It Lives Beneath was released and I noticed that there were some characters from the first book, so I said “mmm… maybe I do need to read the first book because it might be linked to the second one”, so I never read it. However, I have to agree with the fandom on the fact that we need more mystery and horror books in the app. Sure, I’m a sucker for romance books, but at the same time, I’m totally capable to understand that we need more diversity in terms of books. So I’m totally waiting for this series to be revisited in the future, the fans deserve it.

Mother Of The Year (August 30, 2019 - Present): This God-tier book is one of those gifts that you don’t expect to be that nice, but it ends up being a treasure. It definitely climbed up in my personal list and went straight to the Top 2 of my favorite books in the app. Nobody had much hope on this story, but we ended up meeting an adorable daughter, a mom that was a warrior, three LIs that were simply adorable, one of the best BBFs that Choices has given us and Luz Mendez, probably one of the best characters in the app. Overall, the plot and the characters (even the evil ones!) were so real and relatable that I have to admit I went through every single possible feeling while reading the book… I laughed, I cried, I screamed, and I got mad at times. And of course, my heart broke when we realized that this was a standalone book. But do I really want it to become a series? I’m not that sure. There is a part of me who wouldn’t like to see a second book because the ending was so precious that I wouldn’t like it to be ruined with a second book. On the other hand, I love the story so much that it makes me sad to realize we won’t be getting anything new from these beautiful people. However, I think the story is perfect to make a Christmas or a Halloween special, focused on the kids… maybe even a summer book! This book definitely deserves to be revisited in the future.

Nightbound (April 24, 2019 - July 31, 2019): I’m not surprised by the end of Nightbound, but I’m definitely sad. I had problems trying to understand the book at first because I’m not the type of person who’s into supernatural and magical stuff (I have to admit this also causes me some problems even when trying to understand the plots in books such as Bloodbound and The Elementalists, despite I think those are good series). I may even have to replay it to fully understand it. But there are some things that are pretty clear to me: the book is well written, the book is good, the book has awesome characters and most importantly, the book is DIFFERENT, something that this fandom has been asking for a long time now. So I was quite shocked when the writers said the book wasn’t doing as good as they thought. Does this book deserve a sequel? Absolutely! Even though I think it got a proper closure, I also think the plot has a lot of potential that could be explored. As that won’t be happening, I really hope to see some of these characters in Bloodblound 3, just as we saw Cal in Bloodbound 2.

Open Heart (February 22, 2019 - June 7, 2019): Sorry, but right now I think my opinion will be completely biased because this is my absolute favorite book in the app. There’s just nothing I don’t love about it. The balance between the romance and the professional stories is one of the bests (if not the best) in the app, the characters are well written, the medical plot is interesting and it addresses many of the current conflicts in health care… it’s just a masterpiece. On the romantic side, it doesn’t matter if you go straight to Bryce or Jackie or if you preferred the slow burn with Rafael (actually, can he be considered a “slow burn”?) or Ethan, the writers took their time for the MC to befriend them, we got to deeply know these people (except for Bryce and Jackie… I’m so waiting to know more about them!) before making a choice, and not all of the romance stories ended up with happy endings and fairy tails, so yeah… it’s my perfect book. Can’t wait for the second one!

Passport to Romance (March 20, 2019 - June 19, 2019): Probably my biggest disappointment of the year. The idea behind this story seemed nice, we could have learned about so many places, we could have laughed about so many of the troubles that people travelling on a budget face, we could have had a series instead of a standalone book. Instead, we got a MC who was always late, who seemed to be quite irresponsible with her job, who lived a life of luxury and who suddenly became BFF with people he/she had just met. Come on, they were nice people (even though at some point I just wanted to make Elliot disappear), but again… we had just met, it’s not like you can’t live without them. On top of that, I can’t even remember how many times this gang violated some rules… sure, Yvette was happy, but it might have cost you an expulsion from Europe, which is not nice if you’re a travel blogger. Let’s add up the non-sense of some situations. I know that books are supposed to be a mix between fiction and reality, but I think they went too far this time. I mean… why would the coach allow Ahmed to travel with a group of strangers instead of travelling with the rest of the team? Especially if he’s a professional athlete and he’s competing in an important championship... sorry guys, but there’s nothing I can rescue from this book.

Platinum (May 30, 2019 - September 19, 2019): This is definitely one of my favorite stories this year, and sorry… but I will never get over the fact that this is a standalone book. This book is so unique in so many ways… for the first time, we heard voices and we heard people singing… we also got Avery and Raleigh, two LIs that were gender customizable… the secondary characters were gold… the plot was so cliché but so attractive at the same time… and I could continue. Reading it every week was a real pleasure, you were actually waiting to find out what would happen the next week, and at some point, it seemed like it was the only book that people talked about. However, creating this book was expensive, and well... that just sucks. It would have been so nice to see our MC touring with her friends, taking new risks, visiting new places, and receiving the rock star treatment that she deserved. This book still has a solid fanbase (especially in Tumblr), so it’s just sad it won’t be revisited in the future.

#playchoices #choices stories you play #desire and decorum #high school story #high school story class act #it lives series #it lives beneath #mother of the year #nightbound #open heart #passport to romance #platinum #hss #hssca #ilb #moty #nb #oh #ptr

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sundayskin · 5 years

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Sundayskin’s SPF Guide 2019 ☀️ (Updated!)

Hello all! How is everyone’s skin doing? So I have an old version of this spf master-post here, but, well, that’s old, so I decided to make a newer (hopefully improved) one. There’s not going to be too much structure with these reviews, I’m just going to run through them from 1-10, and give you guys a little info with suggestions for each. I’m going to try to make this short, but I gotta cover 10 spfs, so bare with me! Also, please bare in mind my thoughts are based on my experiences, okay? Just cause I may like or dislike a product doesn’t mean you’ll have the same experience! Let me also point out that all of these products have ingredients that are not comedogenic (irritating/pore-clogging/acne-causing) or have a low possibility of being comedogenic (save for #10). Plus, all of these spfs provide a decent amount of UVA and UVB protection that should be enough in your daily life (some provide better/stronger protection than others, though). Oh, and I’ve got dry/normal, sensitive, acne-prone skin btw. Alright, grab your snacks, tea, coffee—whatever is your thing—and let’s get started!

1. Supergoop! Superscreen Daily Moisturizer SPF 40 PA+++: This is definitely one of my favorite spf products I’ve tried, if not my absolute favorite. This one is a light cream moisturizer with the bonus of spf coverage, is non-irritating, and has no visible white cast. I absolutely think all skin types would enjoy this, especially those that struggle with spfs that break them out or spfs that are too pigmented and/or heavy/oily. If you’re annoyed by the idea of having to apply a moisturizer then an spf, this may kill two birds with one stone for you. I personally plan to repurchase this again and again.

2. Skin&Lab Fre C Sun Lotion SPF 50+ PA++++: This has a light gel texture with no white cast. The finish of this gives a beautiful dewy look to the skin (think glass-skin), so while this is lightweight, it might feel/look greasy on oily skin types. If you aren’t about a dewy/glowy finish, I might skip this one. As a dry/normal skin type, I love this spf and grab for it regularly. It has never broken me out, either. I wrote a full review for this here.

3. Nivea Sun Protect Super Water Gel SPF 50 PA+++: This is probably the most lightweight spf on this list; it has a very watery gel texture with no white cast. This one is most likely not going to irritate your skin, and it really absorbs in well and doesn’t feel like anything on the skin. I think everyone would enjoy this spf, especially those looking for an extremely lightweight, clear-finish spf.

4. Jigott Whitening UV Sun Block SPF 50+ PA+++: This spf is meant to brighten the complexion, thus it does have a slight white-cast finish which is going to be more apparent the deeper your skin tone is. I am fairly pale, so the bright finish looks very natural and blends in well with my skin. This has a thin, cream-like consistency and is an spf that sits more on top of the skin rather than sinking in and disappearing. If you absolutely loathe white cast, I’d skip this one. If you want a moisturizing, brightening spf, this may be a good one to try. Beware though, this one can start to peel off the skin if rubbed in too much and/or is applied on top of a lot of layers of other skincare. I’ve found applying this with a makeup sponge prevents this issue.

5. A’pieu Madecassoside Sun Cream SPF 39, PA++: This one resembles the texture and finish of #’s 4 and 9. It has a thin consistency that dries quickly, so blend it quickly on hydrated, smooth skin. It’s generally quite pigmented, but if you blend it out well the white cast should disappear for the most part. My deeper skin tones might think this has a visible white cast while my lighter tones might find it disappears completely when blended in. This one also doesn’t feel crazy heavy on the skin and, consequently, isn’t that moisturizing. I think this suits all skin types, just bare in mind the consistency and finish. I wrote a full review for this here, but I pretty much say the same things.

6. Missha All Around Safe Block Essence Sun Milk SPF 50+ PA+++: Like the name suggests, this one has a thin, milky texture with no white cast when blended out well. I think this has a very crowd-pleasing texture and finish and is an all-around good spf (see what I did there?). Especially a good choice for those looking for a lightweight spf that gives a little moisture as a bonus.

7. Cosrx Aloe Soothing Sun Cream SPF 50+ PA+++: This is a moisturizing, medium-heavy cream spf. It definitely has white pigment, but blending it out well should eliminate any major white cast. To me, this can become a bit oily on the skin, especially in humid/hot weather and/or if you have oily skin. I think this might be best as a cold whether spf or for those with dry skin. Likewise, if you’re searching for an spf that is moisturizing enough to serve as a moisturizer-and-spf-in-one, this might be one to try. For me (personally!), I enjoy layering several products on for my skincare routine and oftentimes I just want a lightweight spf to top it all off, so I don’t personally grab for this one often.

8. A’pieu Pure Block Natural Sun Cream Daily SPF 45 PA+++: I think, like the Missha one, this spf is a crowd-pleaser in terms of being a good, every-day spf for all skin types. This one has a lightweight gel-cream texture, no white-cast finish, and gives off a natural finish (it’s not too dewy/moisturizing nor too matte). While it gives a little bit of moisture, it’s not heavy at all. If you don’t want to explore too much in terms of spfs and just want one that is good for every-day use and you know will work fine with your skin type, I’d consider trying this one.

9. InstaNatural Vitamin C Moisturizer SPF 30 Broad Spectrum: This one has a thin, dry texture and finish, similar to #5. I can guess that those who hate any white pigment at all in their spfs might not prefer this one over more seamless-finish spfs. No matter how many times I’ve tried applying this, it always starts to crumble and the application becomes patchy and flaky on the skin. But this one has good reviews elsewhere it seems, so I’m not sure if it just doesn’t work well with my skin or if I somehow am applying it with the wrong products underneath, etc. Either way, this might be better for oily skin types that don’t mind an spf that does have some white pigment (it’s mineral based, so it’s to be expected really). Other than that, I wouldn’t personally recommend this as a top choice when it comes to spfs.

10. Supergoop! Defense Refresh Setting Mist SPF 50: You’re probably wondering why I even included a swatch of this one—one reason was to keep this post format consistent, another was to try to show you guys the finish. The finish is dewy and a bit shiny, so if you look closely at the “swatch” you can sort of see that shiny finish (maybe? lol). Anyhow, I got this spf mist with the hopes I could use it throughout the day to easily reapply spf because reapplying a cream type is a hassle. But the finish of this is a bit too oily feeling for me (it feels and looks exactly like your typical spf body spray) and the spray dispenser isn’t a fine mist like it should be but rather sprays unevenly. Plus, I realized after purchasing this that is has “alcohol denat”, an apparently very irritating, possibly acne-causing ingredient that you should ideally avoid using. I can say that this may have caused a few light break-out areas on my face after having it on my skin for awhile. Thus I don’t recommend this mist, especially for acne prone, oily skin types—this is a definite no-no. But who knows, maybe your skin is super resilient and you don’t have oily or acne-prone skin, so it might be an okay setting spray option for you, even despite the alcohol denat, because I know “bad” ingredients don’t always have negative effects for all skin types (especially considering we don’t know the specific percentage included of such ingredients most of the time). In any case, I think you all are better off searching for a better spf facial spray.

If you got this far, thanks for reading! Remember to wear your spf everyone! ♡

#review #spf #spf review #skincare #korean skincare #supergoop!#cosrx #a'pieu #missha #jigott #nivea #skin&lab #instanatural

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gem-quest · 5 years

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[ O P H E L I A ... ]

“There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you’ll be free, if you truly wish to be.”  - Pure Imagination

Real Name: Catriona “Cat” Walsh Age: 20 FC: Saoirse Ronan Species & Class: Specter Bard Guild: Moonstone   Description of In-Game Powers: Specters are Gem Quest’s non-corporeal undead player race. They’re notable for only having 9 stats instead of 10, with Strength being omitted from their stat lineup because they literally have no physical bodies. Instead, their Willpower stat serves as their Strength equivalent. This means they have a rechargeable meter of how much they can possibly interact with physical objects before taking a rest or recharging with a spell or potion. Beyond that, Specters are distinguished by their inability to be damaged by non-magical weapons, increased susceptibility to light magic, and inability to be healed via healing potions or traditional physical healing spells (only a period of rest or spells/potions aimed at restoring mental wellness can heal them). The non-magical weapon immunity is amazing lower levels, but it’s not long before everything thrown at you seems to be enchanted or blessed or cursed or whatever. Weirdly enough, as far as the whole “incorporeal being” conceit is taken in other aspects, Specters can indeed take potions, as well as eat and drink. They get decreased buffs from some potions and foods, though. To balance this out, spells that provide small buffs and aren’t explicitly light-aligned are extra effective on them.

There’s a lot of frustration with the class because of its “fake” weapon resistance, since any old dagger with any mild enchantment or magical effect at all on it can hit them. They can’t viably hit physical things in combat without specifically taking Knight, Rogue, Rider, or Mage-Knight as their class. And even then, they’re arguably the weakest race choice in the game for non-magical melee combat. Meanwhile, a lot of physical things and all magic can still hit them very hard very easily.

All of this said, there ARE skills to really like here, too - namely, superb mobility. Specters can pass through physical materials five feet thick or thinner as long as those materials aren’t specifically enchanted to prevent phasing. They float slightly by default and have a rechargeable flight ability that allows them to lift much further off the ground in short bursts. They also have a rechargeable ability (with more uses per charge than flight) that allows them to teleport from where they stand to any spot they can see within 20 feet without a spell as long as they haven’t been hit with an attack in the past 5 seconds. This gives them excellent mobility even in the heat of battle and allows them to have a lot of control over their position and angle. It also means that it’s often smarter for them to worry less about defense than about being hard to hit in the first place.

Place of Birth: Dublin, Ireland

Appearance: Ophelia has a Specter’s signature slightly translucent skin, under-saturated color palette, and skirt hem/legs that trail off into mist. Her eyes are a stormy gray, and her wardrobe is almost exclusively black and white. When it comes to fashion, she prefers some of the more dark Victorian-inspired looks in the game as opposed to the high fantasy, renaissance, or medieval looks that a lot of other characters favor. That said, she’s got a pretty extensive and well-curated wardrobe behind her. She considers it highly important that she have at least one appropriate black and white ensemble to wear in each and every level in order to fit in with the theme. That said, she also has her own signature look that she uses as her “default” (the outfit she’s wearing in her pic at the top of her audition - full-body edit to be shared later!). Oh, and she loves gloves and capes. LOVES THEM. And kind of hoards them, tbh.

Places Most Likely to be Found In-Game: Ophelia’s favorite haunt at the moment is the City of Magic in Level 11. It’s the logical home base for a character who’s both a crafting/magical class AND a ghost. There’s a high enough concentration of both useful items and ingredients AND sufficiently gothic-flavored areas and NPCs to suit all her needs, both practical and aesthetic. She’s set up her own little shop in one of the many background spooky haunted house locations within the shadier-looking part of the city, and her Aesthetic demands she sometimes hangs out at the city’s main graveyard.

Beyond that, she can sometimes be found in various libraries and shops across the levels she can access, looking for interesting bits of crafting knowledge, hints of new items she could try cobbling together, and items that she could modify or combine with something to make can even more useful item. She’s also been known to turn up in random wilderness or roadway portions of levels in the first half of the game, foraging for crafting components that grow or randomly generate within those environments.

Current Inventory:

Screaming Lute (x1): Ophelia is very, exceedingly proud of her combat lute. She crafted it herself out of her bardic starter instrument. Specter Bards begin the game with an instrument they are capable of interacting with consistently. Cat has decided that, within Ophelia’s story, this was Ophelia’s lute in life, and it was destroyed shortly before her death as a way of intimidating her. Anyhow, Ophelia has heavily modified her starting weapon to the point that she thinks of it as an entirely new item. It’s covered in strange etched carvings and shifts between glowing with an eerie red light from the inside and constantly trailing wisps of white smoke. She uses it as her primary weapon in the game, as strumming specific notes and chords on the lute lights up some of the etchings and fires off various spells and magical effects and spells Ophelia has been able to learn. The lute downright shrieks whenever she uses it to cast a spell. How does it work, you might ask? That is a very long story, and one I’m saving for another post XD Most of the spells Ophelia has at her disposal are cast through her rune-covered lute and will be catalogued in her lute info.

Whispering Flute (x1): Ophelia likes rhymes and the aesthetics of symmetry. A secondary combat and utility weapon of hers, this is a flute enchanted to fire off up to three charges of Ventium per day, and one charge of Murmurationium per day. A good insurance weapon to sneak into a dangerous social situation, as it’s a perfectly normal and usable flute until she uses it to unleash the fury of the cold cruel winds of death upon you XD

Empty Unbreakable Bottle (x5): Ophelia favors magical items strongly because Specters can interact with non-martial ones automatically, without having to expend any extra effort or have at least X amount of Willpower to do so. Unbreakable Bottles are the cheapest magical container commonly for sale in game that’s capable of reliably holding liquids, so Ophelia likes to store all liquids important to her in them. And she likes to have at least a couple of empty ones on her at all times in case she wants to take a sample of something or otherwise just needs one.

Unbreakable Bottle of Rune Ink (x5): Rune Ink is an item that can be used as permanent and unfading ink that’s nigh impossible to remove or cover up. More importantly, though, it allows a PC with knowledge of the game’s runes, basically a language of magic that appears in a level or two and on some items, to write runic symbols that absorb nearby magical energy and store it within the object with runes written on it.

Enchanted Carving Tools (x1): Basic carving tools, enchanted to be able to create magical items and inscriptions. Ophelia uses them for crafting both magical and non-magical items, since any given item needs to be enchanted for her to be able to actively use it for long stretches of time anyway.

Enchanted Mending Kit (x1): Enchanted mending/tinker’s tools able to repair magical items without damaging their magical properties. Ophelia uses these to repair any repairable item sent her way, for the same reason she also uses enchanted carving tools for everything.

Paxanimi Potion (x3): A potion that mitigates psychic damage or corruption and provides a temporary boost to a player’s Psyche stat. For Ophelia, as a Specter, this is the closest thing she gets to a reliably available health potion.

Psychometry Scroll (x1): Allows caster to make one inquiry about the past of an object or place, then projects a scene or quote from the object’s or place’s history that provides a relevant answer to that question into the caster’s mind. Without crafting very specific questions, the results can often be vague and unhelpful, as the game will take the path of least resistance in providing a vision that meets the requirements of the inquiry.

Ictuium Scroll (x1)

Second Sight Scroll (x1) (Learning)

Assorted Random Crafting Bits and Scraps

She actually has more inventory kept hidden away within her home base rather than coming with her everywhere. Most of it is just more tools and materials and many, many changes of clothes.

“How much does it weigh? Can I touch, smell, and taste it? Can I put it in my inventory? Is it magical? Is it combustible? How many knowledge checks can I roll on it? Does it match my outfit? Can I keep it?” - Catriona, literally every time she sees any new item in D&D

Strongest character trait: Imagination

Strengths: Ophelia is an immensely imaginative and resourceful person who comes to Gem Quest from a background of extensive fiction reading and making famously effective TTRPG characters. It helps that she researched Gem Quest *extensively* before starting and continued to be active in forums and the GQ Wiki right up through getting stuck, along with getting early advice and support from a beta tester acquaintance. Her ideas are typically wildly innovative and a bit risky, but to her credit, they pay off more often than not. She’s slow to trust others with much critical personal information, but pretty open to giving others a chance and to judging people based on her own experience rather than on gossip. Thinking on her feet is second nature to her, and she’s rarely at a loss for ideas. Her devotion to her character and planned story arc have helped her to maintain a degree of focus and stability that’s thus far proven to be her most valuable coping mechanism.

She’s generally friendly and pleasant despite her spooky aesthetic, story, and demeanor, and she will genuinely try to help anyone who asks her for it. In business and in social encounters, Ophelia is considerate, well-mannered, and often downright chatty, though she usually knows to take a hint when people make it clear that they don’t want to talk. She makes and offers a selection of odd but useful items at very fair prices because she’s not here to make a profit - she just needs enough resources to keep going. She’s earned a bit of good will based on that. Her skill in puzzle and strategy-based quests and willingness to dispense hints on the above, along with her crafting, has garnered her a good reputation as a support player and PC shopkeeper within her guild.

Weaknesses: Even knowing that the game is now a matter of life and death, Ophelia still seems to care more about her in-game narrative and goals than practicality, survivability, or winning. A vibrant creative type who wishes no irl harm to anybody, she has a hard time conceiving that even the most blatantly destructive PCs would truly do harm to anyone outside the narrative. She catches most of the references you make and then obnoxiously, steadfastly denies that she has caught them if you inquire, because Star Wars doesn’t exist in the world of Gem Quest and of Ophelia, dammit! While her coping methods might be working for her internally for now, her devotion to staying in-character makes her a bit of an acquired taste. She is very, very particular about sticking to character, even when it’d be more practical and less annoying for her to drop it. She’s been known to make important decisions that risk her safety (and sometimes, indirectly, that of others) in the name of “authenticity” to her character and story plans.

Far, far too curious and adventurous for someone with a Defense stat of 2. She has lots and lots of interesting ideas, all of which she gives equal chance to, plenty of which aren’t good. Just because her creative ideas pay off more often than not doesn’t mean that there aren’t times when they don’t pay off. And when they don’t pay off, they tend to not pay off SPECTACULARLY. Reasonably likely to get herself killed enacting some inventive and exceedingly high-risk scheme to take out a dangerous boss before it can do damage.

For some folks, the mix of creepy aesthetics and backstory and acting choices with effusive goodwill and pleasantness is more off-putting than inviting. Arguably talks too much, especially when she’s nervous or upset. Has a weakness for getting emotionally involved with NPCs, particularly minor NPCs with chains of side quests or that can serve as temporary companions, despite theoretically knowing that they’re just chunks of code. Seems physically incapable of just sitting back and relaxing for a few without having to start some new project or come up with some new big subplot or plan.

Plenty of folks are happy to buy her crafted items, but she has a bad reputation as an active combatant due to a few infamous Incidents. At this point, only the truly uninformed, the truly desperate, the truly experimental, or the truly crazy in Moonstone would willingly party up with her XD

“Death has made me less than kind. And very, very creative with a broken lute, who knew?” - Ophelia

Player Stats: Ophelia’s defensive strategy in combat is just to not be hit at all. Her Defense stat is dangerously low, with any points that could buff it up as she’s gained levels and experience instead going to Agility and Luck. She prefers to draw her “defense” from stats that she can get more versatile use out of. She’s unusually low in Charisma for a Bard and has only enough Willpower to allow her to craft with physical items. She can’t wield non-magical weapons at all. However, she opted to invest a bit more in Psyche than a lot of other players did since a lot of a Specter’s durability lies in their emotional stability. She also has uncommonly high Intelligence, which combines with her Psyche and Luck to equip her well for puzzle-based and strategy-based challenges.

STRENGTH: X

DEFENSE: 2

CHARISMA: 6

PSYCHE: 7

WILLPOWER: 7

CAUTIOUSNESS: 4

AGILITY: 8

ENDURANCE: 5

INTELLIGENCE: 9

LUCK: 8 

Personality: (A lot of this is already in her strengths and weaknesses, so I’m putting a bit of a summary and some extra detail in here.)

She eats fictional media for breakfast, means well, talks a lot and talks often, has an overall spooky quirky nice one vibe (you know the type), fancies herself an actress regardless of the feedback she might receive, will (un)live and die in-character out of a fruity cocktail of artistic integrity and spite, is the Bard equivalent of a TV mad scientist who tends to cause the problem at the start of the episode with an experiment and then solve it in the last 2 minutes with a crazy genius plan that’s then shown to have not *totally* worked in a post-episode stinger, and is too smart for anyone’s good.

Building a clear narrative here helps her bring some degree of organization and order to the wild creative whirlpool that is her brain. She’d never considered herself much of an escapist until she discovered GQ, where she hasn’t escaped from responsibilities and work and struggle so much as she’s found an intoxicating degree of control over what her responsibilities and work and struggle are. She can write a meaningful story here, be its central driving force, have the impact she increasingly feels like she’ll just never be able to have in real life, and stick her epic quest out to a glorious conclusion. Ironically, she’s a weird mix of always needing an outline and a sense of narrative while ALSO constantly bursting with new ideas and clever but risky plans that she takes quite seriously. Cat harbors perpetual mild guilt for feeling so restless and unhappy - after all, she’s lived comfortable life and has a family who loves, and it’s not like people have to like anything she makes or does or says in order for her to have a high quality of life.

“Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.” - James Joyce

Biography: Catriona Walsh was born in Dublin, Ireland to an Irish mother and an American father of Irish descent. The family moved to New York City for her father’s job when she was just 5, but she and her mom remain close with her mom’s side of the family back in Ireland. After 3 years in New York, the family moved to Columbus, Ohio, where Cat spent the rest of her young life, except for summers. Most summers since she was 13, she’s stayed a couple months with an aunt and uncle who own a small tour company in Dublin. From 16 on, she’s been helping with business while there. Now she’s at college in Dublin and working at the company on the weekends, in exchange for staying with her relatives. She’s studying business for her parents and literature for herself.

Cat has always had a great fondness for the tour company, though mostly for the actual tour guide end of it. She’s a natural storyteller and explorer who delights in going off the beaten trail and sharing all she knows about xyz subject with anyone who seems interested. Unfortunately, her improvisational bent has landed her in trouble with her aunt and uncle more than once. There are schedules to keep and itineraries people pay to be taken through, after all. This landed her behind the front desk of the office answering phone calls and administering group ticket sales, which she very nearly hates.

School is hard, especially with her true interest pushed to the side by necessity. Feeling like none of her ideas ever get taken seriously is hard. Making friends that last beyond one semester sharing a class is hard, and as she gets further into her college career, her future looks increasingly stifled and bleak to her. Attempts to get some poetry and original music off the ground haven’t gone anywhere, ending in some spikes of faceless nastiness that prompted her to delete her one YouTube account and take a step back from social media about a year and a half ago. Sure, she knows she’s supposed to have a thicker skin than that if she wants to go anywhere, and she *does* want to go somewhere. But she can’t seem to make her skin much thicker. She wants to argue with her uncle and aunt a bit more, as she increasingly disagrees with them on quite a few things, but they’re both extremely conflict averse, and she can be extremely lacking in tact about things she’s suitably worked up over.

Through it all, she knows full well that so so many people have it worse, and that she has no reason to feel restless and dissatisfied and unhappy. It’s just that she has a hard time connecting with people and feeling heard. She’s not alone, so why is she lonely? Cat takes refuge in being the zany, intensely individualistic artist who’s sometimes worth inviting to a party for the interest value and who surely has friends somewhere - you just haven’t ever met them.

For the past year or so, all the time Cat has for herself and an increasing amount of time that used to go into schoolwork has been split between her long-time refuge in tabletop roleplaying and her new favorite place: Gem Quest. She’s part of two Dungeons & Dragons games currently being run on Roll20 (well, was a part of them, anyway), both of which she plays as a multiclassed build with some degree of casting put together for a mix of strong utility and intricate storytelling. Gem Quest continues a years-long trend of being in love with exactly one fantasy video game at a time and playing it as much as possible, though it’s her first MMORPG.

Catriona researched Gem Quest *extensively* before ever getting it or creating her character. She heard about it from a fellow member of one of her online D&D groups, an avid gamer happened to be a beta tester. Cat was drawn in by the idea of being able to entirely occupy the space of a created hero within a sprawling fantasy setting and be a version of herself designed as a protagonist in a world designed to be impacted by her. She had a cousin who had a VR headset but decided it just wasn’t really his thing, so it wasn’t hard to convince him to let her use it for this. After waiting to see more setting and story info during the early general release and researching everything there was to know about GQ thus far, including via discussion with her beta tester acquaintance, she entered into the game a short while after launch. She’s had time to level up, mostly in being an item crafter and utility character with a surprising capacity to serve as a highly mobile glass canon blaster (and inexhaustible source of very creative and very insane plans) in combat.

She also has a whole, novella-length backstory for her character - a summary of which I will post later! - that she treats as her character bible and guide for all in-game interactions. It’s based on a single image of a skeleton in a black and white dress in some official art of one of the higher levels where there are a lot of scenic skeletons lying around. This is the sort of brain Cat has XD  

Ophelia, as a character, is the ghost of a minor noblewoman and court musician who was betrayed when she starting poking around into the disappearance of her older brother at court. Her desires to find her brother and for vengeance brought her back as a Specter, but she came back a world away from the place she died and has to go on a quest to make it back and finish her story. Cat built the character to be tied to a mid-to-late game puzzle-heavy level so she could have a big climatic Moment there. Then, she’d continue to the end in search of her fictional brother. Ophelia wields a spectral lute as a spellcasting focus and spends a lot of time pursuing leads about both her brother and her murderer (aka quests Cat finds thematically/aesthetically good for Ophelia).

Cat is VERY set on seeing this plot through and being the hero of her story, from start to finish, despite what’s happening with the game now. She does her part to provide puzzle guides and crafting support for those working to beat the game, but she’s not going to rush through her story and suddenly snap back to being poor little ungrateful and inexplicably depressed Cat who has no place in anything and can’t do anyone much good with what she’s got. While she’s in the game, she’s going to be Ophelia. At least Ophelia has a *reason* to be unhappy and restless, a wildly creative and wildly striving brain tied to the world with a few wisps of smoke. And at least Ophelia is good at what she does.

Never mind how much she adored aggressive exploration and creative combat at first. She’s learned well enough that she’s just a liability there, she’s bad at being in a group, and, not so different from real life, she’s at her best when she’s just at the shop counter being support. She’s already been booted from a couple of parties over her crazy plans, play style, and general personality. And there have been more than enough incidents with her pulling something crazy because it was in-character and genuinely seemed like a good solution with the resources given, usually with at least decent results but always with high risk, that no one in the know is willing to party up with her anymore.

She’s kind of stuck either in her shop or going solo. At least she makes good things, though, right? And she’s just taking her plot slow because of she’s savoring and developing her story, not because people don’t really like conquering life beside her out here either, right?

Right?

Relationships: I’m very much open to some plotting and planning with anyone who’d like to try working something out!

In regards to side characters or such of my own, I have some ideas already for this. I’ll fill these in as I finalize my ideas a bit more!

Char 1 -

Char 2 -

Char 3 -

Playlist: TBF Pinterest: TBF Extra: TBF

#ophelia #catriona #cat #moonstone #character info

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scottynada · 4 years

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Core Set 2021 Set Review - White

Pick: 3-5 Shortcut: C+ Besides the sad flavor, I like Selfless Savior. It’s super annoying to play against since it requires your opponent to throw two removal spells at your best threat and makes it very difficult to block your big creatures. It doesn’t work super well against Black since the common removal frustratingly works around indestructible. I still think this pup plays well.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D Don’t get Brushwagg fever with this one. Five mana is a lot more to activate than four and there are no mutate synergies to boost this Chorister up. Pumping this does mean that you will gain four life for your “gain three life” synergies, but even then this is one of the worst ways to get there.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D I’m treating Speaker of the Heavens as a 1/1 with Vigilance and Lifelink since I don’t think there are any games that you can reasonably hit 27 life that you aren’t already crushing.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D Cheap spells are nice to facilitate an aggressive draw, but this just isn’t an aggressive creature. It doesn’t even block that well. Note that it does hold +1/+1 counters, so if you have some Basri’s Acolytes and not enough early creatures to put the counters on, this might just do.

Pick: 3-4 Shortcut: B There are four common Dogs and two uncommon Dogs split between Red and White. Pack Leader pairs much more nicely with the Red dogs as attackers, but a 2/2 that can’t take combat damage on attacks is already pretty nice.My favorite Dog pairing is with Bolt Hound since that dog likes to attack, but rarely survives combat.

Pick: 2-4 Shortcut: B Seasoned Hallowblade is very difficult to block or attack in to. The concept of ‘threat of activation’ is huge here. You never have to actually discard a card unless this is going to kill a creature in combat. Even when you do discard, you are spending zero mana to trade with a creature your opponent spent mana on.

Pick: 6-8 Shortcut: C Tempered Veteran is slow and has miserable stats, but can make it difficult to interact with your +1/+1 counter creatures in combat and will eventually make a huge threat. I wouldn’t see this as a pull into a +1/+1 counter themed deck, but it’s a nice pick up if you already have those synergies.

Pick: 6+ Shortcut: C Daybreak Charger dies to everything in combat, but in an aggressive deck this can represent a lot of damage. You can throw the +2/+0 onto a flyer later in the game or enable a small creature to make an attack into a larger blocker. Don’t be afraid to cast this on turn 2 with no target for the ability.

Pick: 7+ Shortcut: C- The flying synergies in M21 are no joke. I normally don’t like this as a 1/3 very much, but I think this will be the common flyer of choice for certain Blue/White decks.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D Alpine Watchdog looks trusty, but you really don't need to take this highly. If I'm lacking two drops near the middle of the draft, I'll be happy if a couple of these find me. Note that this card has specific interaction with Alpine Houndmaster. I think the Houndmaster combo is quite good, so this goes up a lot in value if you pick up a Houndmaster.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D It’s a flash bear.

Pick: 6+ Shortcut: C Oof, I’m not huge on White’s three drops in M21. I think Celestial Enforcer is fine. It is very good when things are going according to plan for your flying deck, but this doesn’t perform well in every White deck. If your opponent removes your flyers you are also left with a mediocre body.'

Pick: 6+ Shortcut: C Vryn Wingmare used to be a rare in Magic Origins, but I don’t think it’s amazing. You can skew your deck to be less affected by the noncreature taxing ability, but I only expect it to be backbreaking versus the deck that is based around cheap draw spells and the draw synergies lying around.

Pick: 7+ Shortcut: C- When you are curving out, Makeshift Battalion gets the job done. Same with Celestial Enforcer, when your plan gets disrupted, you won’t even be able to leverage your +1/+1 counter synergies because getting the counter in the first place is so conditional.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D In what board state is this swinging in for huge amounts of damage without being easily blocked by a small creature and results in you getting attacked back for too much? I think this wants to be paired with evasiono or +1/+1 counters. It’s risky to tap your blockers just to send this creature in.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D I love walls. If this had 4 toughness rather than 3, I’d be hot on Warded Battlements. As is, this doesn’t block well enough to live the dream of sitting behind this and crunching in for a bunch of extra damage with flyers. You can try it, but I think you’d rather just have something with stats.

Pick: 1 Shortcut: A Lots of stats. Don’t need other +1/+1 counters to make this good. Pick this.

Pick: 1-2 Shortcut: A Mangara doesn’t do much in the way of attacking, but it does slow the game down and pretty much halt any aggression towards you. After you cast this, your opponent probably just develops the board slowly and draws until they can point a removal at this. Meanwhile you are unhampered and can hopefully find some way to pull far ahead.

Pick: 3-4 Shortcut: C+ Basri’s Acolyte adds a lot of stats for just four mana and a pretty good blocker to boot. The +1/+1 counters can be seen as haste power that sometimes allows you to make attacks that you wouldn’t have had previously. This is a big board impact at common for White, so expect turn 4 to be pivotal when White is involved in the match. This card’s existence alone is enough to make it much better to trade off creatures early against White aggro.

Pick: 3-4 Shortcut: C+ Gale Swooper is decent stats with a conditional burn attached. White really has some powerhouse four drops at common. Like Basri’s Acolyte, this one also benefits from having creatures on the field, so make sure to trade off with White creatures while you can.

Pick: 4-6 Shortcut: C Falconer Adept is White’s worst four drop?! This card isn’t even bad. If you get two attacks in, you are getting great value. Look for ways to assist the Falconer in combat since a 2/3 attacker is not strong by the time this can attack. Combat tricks, evasion and +1/+1 counters will be key.

Pick: 1 Shortcut: A Lotus Cobra, untap, fetch land, turn 3 Baneslayer Angel, your move.

Pick: 2-4 Shortcut: B After collecting its trophy for most ridiculous (read:best) card name in M21, Syr Gagglemaster proved itself to be a beefy flyer quite good at winning race situations with only a weakness in blocking.

Pick: 5-8 Shortcut: C- Putting 5/5 worth in stats on the board immediately is pretty decent. You don’t need many five drops in general, but Valorous Steed will never be embarrassing.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D This is not a set where every deck will have great artifacts and enchantments to roll over, but if you see a couple good hits, bring this in from the sideboard and it will be good.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D There are some synergies in this set with drawing cards, but I don’t think that pushes this over the edge of being a great include. It’s not super impactful and feels very bad when your creature gets removed in response.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D The Sanctum of Tranquil Light counts itself, so the ability will at most cost five mana. I don’t want to pay five mana to tap things. I don’t want to pay four mana to tap things. Three isn’t even that great - and you can only get there if you hit the jackpot with Shrines.

Pick: 2-4 Shortcut: B I think the payoff for Griffin Aerie is strong enough to take this card early and build around it. Gaining three life is not as simple to put together as just gaining any amount of life, so be on the lookout for cards that get you there on their own.

Pick: 3-6 Shortcut: C+ The normal issue with cards like Swift Response that deal with tapped creatures is that they can never clear out blockers when you are the aggressive White deck. However, it looks like White does a lot of its aggression in the air in M21, which raises the stock on this.

Pick: 4-6 Shortcut: C Feat of Resistance is a very strong trick. It makes sure your creature never dies in combat, even if your opponent has a combat trick of their own. It can protect your creature versus removal. On top of all that it permanently boosts your creature afterwards. There are even +1/+1 counter synergies here. Great trick that will define how you interact with two open White mana.

Pick: 6-8 Shortcut: C- Runed Halo will play out like an aura that prevents a creature from attacking you. It will still be able to block just fine. The dream of hitting multiple creatures with this is very unlikely, but will happen a couple times throughout the format. Send me your sweet screenshots of blanking your opponent’s army.

Pick: 6+ Shortcut: C The dream is to add something like 10/10 worth of stats can comepletely crush your opponent with your two mana card, but Basri's Solidarity will rarely play out like that. The most likely scenario is that you curve out with 2-3 creatures, then cast this to enable a couple of your creatures to make attacks where they wouldn't be able to otherwise. It's low mana cost also makes it a pretty good double spell with another cheap creature. It's not bad, but expect this to be a nice aggressive curveout card rather than a token go-wide payoff.

Pick: 6+ Shortcut: C Angelic Ascension is not how you want to be answering your opponent's dangerous threats. A 4/4 angel is pretty close to a must answer threat, so replacing one must answer threat with another doesn't really get you very far. This is honestly going to be very frustrating to lose to, since I think the best mode for this card is to play a one drop, then exile it on turn two and hope your opponent doesn't have an answer to your angel.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D I kinda like Revitalize here. That being said I think you want to be wheeling these if you find yourself in the life gain archetype. Gaining three life is important and honestly not the easiest to do in this set, so a card that triggers all your life gain payoffs on its own is valuable.

Pick: 1 Shortcut: A All these "Basri's" cards are great. Why wouldn't Basri be great too? You want an assertive deck with a curve that can reliably get a creature out before you cast Basri, but it's really not a big deal. Basri will be powerful even if your deck isn't maximised for it.

Pick: 1 Shortcut: A Glorious Anthem is one of those cards that your opponent casts and you just know it’s going to be an uphill battle. This will add a lot of stats throughout a normal match and is only really dead if you have no creatures at all. Don’t fill your deck up with cards that don’t effect the board and you will be rewarded.

Pick: 4-7 Shortcut: C- Idol of Endurance is more of a five drop than a three drop. You will basically never cast this on turn three and want at least two creatures exiled to be reasonably happy. I see this is a pretty similar to some effects that Black gets, but unlike the Black cards you won't always be able to get back your best creatures. As far as card advantage goes, this has a pretty high best case scenario, but this isn’t a bomb or anything.

Pick: Nyan Shortcut: F Nine Lives will buy you a couple turns if you manage to cast it at a low enough life without dying unexpectedly first. I don't think this will ever be worth it over any card that more proactively progresses your game plan. After you cast this, it also gives your opponent the power to decide how quickly they want to take your lives, so you don't even get the surprise factor of Instant speed life gain.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D There is a minor “4 power matters” theme in M21, but I still wouldn’t feel excited about starting this card in the main deck. I think you most want to play this if it is covering a weakness of your deck, like if you are an aggressive White deck that has no other ways of dealing with your opponent’s one large blocker on turn 5 or so.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D Dubbing your two drop and attacking every turn is a pretty fragile game plan. It’s also a gameplan that sometimes just works. If your deck power level is low, adding a high variance card like Dub is sometimes your best option to beat stronger decks before they can get rolling.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D I know I just want to slap this on a lifelinker and make a huge monster, but Light of Promise is slow, risky, and conditional.

Pick: 1-2 Shortcut: B Faith’s Fetters is no joke. The life gain text triggers all the payoffs in M21 and can help buy you a real turn to stabilize if you are getting beaten down. This answers most problematic permanents, including planeswalkers.

Pick: 4-8 Shortcut: C- Secure the Scene is a nice catch-all answer to have, but it will rarely be exciting. In an aggressive deck, clearing out a blocker is awkward because they can still save some life with the 1/1 Soldier. This works best if you are just looking to play the long game and need to answer a wide variety of threats from the opponent.

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 5 years

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Ready or Not

I’m so glad the horror-comedy is having a Moment, because it’s one of my favorite genre mashups. The heightened emotions of both flavors come together beautifully when done well, and that tasty combo is what Ready or Not is striving for. The story of Grace (Samara Weaving) and Alex (Mark O’Brien)’s wedding is an unusual one. See, Alex belongs to the Le Domas family, a wealthy clan who made their fortune in board games, and any time a new person joins the family through marriage, everyone has to play a game at midnight on the wedding night. However, if one specific game is plucked from the box of possibilities, the poor new bride or groom is the victim of a human sacrifice to keep the Le Domas family in money and dice for another generation. The things they don’t tell you before you sign a prenup, am I right? And wouldn’t you know it, Grace picks precisely the wrong game. Now it’s a race against time as she tries to hide from Alex’s family until dawn lest her “I do” turns into “I die.” Sounds pretty original and darkly funny, right? Hard to screw up a premise that solid, don’t you think? Well...

In this case a solid premise is elevated by a stellar script from Guy Busick and Ryan Murphy (I know, I was just as shocked as you are) to create of the most fun and entertaining films I’ve seen so far this year. Strong performances from a winning ensemble cast and a wicked sense of black humor makes this a hell of a time at the movies and one I can’t recommend highly enough.

Some thoughts:

Samara Weaving is Hugo Weaving’s niece and now that I know that information I can’t unsee the resemblance, particularly in the eyebrow region.

Weaving’s performance is a huge part of what makes the movie work. It’s a tightrope she has to walk and she does it so well - innocent enough that she is sympathetic but not cloying; scrappy enough that you’re rooting for her at every turn; and with a snarky streak that makes her likeable but not cold or brittle. She’s a fighter at every turn and she really goes THROUGH it, but you believe a girl like Grace would keep going and never surrender.

I sure have missed Andie MacDowell. I know she gets a lot of flak for that line in Four Weddings and a Funeral, but there was a time in the 90s when she was THE leading lady and I was very into it. She’s great matriarchal material here - I wish she had a little more to do than try to get her son to come back to the family.

And Adam Brody! Playing himself, as per usual! I confess I am still not tired of his charm and I found him and his character’s arc just the right amount of twisty-turny is he good is he bad, and I was pleased with his overall resolution. He plays world-weary-verging-on-alcoholic-to-deal-with-his-trauma much better than I expected and that boyish amiability is still in ample supply.

One thing I appreciate here is well-done exposition. Exposition is a tricky thing because when it’s done poorly it stands out like a sore thumb, but when it’s done well it’s invisible. There’s some really elegant characterization of Grace as she’s being introduced to Alex’s family - she grew up in foster homes and never had a family to call her own. It becomes clear that marrying Alex was so vitally important to her to have this sense of family and permanence. There was no other option for them to escape this family curse in Alex’s mind and he IS between a rock and a hard place.

That being said, Alex could easily have told her the truth and let her choose whether to take the risk (or whether to think he was simply crazy). He takes away her choices because he can’t lose her - it’s about what HE needs. The thoughtful choices that go into each character’s arc, particularly Grace, Alex, and Daniel, is just really smart, sharp writing and I was delighted and entertained to see it.

Same with Charity (Elyse Levesque) and her comment that she’d rather be dead than poor again. On the surface, you want to just hate her because that’s disgusting, right? But considering the way poverty ravages lives - particularly women’s - is the notion really that unreasonable? Her savage certainty when she makes the statement certainly tells you a lot about being poor in this country.

I call bullshit that Alex’s wrists aren’t tore UP. That’s an oversight in the makeup department for sure.

Aunt Helene is a stone cold bitch and I love her. Fucking SAVAGE.

The Hide and Seek song is simultaneously the most amazing and creepy thing I’ve ever heard. This is some A+ worldbuilding.

OK, Grace, you hid for like...30 seconds. I get that you don’t understand the gravity of the situation yet, but like have you ever played hide and seek. It’s not that hard. The rules are in the name of the game.

I’m not going to spoil the ending - all I will say is that it’s probably been since the first Kingsman film that I found a movie’s end so delightful in every way for wrapping up the bad guys’ plot.

Though billed as a horror movie, it’s really more suspense than scares, although it is very bloody. If you’re sensitive to that sort of thing, beware.

Did I Cry? No, but I certainly felt strongly about the characters and I was really rooting for Grace hard all the way.

This is probably going to end up in my top 10 of the year. Just really great fun with enough brains behind it to be worth remembering.

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

#119in2019 #ready or not #ready or not review #horror review #samara weaving #adam brody #mark o'brien #andie macdowell #elyse levesque #movie reviews #film reviews

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screamingatanemptyroom · 6 years

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Baby’s First Revenge Part 3

Continuation to Charlotte story of reincarnation and revenge.

Part 1 / Part 2

Enjoy!

I hate child actors.

Director Mark Tuttle sighed loudly as he watched yet another young girl robotically recite her lines. Her small hands clutched the script tightly, shaking slightly with nervousness.

“I. Will. Protect. You.”

What was with all the unnatural pauses? Mark suspected it had something to do with the child’s mother, who stood off to the side with a stiff, botox-enhanced smile while giving a thumbs up to her daughter. The look in that woman’s eyes… Mark shuddered, making a mental note to stay far away. She looked like the type that might stab him for not choosing her daughter.

“No. One. Will. Take. You. Away.”

And there was no way in hell he was choosing this girl.

Although sadly, she is one of the better ones of the bunch. The girl before had burst into tears halfway through her lines and had to be carried out, and one lost interest one sentence in and started monologue about how much she loved her pet cat. It gave him a headache just thinking about the options for the lead. Fortunately he was able to fairly easily find a child to play the boy character Jordan’s part. The personality was a little off, and it didn’t help the little twerp was the son of one of the executive producers, but at least the kid could act. The side parts were filled without too much difficulty as well.

Now all that was left was to find the main lead.

The girl left awkwardly after finishing her lines, leaving the group, which consisted of him, a couple of producers the head of casting and Peter the author, to discuss her performance.

“She wasn’t too bad.” Peter spoke up first.

“Wasn’t too bad?” Lacy, the head of casting, glared at the writer. “I’m so sorry for your loss, when is the funeral?”

Peter looked confused. “What do you mean?

“I assume you want to mourn the death of your good taste.”

“Everyone!” Mark cut in before the two could argue further. “Let’s not get carried away. The girl made it through her lines, but was definitely stiff. That may resolve with some coaching but for now candidates 3 and 14 remain our top choices.”

“At least they could somewhat act.” One of the producers grumbled.

“I think candidate 3 was fantastic, why are we even bothering to continue auditions?!” Peter seemed slightly frantic as he cut in again. “Did her mother slip you money? Or do you just have irritable bowels and need to leave the room to find a toilet?”

“Lacy…” Mark’s tone was not amused.

“I’m just saying, we all have places we would like to be, but I for one would like to consider ALL the candidates for the LEAD of this MULTIMILLION dollar production. Unlike some people I take pride in my work!”

“Hey!”

“Who says I was talking about you, Peter?”

“You were LITERALLY pointing at me!”

“That’s a surprise… given your previous statements, I just assumed you were blind.”

“SHUSH, or I physically separate you two.” Glaring at the offenders, he waited until they had both nodded with agreement before continuing. “Now. There is one candidate left to audition. Number 19. Lets hear her act before we come to any final decisions.”

Turning towards the door he gestured to the aide standing there. “Bring in nineteen.”

As they waited for the last girl to walk on the makeshift stage, Mark noticed his heartbeat quicken with excitement.

I wonder what kind of performance she’ll give us? Thinking of the child’s clear answers and determined gaze from before, he couldn’t help but look forward to seeing her acting skills. He didn’t want to get his hopes up, but found them raised nonetheless.

The girl walked in, her face still showing a confident expression similar to before. Her parents walked in behind her, sitting in the corner quietly. Mark couldn’t help but smirk to himself at their average presence.

How did two nice, normal people like that give birth to such a strange child?

Once she was positioned in front of them, he leaned forward, giving no indication that he had met her before.

“On the table beside you in a script for one of Edith’s key scenes. We will give you a few moments to look it over, and then will ask you to perform it. Lacy here will read the lines of the other characters. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation. She picked up the script and seemed to casually glance through it before lightly tossing it back on the table.

“I’m ready.”

“…” The group looked at each other uncomfortably. Finally Lacy pulled the microphone towards herself, clearing her throat.

“You have to perform the lines on the script as written.”

The little girl raised an eyebrow, her amused expression somehow making everyone questioning her to feel… childish. “I’m aware.”

“You’re ready?”

“So I’ve said.”

Peter let out a contemptuous snort at the girl’s confidence, but fortunately stayed silent.

“Then you may begin.”

Nodding her head, the girl took a deep breath, closing her eyes briefly. When she opened them, everyone found themselves leaning in, drawn by the change in the atmosphere around her. The cute little girl with the confident appearance was gone.

In her place was someone different… someone dangerous.

The air around her seemed tense, as if every muscle was poised to strike when needed. Her face was calm, almost expressionless, but her eyes… her eyes spoke volumes. They showed the soul of someone who trusted no one but herself, and was willing to fight to the death to protect herself and her own. They were the eyes of someone willing to take down the person in front of her or die trying.

“Leave us alone.” The voice was cold, threatening.

“Why should I?” Lacy playing the part of a thug, answered with a perfect belligerent tone.

The girl smiled, but it was only stretching her face, her eyes remained cold and angry.

“You might think we’re weak targets because we’re young, but you’ve got it wrong. I may not be stronger than you now, but I will be. All I have is time, and if you refuse to leave us alone… that time will be devoted to finding a way to destroy you.” Her hands clenched at her sides, if Mark didn’t know better, he would think she was ready to leap across the table and stab Lacy. His eyes wide, he motioned for Lacy to move on to the next scene.

“Why do they want to hurt us, Edith?” Lacy held out her script for a moment, showing the girl the new spot they were picking up from. Her voice had changed into a higher pitch suitable for a young, scared boy. The girl nodded, continuing the scene from where Lacy had left off.

“I will protect you.” Mark’s eyes opened wide, the girl’s threatening atmosphere had disappeared without a trace. What was left was a smiling, kind girl, giving off the atmosphere of a doting older sister.

“But…”

“No one will take you away from me.” The sentence was final, her confidence shining through. It was as if every part of her was striving to convince him that she would take care of him, even while her shoulders looked too thin to handle even the lightest of burdens.

Mark found himself breaking out into a large smile.

This is her. We’ve found our Edith.

She was more than great, she was the living embodiment of the character he wanted to create. Small but strong, young but determined. Dangerous when needed to protect herself and her loved ones, but gentle in front of the boy she swore to take care of.

Perfect.

The others in the group smiled widely, the atmosphere relaxed as they all confirmed silently that she was the right candidate. Well… everyone except…

“You made a mistake.” Peter’s eyes were narrowed, a deep frown on his face.

“Mistake?” The girl asked, but no nervousness could be found on her face.

“The line was ‘No one can take you away.’ Not ‘No one will take you away from me.’” He shook his head. “If you hadn’t been so casual about studying the script, you wouldn’t have made that mistake.”

Mark frowned. What was this idiot doing? This girl was by far the best candidate they had seen, but he seemed to want to find faults with her performance.

The girl didn’t lose her cool. “My apologies, I said the line as it was written in the book.”

“You can’t possibly know that…”

“Page 283, line 10.”

Peter froze at these words, but Lacy grabbed a copy of the novel from the table and found the page she had cited.

“Wow, she’s right.”

“So she happened to memorize one line, big deal.”

Lacy rolled her eyes. “And how did she know how to memorize that one particular line?”

“Luck.”

The girl spoke up again. “You can pick any page from the book, and I’ll act out Edith’s lines.”

Mark stood up. “There’s no need for us to go this far.”

“Ha. You’re just afraid your little favorite can’t follow through on her boasting.” Peter grinned, snatching the book from Lacy and turning to a random page.

“Peter…”

“It’s fine.” The girl smiled at him, and the director found himself shaking his head ruefully.

“Alright then. Go ahead Peter.”

“Page 102.”

Her smile stayed in place. “I’ll start from the top of the page.” Again the atmosphere changed, she hunched over, clutching her side as if hurt. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with pain, she bit her lip with enough force that Mark was worried that it would start to bleed.

“You think a little hit like that is enough to stop me?” Her voice was so cold that it seemed to chill the air around her.

Peter frowned, obviously wanting to find fault with her acting but unable to.

“Page 68.”

“Page 341.”

One after the other he tested her over and over, and each time she recited the dialogue from the book perfectly. Finally, when he called out a page number, she didn’t speak or act, but simply stood up, glaring at the author.

“What? Can’t you do it?”

Mark sighed as the other man taunted the five year old. Didn’t he realize how foolish he looked trying to bully a little kid?

The girl didn’t flinch. Staring at him silently for a few moments, she shook her head slowly, as if disappointed.

“Edith’s character doesn’t appear on that page.”

“…”

Peter read down the page and then snapped the book shut with an angry expression.

“Thank you, you may go, we’ll let you know the results shortly.”

Giving him a thumbs up, the girl left the room calmly, taking her stunned parents with her.

“I don’t like her attitude.” Peter snapped out right away.

Lacy stood up, visibly frustrated. “Who cares?!” She threw her hands up in the air. “That child could be the anti-christ for all I care, as long as she can act that well, we have to cast her!”

“But…”

“I think we are all in agreement.” Mark coolly interrupted the author, tired of his absurd excuses. “Candidate 19 will be cast as the main lead.”

Glancing down at his papers to read her information, he smiled.

“Welcome to the cast, Charlotte.”

Satisfied, he focused on tidying up his papers and preparing to leave. He felt no need to pay any further attention to the annoying writer.

Later he would regret it. He would wish he had looked over, that any of them had. That they would have studied the odd behavior Peter was showing just a little bit closer. But they didn’t. And so no one in the room noticed when Peter jerked at the sound of the child’s name, his face settling into an uncontrolled expression of rage.

“Congratulations, Charlotte!” When they got the call, her parents were overjoyed, hugging her tightly.

Charlotte grinned back at them, feeling relieved despite her previous appearance of confidence.

I wasn’t sure how much influence Peter would have on the casting. Not much, fortunately.

“You must be so excited! Our little girl is going to be a star!” Her dad swung her around in the air, beaming from ear to ear. “But of course we knew you would get the part!” He set her down. “You were amazing in there? How did you learn to act so well?” His voice betrayed his amazement at his daughter’s talent.

Years of growing up having to lie to survive. Where the difference between someone believing me or not could mean failing to protect Peter… “I must take after you, dad!”

He chuckled at her wide, innocent eyes and charming words. “Shameless flatterer.”

Her mom spoke up. “Like she said, takes after you.”

All three laughed and hugged before finally settling back down into a normal routine. Left to her own devices, Charlottes gaze grew sharp, as she sat in her room, planning.

Initially her plan had been to simply infiltrate the cast of the movie, and ruin it. She hadn’t wanted Peter to profit from his theft. But after reading the script, and meeting some of the staff who seemed genuinely passionate about bringing her story to the screen… she had changed her mind. She would star in the movie, give her characters the performance they deserved, and help this movie succeed. As for Peter… well, it was already fairly obvious that he couldn’t hold up under pressure when it cam to pretending to be the author of the book. With all the attention from a successful movie… and a few helpful hints from her… he would crack.

And when he did, she would be there to make sure everyone knew him for the fraud he was.

Not too long after, it was Charlotte’s first day on the set. Arriving with her father, who looked more nervous than she did, she was immediately greeted by a familiar looking woman.

“Hi Charlotte, I’m Lacy!” She bent down to Charlotte’s level, extending a hand with a smile. Charlotte took it, slightly confused.

“Weren’t you in charge of casting?”

The woman’s smile widened. “Good memory! I’ve decided to stay on scene and assist with coaching the child actors. My background is mainly as an acting coach, so you can depend on me.”

Tilting her head slightly to the side, Charlotte studied the woman carefully. She doesn’t seem to have any bad intentions. Charlotte thought back to when she had seen them all in the audition room, Lacy had been sitting on the opposite end of the table as Peter, almost as if they had been separated, and the writer had often looked over to glare at her as if displeased.

Well the enemy of my enemy…

Pulling her hand back, she tried her best to naturally smile back. “I look forward to working with you!”

“Me too!” Lacy chuckled. “Actually it was your performance at the auditions that made me want to get back into it. I just have a feeling that working with you won’t be boring.”

“I’ll try not to disappoint.”

Lacy led her into a room with several other children. “We’ll start with a read through from one of the scenes on the script, to help all of you get used to working together. Everyone, this is Charlotte, who will be playing Edith, our lead. Come say hi!”

A small group of children crowded over to obediently introduce themselves. Charlotte recognized two familiar faces. “Hey, it’s bully boy and teddy bear girl!”

“My name is Bruce, not bully boy!” The taller, older boy seemed to shrink down under her gaze, his retort muttered towards the ground.

“And I’m Laura!” The little girl grinned widely as she bounced in place nearby, apparently excited to see Charlotte. They both had snagged side character roles, interestingly enough that of a bully and her henchman.

“You’re playing a bully?” Charlotte raised an eyebrow at the timid young girl, who flinched.

“Y-you don’t think I can?”

“Who cares what I think? If you want to play a bully, go all out!” Lightly slapping the little girl’s back, she moved on to greet all the other child actors. Finally, there was just one person left.

“Hey Charlotte.” The boy in front of her smiled sweetly, his delicate features making him seem vulnerable, needing protection. He stood in front of her, one hand extended out. For a moment, just a split second, his imaged overlapped with another in her memories, causing her to flinch backwards.

“Peter.” The word was whisper, but the boy heard it and was confused.

“No, I’m Brandon. I’ll be playing Jordan.” He shrugged, giving off an even brighter smile. “Guess we’ll be playing best friends.”

He still hadn’t lowered his hand, but Charlotte just stared at it, unwilling to touch him. Now that she looked at him closer, it was easy to tell he looked nothing like Peter as a young boy, but there was something about his expression, the light in his eyes…

He’s the same kind of person, the kind who would smile while he stabbed you in the back. Charlotte found herself wishing she were in a different room.

“What’s wrong? Are you afraid of touching boys are something?- OOF!” Bruce, still standing off to the side, had seen her reaction and teased her without thinking, ending his sentence bent over with her fist in his gut.

“Charlotte, hitting is mean.” Lacy admonished her halfheartedly. She then paused and added. “Strong work on hitting him where the marks won’t show on camera, though.”

Brandon’s smile wavered as he slowly lowered his hand. His mask was near perfect, in the past Charlotte might have fallen for it, and thought him an innocent, friendly boy.

But she knew someone with an even better mask. Compared to Peter, this kid was an amateur at hiding his disdain fro her and everyone around her. She backed away further, not wanting to accidentally touch him.

“Hey” Laura, the small girl from before, grabbed onto her sleeve and whispered in her ear. “Brandon is the executive producer’s son, My mom told me not to make him angry.”

Charlotte didn’t look away from the boy that made her skin crawl. “So?”

“Didn’t your parents warn you about him?” the girl pressed.

“Nope. But that’s okay.” Charlotte’s smile turned cruel. “We’ll just stay out of each other’s way. If he leaves me a alone, then i’ll do the same. But if he’s the kind of person i think he is… then his parents should have warned him about me.”

#writing #short story #part 3 #revenge #friendship #reincarnation #second chances #i think i remembered the links this time!

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