#tell me it's not a classic Adora set up

[nny11writes]

please post your among us spop fic 🥺

I mean, it doesn't have a true ending and I mostly wrote it 2 years ago, so I'm sure the game's changed since then lol. It'll be a little like Felwood Fling being pretty vanilla WoW :p

But you know I can't say no to you boo.

Oh no. Was almost the only thought in Adora’s head as the game started, boldly proclaiming her and Perfuma as imposters. But it almost didn’t have time to form, barely a line on her passive anxiety sonar as she was hit by her next horrifying thought. I don’t know how to play this game.

Adora was not a gamer. Not really. Not unless solitaire and that one pokemon game where you took photos that she’d obsessively rented from Blockbuster’s when she was 7 counted, and she had a sinking suspicion they did not. She had no survival instincts. She had no fall back knowledge. She was pure dead weight to be dragged along.

“Sorry Perfuma,” she whispered to herself, still not convinced she’d properly muted herself, “and thank you for being nice.”

She bumbled along, following her fellow cold blooded killer as best she could before the doors slammed shut separating them. This was already, officially, Not Good. She was already a liability and a burden and now she was locked in completely useless! Adora whined as she stayed the course, and ended up in decontamination where she couldn’t seem to open the door. Could imposters not open doors!? Oh no!

DEAD BODY REPORTED

Adora fumbled her mic and managed to slip in before anyone started debating, “How do you open doors? I’m trapped at decontamination.” and prayed that it was not just an imposter thing.

“Bae…”Glimmer sighed heavily. “Did you watch any of the videos I sent?”

“You sent videos!?” Adora whined. “I didn’t see any videos! I’m not prepared!”

“Okay, anyone want to hear about a dead body?” Catra asked. “Cuz, you know, I found a dead body over here in medical.”

Adora kind of lost the thread of the conversation after that as she desperately used her phone to try and look up instructions for how to play, because apparently what Glimmer had written her didn’t cover everything.

To be fair, Adora probably should have questioned “wasd/arrows and mouse, it’s pretty self explanatory” a lot more than she did. Damn her trusting and gullible nature!

Her eyes snapped back up as the screen changed to what, for a split second, she thought was a pride flag before realizing it was lava. No one was ejected though, so that was good. Wait. No, the opposite of that. She was rooting for their deaths, right. 

Uh, go team Perfuma because Adora was pretty useless right now.

The game started up again. She stared at the closed door again. No one had answered her question. Adora groaned in frustration. God. Damn it!

Okay okay okay! No need to panic! She had, uh...Adora looked at her buttons “Kill” with a countdown and “Sabotage”. Did she have to kill before that countdown ran out? Oh no! She was gonna make Perfuma lose when she’d done so well that first round!

And then the door opened right as her timer ran out. Adora flailed, smacking the button and stared in horror down at Scorpia’s body.

So. 

That’s what it was like to kill.

She felt a little nauseous and hit the report button, only to realize she’d never muted so at least that hadn’t bit her in the ass. The debate screen came up and Adora panicked a little as she realized she had no idea what to say. Play it cool! Fake it till you make it! “Uh, okay finally figured out the doors NO THANKS TO YOU ALL, and Scorpia is out here. Dead.”

“Who else was there?” Catra asked.

“No one, why would you ask it like that? D-do YOU have something you want to confess Catra?” What was she doing? Throwing off the scent. Or outing herself. She was such a bad actor, why did she agree to play this game!?

“...excuse me? I’m in security! Nowhere near decon.”

“Weird,” Adora squinted at her screen, “how’d you know it was decontamination when I haven’t said where it was?”

“You literally said that’s where you were last time and that you just figured out the doors dummy.” But Catra’s completely true and fair observation was ignored.

“Hmmmm, trying to blame it on the baby huh? That’s sus Catra.” Glimmer added.

And then it was all chaos.

“I didn’t do it! I wasn’t even over there!”

“You have no problem turning on your friends I see.”

“THAT IS THIS GAME OH MY GOD!?”

“You’re usually not this sloppy.”

“That’s cold Catra.”

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, DON’T YOU DARE!”

But it was too late. Adora watched feeling sick as a little cheery rainbow of death marked Catra.

“Oh I hope you assholes lose!” Catra hissed her final words as they threw her into the lava.

Not that there was an animation showing them throwing her. Adora was just assuming they all surrounded her in a creepy ritualistic style and then threw her into the lava pit. She fumbled for her microphone and wheezed. Why had she blamed Catra!? Catra was never, ever, ever going to forgive that when it would be revealed that Adora was an imposter. She’d barely gotten her friend back but was going to lose her over a video game murder! Okay, well, like, it wasn’t half as dramatic as she’d just made it out to be. Catra was prickly and defensive so sometimes they didn’t talk for like the worst week of Adora’s life every time before she’d be mysteriously forgiven. She fervently hoped it would only be one week and not two, two week fights were the literal worst!

Adora trotted along the hallway before opening the sabotage menu. With a curious hum she selected the reactor and then jumped as a deep blaring klaxon went off in the game. Oh. Oh no, she was going to kill all of them! Did she and Perfuma need to survive? Or at least one of them survive!? Surely they had to have superiors they needed to report back to. It really was a shame she had no idea where the reactor was, but Adora knew that Perfuma would handle it like a pro if need be. As such, she decided to not go back to decon, and instead went down straight into another set of closed doors.

“Seriously!?”

Then noticed a little button that said “Use” and felt like a total idiot.

Several minutes passed with her running around unsure what she was supposed to be doing or at least pretending to be doing because where the hell were tasks even located? There was nothing on her screen to show them and she was supposed to pretend to do them right? 

DEAD BODY REPORTED

Adora stared in shock as the triple homicide was revealed. “Oh shit, get some Perfuma.”

“I found the body- oh wow.” Perfuma said with a pause. “Well okay then. I found a body by the telescope, and I saw Bow leaving the area.”

“I was doing my tasks!”

“Walk us through it,” Perfuma said encouragingly and for the first time ever Adora realized she should probably be a lot more scared by her friend than she was.

“Okay, so I was doing wires, and then I went and checked the cams. After that I was going past medical-”

“Hang on, medical is on the other side of the map!” Glimmer gasped. “Bow? How could you?”

“I- wait- I meant- I didn’t do it! ...unless I did? Guys, can you blackout during a videogame? Oh no. What if I did do it?”

Frosta voted immediately and Adora jumped on the bandwagon and hoped they were both dogpiling him.

“Where were the other bodies?” Perfuma asked but it was too late as the chat became unintelligible yelling.

Bow was thrown with only slightly more ceremony into the lava.

Adora was still exploring the map to learn locations when the urge to kill struck again. This time she was feeling confident. She hadn’t lost the game when the timer on her kill button ran out, there was no one really around, and even if they caught her surely Perfuma could still win it alone. It was a case of the wrong place at the wrong time as she took out Frosta feeling equally guilty and awesome- before she realized that Mermista was standing right there. Oops.

Adora reported and in what she hoped was her best acting voice exclaimed, “Mermista how could you!?”

“...are you serious? Guys, Adora just killed Frosta in front of me.”

“Oh! OH!” Adora huffed, brain buffering in a lie. “Trying to pin it on me? I saw you do it!”

Shit.

“Where are you?” Glimmer asked.

“At the tree thingy in the hallway.” Adora reported dutifully as she sweated bullets. “The location where Mermista just committed a murder in cold blood. A child murder.”

Mermista groaned in pain. “Oh my gooooood, guys. We know Adora can’t lie. She is lying. Right now. What were you doing here then huh?”

There was way too long of a pause because she had no idea what the hell you did at the tree thingy before Adora hesitantly offered, “Have you considered...that she deserved it?”

And somehow, people did not start voting.

“Okay well I’ve been with Perfuma this whole round so I can vett her,” Glimmer said, like a fool as she kicked off just a regular debrief of the round instead of kicking Adora directly in the face to send her to the deadly lava pit of OSHA violations.

“I just came up here to learn where things are and then: dead child.” Adora added, because she might be a bad liar but she wasn’t a chump.

Perfuma hummed, “Yes me and Glimmer were together, and we’re at security.”

“Uhm, and I literally just saw Adora kill Frosta here at O2.” Mermista grumbled.

“Sea Hawk and I were together,” Entrapta said, “but then we got separated at the admin offices.”

“Sea Hawk has been suspiciously quiet,” Perfuma added.

“I SAW MERMISTA KILL HER,” Adora all but shouted far too dramatically for the circumstances, “this is an open and closed case!”

“You know what?” Mermista asked, “Do it. Vote for me. I did it. We’re going to lose to Adora and I want nothing to do with it.”

In the last three seconds Mermista was selected as the next lava sacrifice, and Adora slumped in her chair. Oh god she was not cut out for this. Her heart was RACING and she was gonna hurl. Oh no. How did people enjoy this game!?

As the clock ticked on her nerves only got more and more shot, until suddenly the screen faded to a Victory screen with her and Perfuma.

“I do love killing lights,” Perfuma all but singsonged.

“How did that work?” Adora asked, “That shouldn’t have worked!”

“You traitor.” Catra hissed but was buried by Scorpia laughing.

“Oh wow, congrats on your first kill! Ah man, I shoulda known!”

“Thank you. Okay, question-”

“This is not the Adora hour,” Catra mumbled, clearly still butt hurt and wanting to move on.

“Alright, launching us back in now!”

Well that was too dang bad. “Hang on, I have a question!”

“Did you press play again?” Glimmer asked

“Guys-” Adora huffed.

“Seriously where is Sea Hawk?”

“Great job again, I cannot stress how well that first kill went!”

“Can we PLEASE just start again?”

“You are dead to me.”

“Whhhaaaaaatever.”

Glimmer managed to be heard above the the digital sound of too many people talking,“Who hasn’t hit play again? Adora, you pressed play again right?”

“HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW TO PRESS THAT IF I WANTED TO PLAY AGAIN?”

There was a long pause as Adora sighed and pressed the button.

“Wow,” Catra drawled. “Baby much?”

“Fine! Fine! I'm the baby! Wah wah wah!” Adora hissed, “Now will someone answer baby’s question!?”

“What’s up buddy?” Perfuma asked, as if she had not just killed the vast majority of their friends.

“How do you know where tasks are?”

“OH MY GOD!”

“Baaaaaeeeee…”

“It’s highlighted when you’re just a regular joe.” Bow answered, barely audible over the general moaning of their friends.

“Thank you!” Adora grabbed her notebook and jotted the info down with the rest of her notes. “Now how do I do that and not the panic inducing killing thing?”

“It’s randomized, but don’t worry,” Entrapta all but cheered, “you shouldn’t get picked twice in a row!”

“Is Sea Hawk seriously just AFK?” Catra asked.

“Boot him.” Mermista confirmed and away he went.

It took a few more minutes for everyone to actually settle into the spaceship but then they were starting and Adora grinned widely as she waited for it to kick into gear.

This time I’ll be a normal person and learn to play the game! Adora wiggled a little in her seat, only to be met with the imposter screen showing her and Glimmer. No!

“Oh this is gonna be a long session.” Adora groaned as she vowed to actually stick to Glimmer this time.

Only to discover that Catra was sticking to her. Adora tested within the ship, where Glimmer stood watching like a Queen deciding on which court jester she’d keep, but Catra just stuck to her like a shadow. Oh no. Oh shit that was bad. Adora ran her character in a little circle of anxiety. She was going to learn from Glimmer but if Catra was there she wasn’t going to learn anything!

As soon as the three of them were alone, Glimmer killed Catra by the starting ship and Adora ran to keep up with her.

Okay, or that could happen. Wow. Vicious. Catra’s gonna be pissed to die so quickly again. Okay, but she can’t be mad at me for Glimmer killing her right? Adora gulped. Absolutely she could.

Before she could spiral any further, Glimmer did a few cute little circles as if to say, “Good job murder buddy!” Which weirdly did help.

It was almost hilarious how easy it was to stick with Glimmer, considering every time the two of them had a third in a secluded area Glimmer killed them if she could, and if she didn’t do it Adora sucked it up and killed instead. The body count was piling up when Scorpia finally found a someone.

And revealed the six other dead.

“Wow, we are getting our butts kicked,” Frosta grumbled.

“You mean you’re getting sloppy!” Adora didn’t know why the hell she blurted that out but she did. Shoot! “I’ve been with Glimmer this whole time and we’ve just been doing tasks. So it has to be you two.”

It sounded so wooden to her ears, but Scorpia gasped anyway. “Frosta, how could you?”

“What!?”

Adora sat back miserably as she started another argument between her friends. Oh this was her last round of the day. This game was horrifying. She panic voted for Frosta as soon as she could and saw Glimmer, and then Scorpia, voted as well.

Three for Frosta. One for Scorpia.

The Victory screen played.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” Catra yelled at her from across town. “ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME RIGHT FRICKING NOW!?”

Adora winced. Catra was, ironically, the one person she knew who cursed less when she was mad. Oh god, she was in so much trouble.

“I didn’t do it!” Adora whined.

“YOU ABSOLUTE JERK!”

“Caaaaaatra I didn’t do anything!”

“Ouch,” Mermista sighed, “murdering me counts as doing nothing.”

“That was last round, I’m talking about a freaking murder this last round! AT THE START! I’m being targeted!!”

“Guys I can’t do any more, I need a break!” Adora whimpered pathetically.

“Oh yeah?” Catra asked, pure acid dripping from each syllable. “Well I need to murder you violently but we don’t all get what we want dumbface!”

Oh god, she was in SO much trouble!

[firelxdykatara]

hm, while im still here and thinking about it

i’ve seen a lot of posts comparing rayaari to catradora, mostly positively but some also using the similarities to call rayaari an abusive/toxic ship, and i feel like a lot of people are missing key differences. and for me, as someone who was not completely satisfied with s5 of spop and never liked or shipped catradora for a lot of reasons, but who deeply enjoys and ships rayaari, there’s something very key that raya does right which i believe spop did wrong with respect to rayaari and catradora.

and it has everything to do with their history.

before adora left the horde, she had a history of physical and emotional abuse--primarily by shadow weaver, yes, but also by catra. we get a lot of memories from their past, and their relationship involved a very toxic codependency with a heavy dose of abuse--adora trying to protect catra but, when she failed, catra lashing out at her, verbally and physically (that scene where young!catra slashed across young!adora’s face w her claws left my stomache in knots for hours). they were set against each other by shadow weaver in a very classic scapegoat vs the golden child dichotomy, but that doesn’t erase the harm catra did long before adora left the horde.

(in many ways, their relationship was very like zuko and azula’s, although their roles in their primary caretaker’s eyes are reversed, with adora being most like zuko if zuko had been the golden child, and catra being similar to azula if she’d been the scapegoat instead. adora being the ‘preferred child’ in shadow weaver’s eyes doesn’t make her any less SW’s victim, and it didn’t do anything to protect her from catra when she lashed out as a result of SW’s abuse. in fact, i’d argue that it made her even more vulnerable, and we see in the show that she winds up blaming herself for not being able to save catra when they were children--even though that very much was not her job--and this is never properly addressed by the narrative. at least, not to my satisfaction. obviously, mileage on that particular score may vary.)

when you combine their history along with every awful thing catra did in the show proper, adora coming to realize she was in love with catra the whole time and not requiring (nevermind receiving) any kind of actual apology for that abuse or for, yknow, trying to destroy the world multiple times, it winds up leaving a very sour taste in my mouth. it doesn’t help that catra kept digging herself deeper and deeper for the entirety of the first four seasons, despite multiple chances to change and begin to make amends for her behavior (and lord knows i’m not trying to say a redemption arc should be linear, but you have to make progress in order to regress, and catra never got that far), which left the entirety of her redemption arc to fight for space in the final season with an entire galactic war.

except that it didn’t even really do that. catra saved glimmer at the eleventh hour (and that was a sacrifice, i won’t deny it) and then got brainwashed, and... that was it. she was ‘accepted’ by the group almost immediately, and all she had to do was stop being grouchy at them for saving her life.

did she ever actually apologize for anything she needed to apologize for, by the way? i genuinely can’t remember. i know she said she was ‘working on’ her anger and apologized for that but like, babe, there’s four seasons worth of shit and eighteen years before that which you really need to unpack before you should be telling adora you’re in love with her and starting a relationship. i’m just saying.

and all of this is without talking about the fact that, especially in regards to relationship development and plot pace, you will tend to expect more out of a television show compared with a movie. i’m a lot more ok with namaari’s redemption being a little rushed and coming down to a few of her own choices and the other characters choosing to forgive her in a less than 2 hour movie than i am with a television show that takes place over 5 seasons with 4 sets of 12 episodes. even cartoon length (roughly 22 minutes an episode when you exclude the credits). that’s a few hours shy of 20 hours worth of material. they had a lot to do, sure, but they also had a lot of room to do it in, and it was a deliberate choice not to start catra’s redemption even a season earlier--which, again given what it had to compete with in the last season, was ultimately to the show’s detriment imo.

so...........that was a very long tangent, and i’m sorry, i just have a lot of residual feelings of dissatisfaction about spop and catradora which i still needed to let out and this was a convenient post for it. but my ultimate point is, by comparison, rayaari is a much less toxic dynamic.

namaari betrays raya’s trust in the beginning, sure, and there are hints that they probably had a lot of run-ins during the six year timeskip given their familiarity, but in all that time they were enemies. that’s why enemies-to-lovers usually doesn’t involve outright abuse, unless there’s another facet to the relationship (ie catradora’s relationship pre-series)--because two people on opposite sides of a violent conflict being violent towards one another does not equal abuse.

and yeah, namaari betrays raya’s attempt at trust again--or seems to, resulting in the cliffside scuffle leading into the movie’s climax--but she also comes back of her own volition. she returns with her shard of the dragon gem, helping raya and her friends fend off the druun, when she could have run and attempted to save herself. that, i believe, is what ultimately prompts raya to trust her one last time. i believe that namaari believes she was about to put down her crossbow and never intended to actually shoot sisu--the horror on her face when the dragon falls to her death is proof enough of that, as is her final desire to just... give up and let raya take her revenge--and she proved that to raya by coming back and risking her life to help them in that final battle.

of course they probably have a lot to talk about and namaari has a lot to apologize for, but i can forgive a two hour movie for leaving that to the viewer’s imagination (especially when there is no expectation of a romantic relationship between the characters in canon--it’s catradora being canon which makes all the rest of it land so poorly for me) than i can an 18 hour television series.

again, opinions may differ on this score, and that’s fine. i just wanted to share my own thoughts.

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched this week - 39

I spent over 50 (!) hours on the sofa this week, (enjoying myself 85% of the time)...

Sløborn, an ominous Danish-German TV pandemic series, very much like Soderbergh’s ‘Contagion’ and in ‘Black Mirror’ style. Normal life of a small island community between Denmark and Germany breaks down and completely collapses when it is hit by a lethal bird flue like virus.

It was extremely prescient, as it was shot in 2019, before Covid! Conceived as Si-fi, it looks today like TV, because the series was able to capture everything that happened around the world after January 2020 in accurate details.

With Roland Møller (of ‘Riders of Justice’). 7+/10

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My introduction to “The grandmother of The French New Wave”, Agnès Varda (Hard to believe that I never saw her films before!):

✳️✳️✳️ “Inspiration, Creation and Sharing...” Varda by Agnès, my first Varda is her last 2019 auto-biography, in which, at 90, she shared footage and stories from her life and work. The first sample clip (of meeting her Uncle Yanco in Sausalito) won me over, and the rest convinced me to catch up on everything I’ve missed through the years. What a wonderful artist!

✳️✳️✳️ Cléo from 5 to 7. A feminine film about female identity - a new favorite! A beautiful singer must wait 2 hours for the results of her cancer tests. With a magnifique mid-film scene (at 0;38) of the heartbreaking chanson 'Sans Toi', marking the beginning of her quiet transformation.

✳️✳️✳️ Vagabond, a story of a lonely, young woman, an unapologetic drifter, unglamorous, aimless, independent, desperately lost. Dark and nonjudgmental exploration of the refusal to conform to anything. 8+/10.

✳️✳️✳️ (For Sammy - Per our conversation). The Gleaners and I, "The eighth best documentary film of all time”, per ‘Sight & Sound poll. Derived from the famous painting by Millet. Simply wonderful!

✳️✳️✳️ One Hundred And One Nights, 100 year old Michel Piccoli “Monsieur Simon Cinema”, hires a young girl to reminisce with about the history of cinema. An unsuccessful Meta-film that nevertheless is a love letter for cinephiles. Populated by 3 dozens of Who’s Who of French (and World) stars, playacting in this symbolic, Fellinisque fable that draws upon the classics. Mastroianni, Depardieu, Belmondo, Alain Delon, Catherine Deneuve, Jeanne Moreau, Anouk Aimée, Fanny Ardant, Gina Lollobrigida, Jane Birkin, etc, etc..

(Photo Above).

✳️✳️✳️ The Young Girls of Rochefort, the wonderful, colorful, sentimental musical by Varda’s husband Jacques Demy, with the most beautiful woman in the world and her sister. Romantic eye candy set to music by Michel Legrand. A year later Deneuve would do Belle de Jour, and Françoise Dorléac would die in a car accident, 8+/10

✳️✳️✳️ Even better, The Young Girls Turn 25, Varda’s 1993 behind the scenes documentary and return to small town Rocheford, to show how it changed the town and left an impression. 9/10

“...The memory of happiness is perhaps also happiness...”

✴️         

The other Jacques Demy modern opera The Umbrellas of Cherbourg knocked me over all over again. Catherine Deneuve’s angelic beauty in this film made me cry for the duration like a baby. And not only at the train station when they say goodbye forever.

10/10

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Night moves, a tense thriller by Kelly Reichardt, about three radical environmentalists who blow up an Oregon dam. Slow and tense, and like her ‘First Cow’, watching it filled me with constant, low-level anxiety. The off-screen sabotage is placed at the exact mid-point of the movie: The first half is the preparation for it, and the second half shows the aftermath of the act. 7+/10

✴️        

2 unexpected Small Town gems by Miguel Arteta:

✳️✳️✳️ The good Girl, an odd and surprising mismatched romance between 30 year old Jennifer Aniston and Jake Gyllenhaal (22) as employees of a Texas big-box store that is always empty. Her voice-over reminded me of True Romance’s Alabama Whitman. 7/10

✳️✳️✳️ Ed Helms, a sheltered insurance salesman from the backwaters of Wisconsin, goes to an convention in the big city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The nearly conventional story arc has some genuinely heartfelt funny moments. With Maeby Fünke, as Bree the prostitute and Sigourney Weaver as the ex-teacher he balls. Also a surprising drug party, where he smoke crack cocaine and loves it. 5+/10

✴️          

Same theme of people prostituting their own ‘morals’, the notoriously-prudish 1993 Indecent Proposal didn’t age too well. “Billionaire”-porn that asks the question ‘How much would you pay for one night with Robert Redford?�� Gratuitous semi-naked Demi Moore included.

Related: “Stop hitting the button!”

✴️        

Wildland (Kød & blod = Flesh and blood), an uncomfortable and claustrophobic Danish gangster thriller about a 17 year old girl who moves in with the criminal family of Sidse Babett Knudsen, her estranged aunt. 6+/10

“For some people, things go wrong before they even begin”

✴️     

Jim Jarmusch‘s Broken Flowers, a touching road film with Bill Murray, as an old ‘Don Juan’ who receive a pink, unsigned letter from an old lover, letting him know that he has a 20 year old son he never knew about.

Loveliest film of the week.

✴️       

The 2 films directed by Tom Ford:

✳️✳️✳️ A single Man, a sad and lonely gay professor, closeted in 1962 Los Angeles, is preparing to kill himself with a gun, after his boyfriend / love of his life had died in a car accident. Mute and haunting aesthetics in the fashion designer’s debut film, based on a Christopher Isherwood novel.

The ‘Stormy Weather’ dance scene between Charley and George. 8/10

✳️✳️✳️ Nocturnal Animals: Amy Adams is an unhappy owner of a fancy art gallery who receives a disturbing book manuscript written by her ex-husband, which symbolizes their relationship 20 years prior. Rarefied visuals and distinctive style.

Starts with an astonishing scene of obese old ladies dancing naked at Amy’s gala event. Michael Shannon rules as a dying Texas detective! 6+/10.

✴️        

Jean Vigo’s 1933 classic Zero for Conduct was so blatantly anarchistic, it was immediately banned in France until after WW2. In silent film style, it tells about a group of mischievous kids who rebel against the authorities of their old-fashioned boarding school. Part-inspiration for Truffaut's 400 Blows.

✴️      

Anatomy of a murder, Otto Preminger’s 1960 courtroom drama, with opening credits by Saul Bass. Crisp black & white cinematography, and with rape victim Lee Remick playing it as an outgoing loose girl of ambiguous morals, a modern floozy. 7/10.

✴️                

Blush, a wondrous, spectacularly-animated, wordless short by Joe Mateo. What starts as a riff on ‘The Little Prince’, ends up like the opening montage from ‘Up’. The obvious realization that this is a personal metaphor makes the story even deeper.

I watched it twice back to back. 10/10

✴️       

If You're Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast - 95 year old Carl Reiner asks a bunch of charming nonagenarian friends how they manage to live so well for so long. Their answers may (not) shock you...

Spry Dick Van Dyke (92) and half-his-age wife end the film with a lovely rendition of “Young at heart”

✴️            

Hi-school-level adaptation of Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the 21st Century. A breezy discussion of how slave economy and colonialist military repression 300 years ago turn into extreme capitalism of inequality & tax-avoidance today. America is now similar economically to what England was in the early 1800s. A tiny percentage of society controls almost all its wealth. (Full text of the book here).

✴️            

Ride the eagle, a flat new indie about a guy whose estranged hippy mother leaves him her cabin at the lake when she dies, but only if he complete a certain list of tasks. Could be so much better, but the actor playing the guy was just so terrible. Unlike JK Simmons who had a small role. Best detail, when he discovers that all the cabinets in the house are full with pot.

✴️       

Old, my first, (and possibly last), M. Night Shyamalan. The seductive premise of a secluded beach at a fancy tropical resort that ages everybody who comes there, turns into an unconvincing Twilight Zone bore.

...”(Gurgling sounds)”...

✴️      

First watch: I never saw (any) Planet of the apes before, and in spite of my misgivings, gave it a go. 100% anthropomorphic, it couldn’t visualize a universe different from the American mindset of that period. Preachy and very Rod Sterling-like. "It's a madhouse in here”. Pass!

✴️         

The latest Veritasium YouTube video about bowling current technology. Always interesting.

- - - - -

Throw-back to the art project:

Planet of the Apes Adora. 

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(My complete movie list is here)

[bluebellravenbooks]

A Great Distraction Masterpost

January has been gloomy as heck, so I thought it may be a good idea to put together a list of things that I read/watched/played since the beginning of the pandemic that managed to keep my mind off things. (I'm a doctoral student with anxiety and a 5-second attention span, so if this worked for me chances are it's Good Stuff.) Hope this helps!

Steven Universe

Set millennia after a kinda-failed alien invasion, this is a story of a half-human protagonist with a big heart who has to deal with the consequences of this long-ago war and learn what it means to be human.

The trope of a peacekeeper hero, excellently executed. Goes from cute to cute and rather dark, but still hopeful. Nice songs, lovely animation, interesting characters; you can tell that the storytelling goes from the hearts of the people who made this. This is a generally uplifting story; however it does have some discussion of war, mental illness and parental death, so tw for that. Also depending on where you live, this may be a bit difficult to track down across the streaming services... That said, this is undoubtedly one of the best shows I have ever watched.

Hollow Knight

You are a tiny badass with a sword and a mysterious past, travelling across a derelict kingdom and trying to make sense of what happened to it. And the more you learn, the more you suspect that you are here for a reason...

A 2D platformer game, doesn't require anything fancy from your laptop - not even a mouse. Previous gaming experience not necessary either. Beautiful visuals (I mean it!), a huge world to explore; exasperatingly difficult, which makes for a great distraction. I do have to warn that the plot of this game revolves around an infection, although it's not very reminiscent of Covid. As a plus, you get to kick its ass in the end!

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Four great nations are at war - have been for some time, actually, and things aren't looking great. The discovery of the Avatar - the peacekeeper with abilities from all the nations - offers a glimmer of hope; however it doesn't help that the Avatar is eleven years old and has spent the last century frozen in an iceberg.

Truly, a classic. I love the trope of the peacekeeper hero - both Avatar and Steven Universe explore it beautifully. Just like with Steven, I have to mention a tw for war, but this being a cartoon it's not explicitly traumatic. A great place to start if you're not into cartoons yet.

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

Murderbot is a half-organic, half-robotic being, serving as a security unit on interplanetary missions. It's much more sentient and independent than its company believes - but all it wants is for the annoying humans to leave it in peace long enough to watch one more episode of its current show. However when things go south on a mission, Murderbot has to deal with much more reality - and human interaction - than it would like.

Very fun and quick read; the narrator's voice is just excellent. Much less bloodthirsty than the title suggests, but still a tw for injury and death. (Not too much though - I hate gore and I was perfectly fine reading this.)

Folk of the Air by Holly Black

Elfhame is no place for humans - well, normal humans, anyway. Jude Duarte was brought up here with her sisters, and she is hell-bent on proving her worth in the fairy court she has come to call home. Few are happy with that, or believe that she can make it - but even Jude herself wouldn't have guessed where the political turbulence would get her.

Very well-written; politics of the fairy court stand to logic and offer plenty of exciting plot twists. True to the title, some characters can be rather cruel, so tw for violence and parental death; however most of the plot revolves around politics and not explicit physical trauma.

Cartoon Saloon films: Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, WolfWalkers

Some of the best modern animation plus Irish mythology. Each of these films explores a different myth/historical period, but they are similar in the magical atmosphere; I recommend each and every one of them. The plots being different, I won't list all the tw's here; there's nothing particularly gruesome going on, so just have a look at the plot description before watching to check for sensitive topics.

Gravity Falls

Dipper and Mabel are sent to a cabin deep in Oregon forest to spend the summer with their great-uncle. Sounds like a boring holiday - however it turns out that the town has more weird secrets than residents, and even their great-uncle seems to be hiding something...

Very cartooney, so the style might be a little off-putting at first - however I loved the plot, especially when the overstory started to pick up. This is a great exploration of family and what summer should feel like when you're an adventurous kid. Will probably get you into cryptography.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Adora grew up with the bad guys. That is, of course, she thinks they are the good ones - until one day she escapes from the camp and sees much more than she bargained for. Oh yes, and apparently some magical sword wants her to be a hero. Now on the side of the rebellion, she has to protect her new friends, deal with the old ones, and try to figure out what the heck is going on.

This show is fun, very diverse and full of positivity without trying too hard. For me it was a joy to watch something with a lot of strong female characters without having the dark gender issues discussed, not even once. (I mean, it's still important to have shows that explicitly discuss this - but a show where characters are just happy in their identities, no questions asked, is something I didn't know I needed.)

Carmen Sandiego

The young woman who calls herself Carmen Sandiego has a rather unconventional occupation. She was brought up in a school for thieves - but when she glimpsed the outside world, she realised that things weren't as simple as her teachers said. Now she uses her expertise to track her former schoolmates - and steal back their loot.

This is probably the most young-age-oriented item on my list, so there's not a lot of drama going on, and some plotlines are rather simple. That said, this series is good fun, I still found the story and the characters compelling, and the animation was really good as well. Honestly, seeing what modern 2D animation can do is a treat.

These things - and many other - helped me stay sane during this year; I found out that stories can be fun shameless escapism and really deep and satisfying at the same time. Feel free to add to this list - and I will keep it updated as well when more good stuff comes my way.

[catrasredemption-moved]

Catra isn't feeling well, and due to her upbringing she hides like Adora used to at first in Bright Moon till it gets better, even if she could ask Adora to heal her.

((Aw, sickfic, classic))

Catra didn’t get sick.

That was, at least, what she would tell anyone who would listen. She didn’t get sick. Cats didn’t get sick. That was stupid.

Or that was what she’d told Bow when he’d questioned her sneezing the night before.

Perhaps you shouldn’t have pushed it so much.

“Shut up,” Catra muttered into Melog’s fur. She had woken up with a full-blown fever and body chills some time during the night, and managed to escape Adora’s notice (and a fist when she tried to move - no one else could ever share a bed with that woman), and absconded to one of the highest towers in Bright Moon a blanket and Melog to ride out the absolutely miserable cold. Sometimes the alien cat would disappear to steal a drink or some food for her. The food had mostly been untouched.

Catra shivered, curling up tighter under the blanket and squeezing her eyes shut. She blamed the recent visit to Frosta. Snow really was the worst.

Adora is looking for you, Melog said upon his most recent return, this time with some fruit and a bottle of water. Catra set the fruit aside and drained the water in one long sip. She felt like death.

“Adora can mind her own business.” Catra burrowed into the blanket, hiding herself.

She wants to help you.

“She can help by leaving me alone.”

It’s okay to show weakness.

Catra paused for a moment before peeking out from under her blanket. Melog swore he couldn’t actually read her mind against her will or see her memories, but she wondered sometimes how deep he could really go.

It is not hard to guess why you do things.

“Hmph.” Catra stuck her tongue out at him before flopping over to rest her head on him. “I just need some time to sleep and I’ll be fine.” * * * * * * * * * She was not fine.

She had been twisting and turning in her sleep for some time, whimpering, her fever slowly climbing. Melog had moved to try and comfort her, wrapping around her as safely as he could, while she tossed and turned, driven on by fevered dreams.

Taking care of Catra was a delicate balance. Sometimes she needed to be left to herself, to figure out the right answer on her own. Sometimes she needed an invasive alien cat and equally invasive but loving partner to save her from herself.

This was one of the latter times.

Adora had been chewing on her thumb and definitely not searching the palace all day Catra. She’d woken up to a quickly scribbled, vague note about spending the day alone with Melog, which wasn’t unusual - sometimes Catra needed space, and Adora always trusted Melog to take care of her.

But something about it was bothering Adora today.

Especially since it was almost dark and she still wasn’t back.

“I’m sure she’s okay,” Bow said confidently. They were eating dinner, and Adora was acutely feeling Catra’s absence. Had she eaten at all today?

“We can look for her after we’re done, if you want?” Glimmer offered. She knew more of Catra’s hiding places than Adora did, which was frustrating to Adora, but Glimmer, like Catra, had the ability to easily get to otherwise unreachable places, and had the advantage of knowing the palace better than anyone.

“I don’t wanna bother her if she really just needs time alone...”

But why couldn’t she talk Adora about it? Or at least give her a sign of life?

Something tugged on Adora’s jacket; she jumped and looked down, half relieved and half terrified to see a pair of bright blue eyes looking up at her.

“Melog?” The creature mewled, tugging Adora’s jacket again. “What’s wrong? Where’s Catra?”

Another tug, and Adora finally got the hint. “Okay, okay, I’m coming...”

The sun was setting, casting weird shadows through the tower window, bending everything at an odd angle. Catra stirred sluggishly, eyes flicking open slightly to look around. She tried to call for Melog, but the word caught in her throat and she coughed harshly, curling up tighter. She hated being sick...

A soft noise reached her ears; she opened her eyes again, almost immediately panicking when she saw a shadow hovering over her.

“Weak, pathetic child. Why do I even bother to take care of you? We’d all be better off if I just put you down like the animal you are...”

Catra screamed, bolting upright and shoving herself back against the wall, hiding her head in her arms, face pressed into her knees. “Catra, hey.” The voice was soft, gentle. Not Shadow Weaver. “It’s okay, it’s me.”

Familiar hands brushed against her arms as the blanket was pulled away; Adora gently tugged the shaking woman into her lap, holding her close. Catra was purring, but not in the way she usually did when she was content or smug about something. This was sound only Adora had ever heard, as far as she knew. An anxious, stressed sound, meant to be self-soothing.

“I’ve got you,” Adora assured her, scratching her ears. “It’s okay.”

They sat in silence for a bit while Catra collected herself and relaxed in Adora’s arms. “Why didn’t you tell me you were sick?” Catra made a disbelieving noise. “It’s not like the Horde. They actually have stuff here to help. Medicine and all that. Not like the stuff Shadow Weaver tried to give us.”

They’d both experienced Shadow Weaver’s “cold remedy” exactly once, and had taken to hiding whenever they were sick after that, depending only on each other, and only when that was safe. 

Catra shook her head, hiding her face in Adora’s shoulder. “Do you think I would lie? Or let them hurt you?” Silence. Adora kissed the top of Catra’s head. She was far too warm. “Let’s go back to our room, and I’ll get something to help you feel better. Okay?”

Melog nudged Catra’s arm, mewling comfortingly, and Catra relaxed slightly. “Don’t tell anyone else.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

[moonrabbitgrimoire]

Moon Rabbit Recommends: Youtube Tarot Channels

Searching for a Youtube channel focused on tarot readings and don’t know where to start?

Fear not, this list is a simple way to start navigating this world.

Those are my personal favourites, but obviously it depends a lot on your vibe too. If you don’t vibe with a specific reader, blessed be, turn your attention to another until you find the one that vibes with you  ;)

That being said, here are a few of my favourite tarot reading channels!

Shonnetta’s Divine Tarot

Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn5SXv7sx-EuPjqUs8FBnDQ

Girl is bright, girl is golden and one hell of a tarot reader! Get your cup of tea - or beverage of choice - and prepare yourself for the ride, ‘cause Shonnetta takes her time and her readings feel like having a chat with your best friend! She knows what she’s doing and she’ll give you exactly what you need to hear - even if it’s a bit of though love.

She posts specific questions, monthly forecasts, yearly forecasts and also goes live from time to time. She talks about the moon phases and planets also, a little bit on spirit guides and sometimes about numerology. Give her a go!

Charmed Intuiton Tarot

Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCebj3WFs3hPmc7Z_-XWgThw

This girl is precious. Such a calm and beautiful soul, she always sets up her reading space carefully to match the theme of her reading! It’s always so beautiful - it feels like going inside the cottage of your fairy witch friend and sipping some tea while she talks about tarot readings.

She works with charms too! She does the tarot and then proceeds to work with the charms - and they are all lovely. There’s a meaning to each of them and she always encourages you to take a look and see if something pops out personally. She does specific questions, weekly readings, monthly readings and themed readings - she has a lot of charms and collections, so movie themed readings happen quite often! If you’re into charms, I strongly suggest trying her channel!

Avalon Intuitive

Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu69e9e69GQ6Ec7vAJ5Kq-Q

She has more of a quiet and serious vibe; her readings are always so calming. I found her channel recently, but I already like it a lot. Her readings have resounded scary greatly with me and hopefully will with you as well.

From what I gather, her readings are centered in many subjects, but the personal development and growth are the ones that shine brightest to me. If you’re getting into shadow work and want to understand yourself better, I’d recommend her without a second thought.

Roseology

Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoVvxsm7HKAByuJQkm3gXog

Her voice was crafted by the goddess herself - seriously. Watch at least one of her videos and you will get it! Roseology works with Egyptian deities, tending to use tarot with that imagery. Very calm, very strong and one hell of a woman.

She has a great understanding of astrology and has done some videos where she talks about planetary alignments - with tarot pick a cards to help you figure what that alignment will bring you - but she also explains a LOT on what those alignments mean: the planets, their movements, how it influences us and the environment... All on carefully crafted videos with time stamps so you can listen to the topics that spike your curiosity the most.

If you’re drawn to the Egyptian pantheon or you have an interest in astrology, I’d suggest checking her out! Also, ASMR people will be happy here, too ^^

Adoras Light

Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdmIDse5tdK_1QySwbezrHw

You like spicy pick a cards with a beautiful tarot reader that has a bright and fun sense of humor? Here’s your place! She has other pick a card themes too, but a lot of them are around love, twin flames/soulmates, spicy readings and etc.

Also, if I’m not wrong, she’s from Indonesia and actually does readings on her mother tongue! So, if you speak her language and always wanted tarot readings like that, she’s got you covered. She’s also a lovely and talented artist and has a second channel on magick in general - so if you’re an artist like me, you might love her art also!

Kino Tarot

Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsL61GSPalW9R0Q2-We64aQ

She takes her time and she’s a sweet tarot reader that will never let you down! She has classic pick a cards but always try to do something different with them. Minimalist settings and lots of information to digest!

Before reading, though, she’ll always tell you what she’s picking up from the pile you chose. Like I said: Kino takes her time, feels the energies and then moves on to the cards. If you like minimalism, good vibes and a more sensitive like approach, Kino is worth taking a look!

Like I said, those are my favourites and the ones I recommend to start your journey! There are, of course, MANY MANY Youtube tarot reading channels! Maybe you’ll find your vibe in others I didn’t list here. Have fun watching their videos and finding your favourite reader!

WITCH TIP! If you’re getting into tarot reading yourself, watching those videos might help you understand how different people interpret cards in different ways - it can also help you remember the meaning of the cards and see how they’ll interpret the reading you chose. It’s very interesting to practice!

If you want to, tell me your favourite tarot readers as well! I’ll love checking them out!

Happy tarot reading!

[meg-noel-art]

003 character - adora

DUDE, dude, yes.

A D O R A

I could talk about her forever lesgo:

1.) How I feel about this character:

I have never found Adora anything less than a fascinating and complex protagonist. She's got all the characteristics of a classic hero archetype: she's brave, kind hearted, strong, selfless.... But she's also unbearably human. She makes a lot of mistakes. She's afraid of her responsibilities and her 'destiny', she's stubborn and sometimes extremely narrow minded (her way or the high way kind of situation), she's insecure and has a guilt complex the size of the planet itself.

And what's great about that is that all of those flaws stem from her background as a child soldier. It's all surprisingly gritty and real for the protagonist of cartoon.

Her misguided motivations always make sense, they align with the character we've come to know and love for all of her complexities. She's a great role model in some ways, and in others, she's an example of behaviors to avoid. MORE CHARACTERS LIKE THIS PLEASE. More heroes with just as many flaws as the rest of us. Adora's easy to relate to in that sense because we all have issues too. And when the protagonist of your show, is as broken as your audience, it makes the entire world of Etheria seem that much more personal.

I love her.

2.) Any/all people I ship romantically with this character:

If you know me at all, you know I ship Adora pretty exclusively with Glimmer. But I also see merits to some of her other ships. I like the fact that Adora unabashedly crushes on giant burly lesbians. Like, amazing 10/10 writing. Same hat.

Anyway, I'm going to use this opportunity to go off on Glimmadora:

I love this ship. And sure, for all the normal reasons, it's cute, it's wholesome, it's soft. But I like it for a lot more than that. I sincerely think it's an excellent dynamic. The two start out as staunch enemies. But not personal ones. They've never wronged one another. They've never even met. They were simply born and bred to hate/fight one another. Glimmer is a princess, the very thing Adora has been trained from childhood to destroy. And Adora is a key cog in the Horde machine that took her father away from her, strained her relationship with her mother, and essentialy structured her ENTIRE life. She was born into a war, and has never known anything else. Neither has Adora.

And yet, within hours of meeting each other, when they are at first hostile, they are then forced to work together and quickly come to realize that there entire lives have been built on propoganda, essentially. Yes the Horde is evil. But this is just a girl who was drafted into an army, who has never seen the outside world until today, who doesn't know what her own birthday means. And this other girl is a Princess, sure... But she's not a monster. She's not burning villages or murdering Horde soldiers? Upon putting aside their differences, Glimmer and Adora accept one another for who they are as individuals and that only grows throughout the seasons. There's never a moment where Glimmer ever acts as anything but supportive towards Adora and her various insecurities for the first 3 seasons. And likewise, Adora depends on Glimmer's support and comfort and it bolsters her as both a person and in her role as She Ra.

More than that, they are both the person the other needs, in a sense. Adora needs a person who isn't afraid to challenge her own stubbornness and her sometimes single mindedness. She needs someone who gently supports her through the rough times, but who also pushes her to be better when she feels hopeless. Glimmer does all this for her and more, just by being herself. It's a wholesome, fluffy ship, sure. But it also makes sense and portrays what a sincerely healthy relationship looks like in media and that's SO GOOD. They have their drama, and their arguments, anyone in any kind of relationship does. But it all stems from a desire to protect and care for the other and I'm going on for far too long, moving on--

3.) My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character:

Scorpia!!! She and Adora are at odds from the get go because of their contrasting relationships with Catra. But they're really fairly similar and I think eventually they'll be good friends. They're both very kind hearted and brave and forgiving. I can imagine Adora really giving up on herself and Scorpia being there to tell her how great and strong she is like she always did for Catra. They'd also have 'strength-offs' or sparring sessions and it'd be super cute. Be friends pls ;-; season 5 pls...

4.) Unpopular opinion about this character:

Um.... I mean it's ship related, but I think Catradora is detrimental to Adora's character and development as a whole? It detracts from all of her growth as a character thus far as well as her escape from an abusive home environment. But that's a whole other post I could make, so I'll leave it there.

5.) One thing I wish would happen to this character in canon?

I think we all want this, but I want Adora to S N A P. I want her to break emotionally and let all that grief and rage and guilt fuel her for a bit. We've seen glimpes of it. But I want her to get a moment to FEEL everything she obviously stuffs down for the sake of being She Ra, everyone's hero and hope. I want her to just be Adora and to break down to her lowest point so that she can finally start to heal. I think season 5 has set it up perfectly and now it just needs to knock the pins down. And I can't wait to watch 👀

6.) Favorite friendship for this character?

BOW! Bow is a great friend in general, but he is EXCEPTIONALLY patient with Adora and really listens to her. I STILL remember the moment in Mystacor during season 1 when he listens when Adora says she used to punch things in the Horde instead of relaxing. When the hot springs don't work, his next suggestion is that they find her something to hit! He is a good boy ;-; and a gentle friend and I wish season 4 had given them more conversations. They had plenty of time together but they didn't actually interact or talk much, which is weird. Bow is the guy I can see Adora goes to when she has questions that embarass her about Etheria, or relationships, or big scary topics. Because he'd approach them calmly and wouldn't talk down to her.

I also really wish Adora and Mermista interacted more because their opposing attitudes contrast so hysterically.

7.) My crossover ship:

HMmMMmm interesting..... I'd probably go with Kara Danvers!! Supergirl. Both are essentially aliens to their planet, adopted by families that teach them how to BE a hero in both their personal and "professional" lives. They are both lovably dumb with hearts of gold that just want to do the right thing but fear they can't. They'd have a lot in common. Also both strong and blonde and blue eyed and I -- 👀👀

That's it!!! Thank you for letting me scream about Adora ❤❤🥺

[bloodraven55]

She Ra Avatar AU Notes

I’ve seen so much blessed art of this AU recently and it inspired ideas in me. I don’t know if I’ll ever get round to trying to write this fic and these are just rough starter notes since the planning is far from finished but I figured I’d share my thoughts so far to see what people think. It’s been a while since I watched Avatar and the Legend of Korra, though, so please tell me if I’ve been a dumbass somewhere cause I really need to rewatch sometime lmao.

Characters:

Adora - currently the Avatar (of course lol) but formerly the favoured ward of the Fire Lord

Catra - the neglected and mistreated other ward of the Fire Lord

Shadow Weaver - a powerful advisor to the Fire Lord who’s working towards her own agenda

Hordak - the Fire Lord bent (haha yeah forgive my shitty pun) on conquering the world

I haven’t got round to figuring out the others much yet, okay, but I promise they’d be there, leave me alone.

Plot:

I’ve stuck kind of close to canon for the most part but obviously adapted to fit the alternate setting and with some other tweaks.

Catra and Adora were both taken in by the Fire Lord after they were found as orphans in a poorer part of the Fire Nation. He took them in because he has no biological children to succeed him and so he raises them both to continue his legacy. They’re pitted against each other constantly since there can only be one heir to the throne but they develop a strong friendship regardless much to Hordak and especially Shadow Weaver’s displeasure.

As they grow up Catra is progressively treated more and more like second best despite their similar levels of ability. She assures Adora it’s fine and she doesn’t care about becoming the next Fire Lord. She’s telling the truth that she doesn’t care about having a position of power, but lying that it doesn’t bother her that Adora gets such different treatment. Adora takes her at her word and Catra’s resentment and isolation grows which eventually leads to her choosing not to leave with Adora when Adora escapes the Fire Nation. I'm sure this all sounds very familiar but we’re getting to some more exciting stuff now, I promise.

Speaking of Adora running away from the Fire Nation, let’s move onto that. Shortly after she arrives at the Fire Nation palace the Fire Lord and Shadow Weaver realise that Adora’s the Avatar since she can bend all the elements, not just fire. So to try and prevent her from ever figuring that out for herself they punish her for bending any elements other than fire and avoid giving her any information about the Avatar. They hope they can use her full power for their own ends in the future once they've slowly convinced her of what they’re planning.

However, when she’s around 18 Adora eventually stumbles across a well-hidden book in a room in an out-of-the-way part of the palace while looking for Catra cause Catra be good at hiding when she don’t want to talk lmao and discovers the truth of who she is. With her whole world suddenly turned on its head she realises she can’t stay in the Fire Nation and so she leaves, but not before pleading with Catra to come with her and well we all know how that goes.

Anyway thus Adora escapes to Republic City where she meets and befriends Bow and Glimmer along with the rest of the crew and eventually rallies the people to stop the Fire Nation’s quest to control the world.

Meanwhile with Adora gone Catra is suddenly being treated more nicely but it’s a double-edged sword as she’s also landed with more responsibility. She climbs to the top before realising she doesn’t actually want to be there, and there’s a whole slow burn redemption arc where she ends up working with Adora to sabotage the Fire Nation from the inside. Basically she sort of fills the roles of Zuko, Azula, and the Blue Spirit all in one.

Those were the things that came to me right away but I got a lot more stuff to work out lol.

Random ass details:

There would definitely be Catradora later in the story cause I am trash. No, it’s not just because I love the idea of Adora sneaking into the Fire Nation palace at night to see Catra and I cannot get the classic scenario of Shadow Weaver almost walking in on them making out when she comes to shit on Catra cause let’s be real she has no other hobbies and Adora having to hide under the bed while Catra awkwardly tries to pretend there was no one else there out of my head. Not at all.

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

Spop magic and classifications and stuff but honestly the main point of this is the thing with Glimmer at the end

also this is mainly based on season 1 since i can’t really watch s2

Etheria’s got, as far as I can tell, two basic kinds of people who can do magic in some form or another

There’s the Sorceresses like Glimmer’s dad and aunt who’s magic we haven’t really seen much in action yet, but who I’ll have some BIG guesses for anyways, and then there’s the Princesses like Queen Angella and Mermista/Perfuma/Frosta

And there’s also Razz, but I lowkey get the feeling Razz is a category unto herself

- Let’s start with Sorceresses

Shadow Weaver counts as a Still A Sorceress since she’s using a Rune Stone but doesn’t seem to have a normal connection to it, has trouble forcing the connection sometimes, needs her nifty red mask control gem thingy to access it, and could probably pick someone else to draw power from if she had to. She’s just draining it like a giant magical mosquito, fitting since she too is annoying as hell

Castaspella is a Sorceress who currently leads Mystacor, like both Light Spinner and Micah also used to do, but the way the hall of former leaders is set up-

(non-linear I presume and more of a memorial to the fallen/dead Greats)

[I like to headcanon Micah installed Light Spinner’s statue after he became a leader, in monument to the good that she used to be, and Castaspella later wrecked it sometime after he was killed]

-and the little I’ve heard of Light Spinner’s fall flashback in s2 makes me think Mystacor is ruled more by a council than by one single person, even though the council might have an unofficial leader who most of them trust and defer to. And this council is probably made up of masters of magic or the equivalent of teachers- People so good at magic and guiding others in learning how to use it and be responsible with it that they are given a say in how Mystacor as a whole is run  

This would mean there’s another class of magic user, Sorceresses lite, that aren’t at that level yet and haven’t been accredited as experienced enough to lead/teacher others. They’re main job is to keep studying magic until they are, OR leave Mystacor and start their own lives once they’ve learned enough to not cause mayhem with their powers

THIS would ALSO mean there are people who have magic or the potential to use magic but who haven’t yet or choose not to be trained as a sorceress. Once again going off my very limited s2 info, I’d guess Adora fitted into this slot before becoming She-Ra, and it was her potential for magic that Shadow Weaver was drawn to. Maybe she was hoping to steal it or could tell it was linked to a Rune Stone or some other power she’d never felt before. Maybe she just likes collecting powerful people and brainwashing them. Whatever  

And then there’s Razz. Razz might be magic. Razz might be friends with a magical broomstick that comes to her hand when she beckons. Razz has lived longer than the immortal queen of Bright Moon, long enough to know the previous She-Ra was disappeared/died over a thousand years ago. Razz is a beautiful mystery and I hope she’s stays that way

- So that’s the sorceresses, but what about Princesses?

The classic Etherian Princess has a natural connection to one Rune Stone that seems to be passed down genetically from parent to child. The Rune Stone on a global scale is important to keep Ehteira the planet alive and habitable, and the Princess’s main job is to correctly maintain, use, and protect it, which on a local scale means the area near the Rune Stone would ALSO be protected. This makes for pockets of safety and stability that people would over time flock to and populate, and the Princess’s power to protect that land would then make them the protector of the people now living there to, and thus Princesses as rulers comes to be  

She-Ra is a Princess but can’t be a ruler since her whole point seems to be acting as Etheria’s referee/IT troubleshooter for all things Rune Stone related. She needs to stay impartial and has to be able to move around freely, so her Rune Stone is small and portable and has some powers but gets its real importance from how it can boost and heal the other bigger Rune Stones

On the other hand, Entrapta is a princess, a sovereign ruler, without a Rune Stone and frankly I can’t imagine what kind of Rune Stone her family would have anyway. Maybe one linked to earth and metal or magnetic force? Their land is in the mountains and does operate mines- Point is though, she has no such Rune Stone and doesn’t mention having lost one, so I’m going to assume that Entrapta at least has never heard of Dryl having a Rune Stone at all. She ‘rules’ because her family ruled, though there doesn’t seem to be much left to rule and she mainly just does her own tech related stuff anyway. But she IS considered a ruler by Bright Moon and her family has a big throne thingy at the rebel council table

Considering the crowd at the Princess Prom and the ridiculous number of Rune Stone that’s translate into, I’d bet most of Etheria’s princesses are like Entrapta, princesses without and uppercase ‘P’ or a Rune Stone. They’d be more like normal royalty or officials who use the term ‘princess’ thanks to cultural tradition made by the actual Princesses  

Oh and Spinerella and Netossa don’t have thrones in at the rebel council table and don’t seem to represent any sovereign lands like Entrapta would have, so I’m assuming they either aren’t the direct heirs to their Rune Stones OR they’ve lost both Rune Stones and homelands to the war (explaining why they never left the Alliance, since they have nowhere else to go and nothing else to do but fight the Horde) OR they fall into another category of princesses, in their case meaning “someone with no Rune Stone who isn’t currently a ruler but who might come from a royal line and does have powerful magic and may have trained at Mystacor so back off”.    They might be princesses in title, but i think that magic wise they sorceresses- Sorceresses who chose to focus all their skill on one thing, or have some weak blood tie to a line of Princesses which makes them more attuned to one kind of magic over all others. Could also explain how they met, with both of them going to Mystacor for training and getting put in the same ‘class’, maybe under Casta, seeing as how she likes knitting so much and their powers have to do with nets and spinning.... or maybe that hobby came after she had to figure out how to teach them.. i dunno. To paraphrase Bow, I still have no Idea what they do 

Lastly we’ve got Scorpia who has the potential to link to her family Rune Stone but that link was severed/never activated, she doesn’t seem to have any other magic, and she comes from a royal family but neither she nor her family are in rulership positions anymore. She’s a princess in title only at the moment

- To sum up, Etheria may have:

Princesses (rulers with Rune Stone)   Angella, Perfuma, Mermista, Frosta, various unknown others 

/Princess/ aka the current She-Ra (not a ruler but has a smol and very important Rune Stone)   Adora, formerly Mara

princesses (rulers with no Rune Stone)   Entrapta, most of the people at the Princess Prom

?princesses? (not a ruler and no Rune Stone but still titled and has magic)   Spinnerella?, Netossa?

‘Princesses’ (not a ruler and not currently connected to family Rune Stone but has Princess lineage)   Scorpia

High Sorceresses (a ‘ruler’/teacher who co-leads Mystacor and has magic)   Castaspella, Micah formerly, Light Spinner formerly

sorceresses (someone who has magic and is trained in its use)   ^ plus Shadow Weaver, most of the background characters at Mystacor, and (spoiler character)

mage (untrained person with magic potential)   Adora formerly

Razz (has magic? Probably?? Maybe the magic’s different or she just as her own style of using it???)

everyone else (people with none of those things)    Bow, Seahawk, Catra (unless she turns out to be a Princess), most of the Horde and Etherians

-

Okay so that’s a lot but pretty simple! Sure would be a shame if something flipped it on its head :D :D

Hmm

- Princesses ARE sorceresses. Kinda. It’s complicated

What is a sorceress? Someone who has magic and has been trained to use it. But what does it mean to ‘have’ magic?

Well considering how the Rune Stone system is set up-

Rune Stone: (im guessing) Crystalline structure apparently anchored to a fixed point that contains vast amounts of ‘elemental’ magic capable of manipulating/generating a narrow range of Etheria’s natural features, such as it’s water, it’s moons, ice caps, forests etc. Rune Stones seem to located at, and draw from, nexus points in Etheria’s magical ley lines, which means they are also linked to and capable of drawing on each other if a certain genius should happen to get her hands on First Ones’ tech and decide to try hacking the entire damn planet for fun (thanks Entrapta)

-and if we don’t want to make a magic system that is silly, overpowered, and broken, then I’d say having magic means being able to sense the power innate to a world and potentially being able to harness it to create all sorts of neat effects, depending how you train and how much you can stand to pull into yourself at a time without exploding or fainting from pain

The main difference between a sorceress and Princess in that scenario?

Specialization

- So in the beginning there were NO Princesses or Rune Stones on Etheria

Either A: Etheria was a barren rock floating in the middle of nowhere that the First Ones decided to terraform and inhabit- Or B: Etheria was a normal planet before some First Ones’ related event caused it to start dying and the First Ones felt bad about that and made the Rune Stones as a sort of planetary life support system, which was super convenient when Mara ended up banishing the place to the empty pocket dimension of Despondos for whatever reason

In any case, if there was once no Rune Stones or Princesses naturally aligned to them, then how were the Rune Stones used? How were they maintained?

By sorceresses of course. And with the help of the only Princess of any kind at that time- She-Ra, Princess of Power and Castle Greyskull, who made/helped to make the Rune Stone system based on her own portable Rune Stone, and who the other later Rune Stone users titled themselves after, because mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery  

When Glimmer’s link to the Moonstone is disrupted and when the link between the Sea Gate and the Sea Pearl is on the point of breaking, She-Ra’s powers are able to fix it. Makes sense that she was also the one to originally forge the links between certain sorceresses and Rune Stones- Sorceresses who gained control over incredibly powerful magical storage tanks and refineries, but at the cost of being able to use their magic for anything BUT accessing their one Rune Stone

Basically I imagine a Princess’s magic being shaped like scaffolding or pipe system, compared to sorceresses having hammers and pillars

- Princesses can hold and channel a lot of magic, but not change what kind of magic it is or it’s general effects (Water, moonlight, plants, ice, ?storms?) and effectively have NO magic without their Rune Stone

- Meanwhile sorceresses have less power to work with because no Rune Stone but can change it into this or that as needed and draw it from potentially any source EXCEPT Rune Stones (usually, see Shadow Weaver’s painful shenanigans for how trying to force a connection to one works out) though they normally just get it from the smaller branches of Etheria’s ley lines

To use another analogy- They drink magic out of a straw, can change what flavor they’re drinking when they like, and would passed out if they tried chugging a whole keg like how Princesses can do

The Princesses can only chug one brand though and no one else can afford to buy it

But wait!

If She-Ra can make sorceresses into Princesses, then why isn’t THAT how new Princesses are picked?

Why not choose from a pool of trained and vetted adults, rather than pass the power down through a family via blood and end up with kids and teens in control of the whole world??

Maybe making Princesses comes at a high energy cost/and or needs both She-Ra and He-Man working together to actually do, meaning it was more of a one time deal thingy when the whole Rune Stone network was being set up

Maybe selecting each new Princess WAS the old system, and imprinting it genetically was just a safety measure in case anything happened to prevent new Princesses from being picked….Something like…. She-Ra vanishing for a thousand years… or Etheria getting cut off from the rest of the universe and Eternia… for example

So yeah, one way or another, some people who could use magic had their magic permanently keyed into just the Rune Stones and managed to pass that trait down through the generations, and the other magic people stayed normal sorceresses

Now to the whole point of this long meandering mush of headcanons and speculation

- Magic and Glimmer -

I must talk about Glimmer

(i love you Glimmer)

Glimmer doesn’t seem to be a normal or ‘proper’ Princess

Her powers are two things and those are fairly small in scope, self-teleportation with a buddy and sparkles. Not exactly on the same level as generating whole forests or summoning giant tidal waves or holding up a castle of ice while it tries collapsing on your heard

Princesses, when their Rune Stone isn’t sick of busy trying to prop up a dying defense system, tend to have pretty large scope powers 

Glimmer? Not so much 

She’s more like Spinnerella and Netossa than Mermista or Perfuma. Powers more narrow, with both her and the Spinnet couple having to get creative with how to use what is basically the same one or two spells. Meanwhile the other Princesses have very fluid control over their one element, basically moving it as an extension of themselves in whatever way they like and on a big scale

So why’s Glimmer’s magic Like That?

Could be that only one person can have main access to a Rune Stone at a time, meaning Glimmer won’t become the real Princesses of the Moonstone until/unless her mom gives up HER link to it and passes one the admin password, meaning Glimmer is stuck with just some really limited powers for the foreseeable future

Could be, but while that makes sense in some ways, like why none of the other Princesses have anyone in their family help them use their Rune Stone-

(though that could also be explained by stuff like, Mermista’s dad being tried of fighting or incapable of using the Rune Stone because he married into the family, or not wanting to risk ending the line by having everyone in it out fighting, or former Rune Stone users being able to sever their connections when they step down and doing that as part of the official transfer of power..)

-but the idea also really doesn’t mesh with a lot else about Glimmer and her relationship to Angella

There’s no resentment between them, not in the ‘Mom why won’t you give me moar powar’ way, and not in the ‘im not sure this person can be trusted with a magical nuke’. There’s no talk of Glimmer training her magic to prepare for someday maybe having to take full control of the Moonstone. Glimmer is scared of not living up to the same level as her mom, yeah, but she’s talking about things like being a good leader, not leveling up magically

So I don’t think her mom being Princess is keeping Glimmer’s magic stunted

Instead, thanks to her dad’s genes, I think Glimmer isn’t actually a Princess. Not in the total sense. Not in the traditional or official sense

Because a traditional Princess, going by the rules I’ve laid out above, WOULDN’T have been able to ‘switch’ from Moonstone to Black Garnet, even partially, the way Glimmer’s escape in ep 9 and resulting glitches make it look she did 

(more on that in a second) 

So. What if Glimmer is a sorceress?

A sorceress who, through sheer will and stubbornness and her desire to help people and make her mom proud and not be a failure daughter, managed ON HER OWN what Shadow Weaver needed a forbidden spell to get

What I’m saying is, Glimmer unknowingly figured out how to feed off the magic of the Moonstone

Just like with Shadow Weaver, staggering to the Black Garnet to recharge, this has made Glimmer dependent on its power in a dangerous that way other Princesses haven’t shown to share yet. Angella’s fear when Glimmer comes back nearly drained of magic in ep 3 is very real, very much a parent scared their child might be about to drop dead if they don’t get them treatment in time, mirroring Bow’s fear when Glimmer runs low on magic in Thaymor

They were both scared she could die if she got too low on magic. Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn’t, but running low on it definitely does seem to be painful for her, just like it is for Shadow Weaver

Glimmer can drain magic and specifically knows how to do it from a freaking RUNE STONE

A skill she used to pull the Black Garnet’s power INTO herself and her teleportation in ep 9, creating a paradox that made impossible for it to imprison her, and accidentally overwriting her link to the Moonstone with a new one with the Black Garnet

And her Glitches? If she linked with the Garnet, then why the Glitches?

Her glitches were caused by two different Rune Stone links bleeding into each other, something that isn’t supposed to be possible and they aren’t set up for and turns out doesn’t work so well when the person dealing with this has never even TRAINED to be a sorceress

Speaking of the Glitches, that’s the main reason why I think Glimmer could have figured out the whole Drain Magic spell on her own without realizing it

During the battle for Bright Moon in ep 12, Glimmer fights with Scorpia on her way to protect her mom. In that fight with Scorpia, Glimmer has a lightbulb moment

She has a moment when Scorpia has her pinned, keeping her from her mom who is need help right now, which makes Glimmer pissed enough she starts Glitching and somehow SHOVES Scorpia back with brute force (pls rekt me Glimmer)

Then Glimmer, who’s still Glitching, looks down and sees how her Glitches and red lighting are now running up her dad’s old staff

and she goes ‘OH’

and smiles

And she deliberately uses her Glitches, the Black Garnet’s red lightning, to blast Scorpia away

also look. The last frame after she zapped Scorpia. Glimmer isn’t Glitching anymore, but the red lightning? The Black Garnet’s magic??

it’s still there

and that could be animation wonkyness but hey this is speculation, and also also- Compare the first time she stabbed a Horde bot at the start of the battle, before she learned her new trick, to the one she stabbed right AFTER

The electricity on the first bot is blue. Maybe it’s normal and just a sign Glimmer managed to hit the right spot to make it explode. Maybe it’s the last drops of magic her dad stored in the staff when he was a alive

but when she stabs the bot attack her mom? the electricity's a different color

this time it’s red/orange  

So maybe she didn’t just stab it that time. Maybe Glimmer had figured out how to zap things even when she wasn’t Glitching, and hit the bot with everything she had

Glimmer took new magic, magic she has no experience with and no training in, magic that has been HURTING HER, and in the course of one battle, she found out how to use it to her own ends anyway

She harnessed the damn Glitches and weaponized them

Now imagine her as a kid going to the Moonstone day after day, lying under and glaring up at the Rune Stone who’s magic she can’t use yet. Imagine her promising herself she’d prove herself worthy of it, as any daughter of Angella the immortal queen, in Glimmer’s mind, should and NEEDS to be worthy

Especially during a war. Especially with the Alliance broken and the Rebellion left on the defensive against the Horde. Especially when Glimmer is already unsure if she can be a good enough leader or Princess in any other way, and needs every tool she can get if she’s going to help save more innocent people from dying like her father did

I can totally imagine that princess-slash-untrained sorceress breaking a few magical traditions without even noticing it

plus think of the drama if she ever found out that, not only is she not a ‘proper’ princess, but she’s actually been using the same spell that let Shadow Weaver rise to power 

mmm.... delicious angst.... 

or Adora figures out how to She-Ra correctly someday and now Glimmer has to choose if she wants to lock her power to the Moonstone permanently or keep the magic she’s scraped together herself 

and maybe that’s also a choice of gaining ‘immortality’ & wings like her mom, or staying mortal like all her friends and probably someday leaving her mom behind just like her dad did when he died     

anyway yeah, both canon and headcanon Glimmer own my heart and soul and i cannot stop thinking about her 

[takerfoxx]

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Season 4, Episode 7, First Impressions!

tl;dr of my reactions to this episode:

Oh, fun!

Oh, wow!

Oh, no...

So, uh, haha, this episode was a rollercoaster.

Now, whenever I’m watching a new episode, I like to take notes in the back of my mind for these reactions, like coming up with a catchy intro. And for this one, I was thinking that I was going to say something like, “Well, that was fun!” Because that’s what I expected from the first few scenes, one last barrel of laughs and gags before the drama hammer comes down.

But then the hammer came down in this episode, and oh my God...

I love it.

See, I’m pretty much the easiest lay in the world for stories that start of funny and goofy and what have you, only to turn around and hit you with something dark and terrifying. It’s not an easy thing to do, but when you pull it off, it’s kind of incredible, and this show has done that several times, with this being one of the standout examples.

Like, there were just so many twists, so many gambits and gotchas and re-contextualizing scenes that it was almost like an episode of Death Note! And I love it whenever the show plays loving tribute to a classic pulp genre, this one being the whodunnit mystery in a dark castle during a storm.

So, to start things off, the Rebellion finally gets clued in that there’s a spy in their ranks, and everyone reacts differently. Frosta’s accusing everyone, Perfuma’s freaking out, Bow’s convinced that it’s him even though everybody knows right off the bat that it isn’t, Sea Hawk won’t shut up about his exploits, Adora just knows that it’s Shadow Weaver, and Glimmer has had it up to here with...just about everything. Again.

And then there is Mermista, the gang’s resident dramatic goth/geek, who immediately goes all Agatha Christie on everybody, complete with big gestures and declarations in time with lightning cues, which she pulls off because she practices at home!

Because of course she does.

Anyway, at first this felt like a successor to Roll With It, where all the characters get the chance to tell their side of what happened in their own...unique...fashion. Of course since we all know that DT is behind everything we’re about to pick out the inconsistencies in everyone’s stories, but from their point of view it just gives them more reason to be suspicious of each other, which is exactly what DT wants. On a side-note, those past character cameos gave me a laugh, like how Entrapta’s servants apparently have just been hanging around the whole time, the buff florist is just...there, and they dragged poor Netossa and Spinnerella away from a date to interrogate them and brought the romantic violin player with them! Yeah, they were not amused.

Anyhoo, before we go on, I do have one little quibble, and that has to do with DT. Like, I get that they disguised themselves as an adorable go-getter She-Ra fan who wants to be a Rebellion soldier, but how does that translate into letting Flutterina into their inner circle? As if in, taking part in the Queen’s special operations alongside the princesses and sitting in on their secret meetings? Like, does the Rebellion just not have any soldiers at all? Are the princesses and friends doing everything? If so, all the Horde would have to do is feint an attack on one stronghold to draw the gang that way and just steamroll everything else, and they wouldn’t need DT as a distraction.

Well, anyway, the first twist did kind of take me by surprise, though when I saw DT sneaking around the dining room it did click that they had picked up on her tricks and set a trap. And I have to say, that performance of fighting was very convincing, something DT appreciated, seeing how much they appreciate good acting. Even Shadow Weaver was involved, which cannot be good news, if even Adora is now letting her participate.

Unfortunately, though they finally caught the mole and got their hands on DT, it does them no good. Because in a twist that I did not see coming at all, it’s far too late. The Horde had pulled an Ozymandias. DT wasn’t fucking with them to further some long-term scheme, they were just keeping them isolated in the castle while the scheme was underway.

That morning, in fact.

That shot of Salineas is chilling. I mean, they even bring in the child’s doll lying in ashes trope. I mean, I already knew that Hordak and Catra were responsible for mass murder, but it’s one thing to know that, and another to see it. And while I know Catra has some kind of turnaround coming, I hope she’s at least still held responsible for this. Holy shit.

And that last shot! I’m guessing that this episode was written as a backup season finale in case they had to split it again, and it certainly works as one. Horde Prime is still coming. The clock is ticking.

[amyadamsnews]

Amy Adams on equal pay, family life and her grittiest role to date

In a corner of the genteel lounge of Los Angeles’s iconic Chateau Marmont, Amy Adams is launching into the opening lines of the Abba classic The Winner Takes It All – and it’s pitch-perfect. With other Hollywood actors, this tuneful showcase of talent, five minutes into an interview, might come across as showing off.

But the star of American Hustle, Nocturnal Animals and Arrival – a five-time Academy Award nominee and the recipient of two Golden Globes – seems atypically unstarry. Our conversation has simply prompted a demo of one of her great passions: karaoke. 

Fresh-faced and freckled, today, the 43-year-old is dressed casually in jeans and a peach blouse, her red hair pulled into a loose ponytail. In spite of her success on the big screen, you might not recognise her if she strolled past you on the street.

She’s one of the most in-demand actors in Hollywood, skilled at switching between roles – from wide-eyed and vulnerable in Junebug, which launched her leading-lady career, through tough-talking and trashy in The Fighter, to religious fanatic in The Master and – most memorably – sexy, seductive con artist in American Hustle.

Amy’s latest part looks set to make her more immediately familiar, however. Next month, she stars in HBO’s hotly anticipated new mini-series Sharp Objects, an adaptation of the novel by Gillian Flynn, author of the bestselling thriller Gone Girl. ‘I’ve been attracted to Gillian’s work for years, because she creates these incredible, flawed females,’ she says.

Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée (who also directed last year’s critically acclaimed TV hit Big Little Lies), Sharp Objects is set in small-town Missouri, where restraint, manners and strong cocktails mask brutal violence and deep dysfunction.

Amy plays what is easily her darkest, most damaged character to date: Camille Preaker, the acerbic, alcoholic, self-harming protagonist. Recently released from a psychiatric unit, Camille, a reporter, is dispatched to Wind Gap, the town in which she grew up, to investigate the murder of two pre-teen girls. 

It quickly becomes clear that the intense pain that affects her also infests the other women in her family – her uptight, neurotic mother, Adora (Patricia Clarkson) and her manipulative younger half-sister, Amma (star-in-the-making Eliza Scanlen).

As is becoming increasingly common among Hollywood’s leading ladies, Amy was also an executive producer on the series. It was she who suggested French-Canadian director Vallée. ‘There’s something about the way he tells women’s pain: he circles around it, yet gets to the heart of it,’ she says.

‘He’s not afraid to approach the violence in a way that’s also very emotional.’ For his part, Vallée praises Amy’s bravery in taking on bleak themes. ‘It was scary material, and she was so courageous to tackle this, to be so naked – literally and metaphorically,’ he says.

To help her dig into the darkness, Gillian Flynn recommended she read A Bright Red Scream. ‘It’s first-person accounts by people who self-harm,’ explains Amy, who had to wear prosthetic scars from the neck down during filming. She admits it wasn’t easy to leave Camille behind at the end of each day. ‘I’ve trained myself not to bring a character home, but there were times – whether from living in her head space or just exhaustion – when I suffered insomnia.’

The role also required her to research the psychological condition Munchausen syndrome by proxy, which causes a parent to harm their son or daughter to create the illusion that the child is ill. ‘I did a lot of reading about that too,’ says Amy. ‘It’s so against every parental instinct I have, so I just can’t imagine it. Our daughter [seven-year-old Aviana] has been hurt twice in a way that required trips to the hospital and that’s not something I’d ever want to revisit – it was traumatising.’

Happily, both Amy’s disposition – upbeat, energetic and quick to laugh – and her family life would appear to be a far cry from Camille’s. She and her husband, Darren Le Gallo, met in 2001, at an acting class in Los Angeles, and today live in the city’s glamorous Hollywood Hills. She describes their life as ‘quiet’, save for the odd karaoke night out, or in – the family’s portable karaoke machine even accompanies them on holiday.

When Amy travels for work, her husband and daughter generally go with her. ‘If I’m on my own, I engage in not-great behaviours, like hotel-room eating – sitting in bed every night with a bag of crisps and salsa and a beer,’ she admits.

The middle child of seven, Amy was born on a military base in Vicenza, Italy, where her father was stationed at the time. Her parents were Mormons and, although their adherence to the faith was ‘more cultural’ than overtly religious, ‘church played an important part in our social interactions’, she has said. ‘It instilled in me a value system I still hold true.’ 

The family eventually settled in Castle Rock, Colorado, when Amy was eight, where her father, having left the army, began singing professionally in nightclubs and restaurants. The rest of her family was more sport-orientated. ‘I was surrounded by these incredibly coordinated siblings who excelled at everything, whereas I just liked to read in my room,’ she laughs. 

Her parents divorced when she was 11, and left Mormonism. Her mother, Kathryn, a former gymnast, was also, for a while, an amateur bodybuilder. ‘We have a good relationship, but my mom is tough and always challenged me to push myself,’ says Amy. ‘I wasn’t allowed to be afraid of things, even though I’m naturally very risk-averse. For instance, if a guy pulled up on a motorcycle, I’d be like [adopts goody-goody voice], “Don’t you understand that those are just coffins on wheels?”’

When her mother would take her to her gymnastics class, she goes on, ‘She would say: “We’re not leaving until you do this really tricky move.” That taught me to do things I was afraid of, because the sense of pride in having done something difficult was always worth it.’ It’s a skill that appears to have served her well in her career.

‘I had a kind of autonomy from childhood on,’ she continues. ‘There were so many of us that I knew my parents weren’t going to be funding my life, meaning my choices were my own and I wasn’t worried about what they thought of them.’

She gave up gymnastics, focused instead on dance and trained at a local ballet school. At 18, however, she decided she wasn’t good enough and switched her focus to musical theatre. She worked in dinner theatre for a few years before scoring a chance to audition for Drop Dead Gorgeous, the 1999 beauty-pageant comedy starring Kirstie Alley and Kirsten Dunst, in which Amy played a promiscuous cheerleader.

With Alley’s encouragement, at 24, Amy moved to Los Angeles, where her first few years attempting to break into the industry weren’t easy. ‘I auditioned a lot, but couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working,’ she has said. ‘The problem was a lack of confidence and self-esteem,’ she tells me today. 

In 2004, she was cast as the lead in the CBS series Dr Vegas, alongside Rob Lowe, but the show was dropped after just a few episodes. At that point, she considered quitting the industry.

‘I began thinking I should do something that was more secure,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t willing to be as unhappy as I was in danger of becoming and I didn’t like what it was turning me into.’

Then her fortunes began to turn around. In 2005, she was cast as the lead, Ashley, in the indie comedy Junebug. Her portrayal of the garrulous pregnant woman won her the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and two years later, scored her the part of Giselle, the optimistic princess, in Enchanted.

Achieving success at 31, rather than 21, has its advantages, she now believes. ‘At least I was able to enjoy my 20s before anyone was paying me too much attention,’ she sighs, nostalgically. ‘No Instagram, no Twitter, no Facebook – thank God! I had a bad habit of taking photos on disposable cameras that didn’t belong to me. I have no idea how many complete strangers’ cameras I mooned into back then!’ she laughs.

Since the downfall of Harvey Weinstein and the rise of the #MeToo movement, are there incidents from early in her career that she feels she wouldn’t be OK with now?

‘Yes, and I wasn’t OK with it back then either,’ she says. ‘I had to audition in a bikini. I didn’t get the role, because the character would be filmed wearing one and I don’t look good in swimwear.’

I scoff at this claim. ‘I really don’t,’ she insists. ‘And that’s OK – that’s not why I was put on this earth. But I don’t know a single woman, working in any industry, who doesn’t have a story like that, about feeling vulnerable.’

I wonder whether, beneath her sanguine exterior, some of the self-esteem issues she mentioned earlier still lurk. Despite being petite, Amy is surprisingly self-deprecating about her body.

‘I always look pregnant in photos,’ she claims with a laugh. ‘I wear loose dresses because I have a paunch. It’s not a big paunch, but it’s there!’ And she’s less than comfortable being snapped on the red carpet. ‘I understand it’s part of the job, but it’s not my favourite place,’ she has said.

‘I love fashion, but having to be somebody who promotes that industry has always been a tricky one for me, because of the way it affects women’s sense of self,’ she says. ‘I’ve lectured several designers about their sizing. If a dress in my size is five inches too small for me, what’s happening?’

Even before the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements began, Amy was catapulted into the centre of rows about sexism within the industry. When thousands of email accounts at Sony were hacked in 2014, the revelations about American Hustle focused mainly on the fact that Amy and her co-star Jennifer Lawrence were paid less than their male counterparts, Bradley Cooper and Christian Bale.

At the time, she chose not to comment. ‘Everyone wanted me to talk about how I felt about it, but I want to fight for people outside our industry, so to come out and look ungrateful about what I’m paid as an actress just didn’t feel right,’ she says today. 

‘I do believe in equal pay, but let’s start with our teachers. Let’s get waiters paid the minimum wage. That’s what’s great about what’s happening with Time’s Up – we’re starting to have bigger conversations than just about what’s happening in Hollywood.’

Other emails were also leaked, alleging that the film’s director, David O Russell, was so tough on Amy that Bale stepped in to address the problem. ‘He was hard on me, that’s for sure. It was a lot,’ Amy later said, and she has admitted in interviews that she cried ‘most days’ during the making of the film. ‘I remember saying to my husband, “If I can’t figure this out, I can’t work any more. I’ll just have to do something else. I don’t want to be that person, not for my daughter,”’ she has said.

When she talks about coping during the making of Sharp Objects, it’s clear that she was determined for it to be a very different experience. ‘I’m now able to think, “OK, I know what’s going on here. I just need to go to work, do my job, then come home, make dinner and do something grounding.”’

She was recently reunited with Bale for the upcoming biopic Backseat, about former US vice-president Dick Cheney. She whips out her phone to show me an image of her in character as his wife, Lynne, alongside Bale, who played Cheney, and both are virtually unrecognisable thanks to extensive prosthetics.

The lengthy process of transformation renewed her respect for her co-star. ‘I had to wear the prosthetics for only two weeks, but Christian was coming in at 2am every day to have his applied before the day’s filming started. His work ethic is just incredible.’ 

Amy is keen to do more producing, too. ‘There’s lots in pencil on the calendar, but I don’t talk about anything until it’s in pen,’ she says. Risk-averse to the end. And with that, she gives me her top karaoke-bar tips and slips back to her quiet life in the hills.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/amy-adams-equal-pay-family-life-grittiest-role-date/#comments

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The Best TV Shows of 2020

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Some year, eh? 

We’re often poetic about TV around these parts. It’s no secret that we like to sing its praises as a powerful, restorative, and maybe sometimes therapeutic medium. But during a dangerous, confusing year, delving into the many ways that TV “kept us sane” or whatever feels reductive. 

What we can say, however, is this: TV was around this year. And that’s no small feat as not every other medium was so lucky. Concerts and other live performances were canceled. The movie-going experience was upended (perhaps permanently), and even curling up with a nice book at a coffee shop was no longer an option for much of the year. The TV production schedule may have been disrupted, but for the most part, the television machine chugged along, providing us with a diverse (and often overwhelming) number of truly excellent options to take in.

This year we want to honor the best of those TV shows – not for any particular reason other than that it’s fun to do and we’ve all earned some year-end distractions. We had our staff vote on their favorite series, polled you the reader as well, then crunched all the numbers in an intensely complicated propriety equation (not really) to determine our winners. 

Please enjoy our choices for the 25 Best TV Shows of 2020. 

25. How To with John Wilson

How To with John Wilson is the heir to Nathan For You’s throne, which seems obvious considering the series boasts Nathan Fielder as an executive producer, but the new HBO series shares much of the fiercely beloved former Comedy Central series’ DNA. While Nathan For You used helping businesses as a jumping off point to explore social interactions and the funny, insane things that people may say or do if you point a camera in their face, How To with John Wilson purports to explain how to perform simple tasks like making small talk or splitting a check, but mostly showcases how beautiful, ugly, life-affirming, and odd life in New York City can be. It’s a difficult show to explain, but it uses dry narration and quick documentary-style footage to create laugh out loud set-ups and punchlines, and digresses into some of the most poignant, and “WTF” moments found in a comedy series. You may not learn much, but you’ll laugh a lot. 

– Nick Harley

24. The Plot Against America

TV writing geniuses David Simon and Ed Burns (The Wire, The Deuce) are masters of subtlety. Their many shows, several of which are among the best in TV history, know how to conquer small moments en route to a bigger, oft devastating picture. During these very unsubtle times then, how could they possibly adapt Philip Roth’s equally unsubtle book about creeping fascism in America, The Plot Against America? The answer, as it turns out, is with the same gentle touch and keen understanding of the human condition as they always employ.

Like Roth’s 2004 novel, The Plot Against America picks up in an alternate version of the American 1940s, where real life aviation hero and Nazi-sympathizing populist Charles Lindbergh is elected president. The show then follows the working class Jewish Levin family as they deal with the fallout. Simon and Burns’ subtle touch works uncommonly well here. The Plot Against America’s six episodes are in many ways about how gradually and imperceptibly things can get worse until one’s home is no longer recognizable. For obvious reasons, the series resonated this year but its ability to summon creeping dread would have played well just about any time. 

– Alec Bojalad

23. Lovecraft Country

A sprawling anthology with an overarching fable set in the depths of Jim Crow America in the 1950s, Lovecraft Country was an epic, political, sometimes gory, always ambitious sci-fi horror unlike anything else in 2020. Following the journey of Atticus (Jonathan Majors), Leti (Jurnee Smollett), and Atticus’s uncle George (Courtney B. Vance) on a mission to find Atticus’s missing father, the story combines real life racist horror with supernatural creatures inspired by H.P. Lovecraft.

Each episode is both a standalone story and part of the whole, playing with different subgenres. Ep 3 “Holy Ghost” is a classic haunted house tale with a historical twist against a backdrop of neighborhood racism, ep 5 “A Strange Case” is an extraordinary body horror which explores the female experience, 6 “Meet Me in Daegu” introduces a character from Korean folklore, while ep 8 “I Am” is a sprawling afrofuturist sci-fi. Created by Misha Green, exec produced by Jordan Peele and JJ Abrams, this is glossy cinematic stuff with a terrific ensemble cast. Talk about bang for your buck.

– Rosie Fletcher

22. His Dark Materials

If season one of this fantasy adaptation was carefully laying the tracks, then season two is hurtling along them, whooping out of the window as it goes. The new episodes started from the high-point of the season one finale and kept climbing. The difference is in tone – this time it’s warmer, keying more successfully into its characters’ emotional lives. It’s bolder too, demonstrating confidence by stepping away from the books to add scenes, humor and modern updates as required.

Season two, adapted from the second book in Philip Pullman’s original trilogy, sees Lyra and Will cross worlds and forge a bond. Will undertakes his own hero’s journey, one involving Spectres, a magical knife and the father he’d long thought dead. The real star though, is Ruth Wilson as Mrs. Coulter, a devilishly complex character into whose head this show is satisfyingly determined to get. 

Season two is an episode short, thanks to COVID-19, but we should be grateful it made it here on time at all. The real delight is all the talent and effort that’s gone into telling such a weird story, one that only gets weirder from hereon in…

– Louisa Mellor

21. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Season 5 of She-Ra was the show at its absolute best. Every restriction seemed to be lifted and it just let loose with all the joy, deepness, and big queer energy it had ever wanted to display. Bless it for that because it allowed the show to go out on the highest of notes. We’d be here all day if we listed all the fantastic plots this season and how everyone got a chance to shine but no moment stands out more than Catra and Adora kissing. 

It’s a moment queer fans had hoped for and were shocked it actually happened. Seeing two leads in a legacy property get to be not only confirmed queer but also kiss is still a rare sight and we can only hope it signals great change in animation going forward.  We’re sad to see She-Ra go but glad it got to end so perfectly. 

– Shamus Kelley

20. Pen15 

During the 2011 “Middle School” episode of This American Life, host Ira Glass interviews producer Alex Blumberg, who presents a radical new approach to education in America: get rid of middle school. Children’s bodies and brains are just simply too volatile in their preteen years to meaningfully learn anything in the years between elementary school and high school. Give them a break, then pick up and try again in a couple years.

It’s hard not to think of that interview when watching Hulu’s wonderful middle school comedy Pen15. Lead characters Maya (Maya Erskine) and Anna (Anna Konkle) are very rarely seen learning something in class or poring over their homework. And why would they be? There are boys to obsess over, school plays to audition for, and moments that will scar them forever to experience. 

Rarely has there ever been a more frank, honest, and hilarious exploration of the middle school years than Pen15. Much was made during the show’s first season about the adult Konkle and Erskine’s ability to portray their younger selves. And in season 2, they blend in so seamlessly that the novelty of the casting choice might never even occur to the viewer. 

– Alec Bojalad

19. I Hate Suzie

The last time playwright Lucy Prebble wrote a TV series for Billie Piper, it was 2007’s Secret Diary of a Call Girl. London-set, glamorous, sexy and funny, that was a distinctly twentysomething story. Over a decade later, Prebble and Piper reunited to do something different in I Hate Suzie; still funny, but rawer, more experimental, and probing all the ways that a thirtysomething woman’s identity – wife, mother, and in this case, celebrity – can be defined by everything except herself. 

Piper plays popstar-turned actor Suzie, whose life explodes when hacked photos of her cheating on her husband leak online. Suzie goes through the stages of grief in eight riotous half-hour episodes that experiment with form and genre. There’s drama. There’s satire. There’s singing and dancing. There’s Dexter Fletcher doing coke off a bare arse, and a whole-episode wank that explores the societal construction of female desire. It is, in modern parlance, a lot, in the most exhilarating and enriching way. These two had better not leave it another 10 years until their next collaboration. We demand more. 

– Louisa Mellor 

18. Rick and Morty

Did you hear? This guy turns himself into a pickle…a PICKLE! It’s wild. Every subsequent year that Rick and Morty airs, it gets harder to separate the “meme” of Rick and Morty from the show itself. Suppose that’s just what happens when a fanbase proves itself to be…uh, energetic, and the Merchandising Industrial Complex kicks itself into overdrive to produce some truly offensively bad Big Dog-style shirts. 

Removed from the meta of it all, Rick and Morty still churned out some great episodes of television in 2020. The back half of the series’ two-part season 4 all aired this year and there were real gems included among them. Though it proved to be divisive, “Never Ricking Morty” was certainly among the most structurally ambitious installments the show has ever attempted. Then there was just the sublimely hilarious “The Vat of Acid Episode,” which was enough to earn the show a Best Animated Series Emmy. 

– Alec Bojalad

17. Dark

Dark is already notable for reaching levels of popularity in the United States not often enjoyed by subtitled fare, but it also was afforded the rare opportunity to end on its own terms with its third season in 2020. Audiences fell in love with the generational stories of the families living around the nuclear power plant in Winden, Germany, marveling at casting choices for characters in their older or younger forms whose resemblances were spot on.

The time travel plot tied viewers’ brains into knots, but the desire to see an end to the apocalypse was made even deeper by the strong chemistry between Dark’s own Adam and Eve: Jonas and Martha. As the true source of the alternate timelines and causal loops became known, everything about the show’s reality was called into question, but the ending left a lingering question mark to entice fans to speculate long after the show had ended. 

– Michael Ahr

16. The Untamed

While The Untamed technically premiered in 2019, the Chinese xianxia drama was one of the escapist stories that most defined a year we all wanted to get as far away from as possible. Bursting onto the transformative fandom scene to come in ninth on Tumblr’s list of the most-discussed live action TV shows of 2020, the foreign-language fantasy series tells the story of supernatural flautist Wei Wuixan (Xiao Zhan) from his humble beginnings as a teen cultivator-in-training to his controversial role as a demonic cultivator war hero to his time as a masked detective after he is mysteriously brought back to life in a stranger’s body 13 years after his gruesome death. 

But, like any good melodrama, The Untamed is really all about the relationships. This is a complex emotional story about siblings and sects, honor and morality. At the heart of the interpersonal narrative is the epic romance between Wei Wuixan and his stoic swordsman boyfriend Lan Wangji (Wang Yibo). The Untamed is adapted from an explicitly queer web novel, but China’s anti-LGBTQ censorship laws require the series tell its love story via lingering gazes, clasped wrists, and declarations of undying devotion. The result is no less queer, as these canonical soulmates sacrifice everything but their fervid commitment to protect the innocent for one another. 

– Kayti Burt

15. The Haunting of Bly Manor

In 2018, Netflix shrieked its way into the spooky season game with the breakout hit The Haunting of Hill House. The streamer then afforded creator Mike Flanagan the opportunity to American Horror Story-ize his work into an anthology of his own, thus The Haunting series was born. In typical second child fashion, The Haunting of Bly Manor had a world of expectations to live up to, which included its often-adapted source material, primarily the novella Turn of The Screw by Henry James (or Hank Jim as we like to call him) among two other works. Flanagan, who’s a heavyweight in the horror genre at this point, again eschewed a direct remake for a loose adaptation with Bly Manor, a slow burn, but ultimately a deeply personal and satisfying tale of ghosts, both of the faced and faceless variety, intertwined with Gothic romance.

The returning players from the previous season, Victoria Pedretti (Dani), Oliver Jackson-Cohen (Peter Quint), Henry Thomas (Henry Wingrave), Carla Gugino (The Storyteller), and Kate Siegel (a surprise character in an excellent episode 8), bring back some of the winning chemistry from Hill House. However it’s the newcomers to the series, T’Nia Miller as Hannah Grose the housekeeper, Amelia Eve as Jamie the gardener, and Rahul Kohli as Owen the cook, whose standout performances ground Flanagan’s headier concepts, like the series’ mesmerizing fifth episode. It’s through these characters that Bly Manor poignantly articulates how love can be as much of a burden as it is a blessing. Not long after your Bly Manor binge is complete, Flora’s line, “You said it was a ghost story. It isn’t. It’s a love story,” will crystallize the throughline Flanagan was gunning for. And if that line isn’t a lasting memory of the limited series, perhaps it’s Owen’s lucious mustache, the best on TV in 2020, that will live on. 

– Chris Longo

14. Ted Lasso

In a relentlessly dark year, Ted Lasso was one of the few rays of sunshine that warmed our hearts. Its title character is so pleasant and optimistic, he makes Leslie Knope look like a curmudgeon by comparison. Folksy, thoughtful, and almost aggressively friendly, Jason Sudeikis’s Lasso is hired to lead a struggling English Premier League team in a move of sabotage, but ends up charming the pants off of the squad and proving the power of positivity. 

The character is practically impossible not to like, and in a time of so much anxiety and frustration, it’s refreshing to spend time with someone like Ted. The title coach isn’t the only reason to watch; the show features well-crafted characters with satisfying individual arcs, comforting, yet well-executed sports movie tropes, and funny fish out of water culture clash moments. Ted Lasso is a breezy, low-effort experience that makes you feel good. What more could you ask for in 2020? 

– Nick Harley

13. The Umbrella Academy

The first season of The Umbrella Academy was already a stellar achievement in adapting the gloriously weird Gerard Way/Gabriel Bá graphic novels, but season 2 took the show to another level in 2020. The varied reactions of the superpowered family to being stranded in 1960s Dallas were extremely enlightening and made the characters even more enjoyable with all of their quirks, flaws, and emotional depth.

Of particular interest was the manner in which Allison strove to lead a normal life with a husband that loved her despite the difficulties of being Black in the segregated South and her determination not to use her powers. Fan favorite character Ben also received a noble and inspiring arc that led to a completely new role for him in season 3. Although there are plenty of mysteries remaining, the unfolding backstory leaves us always wanting more of The Umbrella Academy. 

– Michael Ahr

12. The Great

“Russia must be saved, and I with it.” An occasionally true story from The Favourite co-screenwriter Tony McNamara, The Great is a satirical look at the rise of Russian monarch Catherine the Great (Elle Fanning, getting a chance to show off her comedic chops), from her arrival from Prussia as a naive teen bride to her time plotting the death of her husband, Emperor Peter III (Nicholas Hoult, seemingly having the time of his career). The Great is cutting, clever, and hilarious, but, like The Favourite before it, its true secret weapon lies in its moments of earnest emotion. 

The Hulu series revels in the often absurd nature of its subject matter, but not at the cost of ignoring the trauma and joys of its often gruesome world. The unpredictability of which kind of scene you will get next—absurd, deeply emotional, or both—creates a fantastic dramatic tension that sustains throughout the entire 10-episode first season, perhaps necessary in a story that, should it follow the broadest of historical strokes, the viewer knows will end in Catherine’s triumph. Huzzah! 

– Kayti Burt

11. Harley Quinn

This year, we found out the answer to a question that no one was really asking – “who would win: a big budget Birds of Prey DC spinoff movie starring Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, or one small Harley Quinn-focused animated series that was seemingly about to be left for dead on the ailing DC Universe streaming service?” Harley Quinn won, for everyone who cared to investigate, as the show leveled up in season 2 by having the balls to let Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel fall in love with her sardonic roommate Poison Ivy on screen and ditch any lingering feelings she had for the Joker, but for those not invested in the romance (they should go have a soup and rethink their priorities) there was so much else going on beyond deconstructing its central character.

Animated shows are typically seen as an immature, lesser form of entertainment than live-action series, but just imagining the creativity you’d need to come up with this many running jokes, in-jokes and meta jokes for the larger-than-life characters of Gotham is exhausting. There’s so much writing talent behind Harley Quinn that a third season wasn’t just expected, but demanded. And indeed, Harley Quinn will live on at HBO Max, but if it hadn’t happened, we’d do what the Doctor ordered and RIOT. 

– Kirsten Howard

10. BoJack Horseman

Through its superb six-season run, BoJack Horseman’s tonal brilliance came to be an expected fact of life. Early on, it was tempting to pull non-viewers aside, shake their shoulders, and yell in their face “No, you don’t get it! It’s an animated comedy about a horse that was a ‘90s sitcom, yes, but it’s also a searing exploration of depression, dysfunction, and the dismal nature of the human condition!” It’s to the show’s eternal credit that that stellar comedic/dramatic tightrope act became all but a given a few seasons in and the world adjusted to it thusly. But even with that level of familiarity and comfort, it’s jarring just how well the show pulls off that delicate formula in its final, and perhaps best season. 

BoJack Horseman season 6 premiered eight of its final 16 episodes in 2020’s first month and their dramatic resonance carried through the rest of the year. The story ends here as we always expected it might. BoJack’s past finally catches up to him, and when he becomes a pop culture pariah, he slowly begins to undo whatever progress he made throughout the series, culminating in a stunning penultimate episode where BoJack faces the infinite and meets up with all the figures in his life who died along the way. But it’s not until the show’s very end where the message comes into clear focus. BoJack has to start all over again, just like we all must from time to time. The difference this time is that the other people in his life are finally prepared to move on…possibly without him. “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if this night was the last time we ever talked to each other?” BoJack says to Diane as they look up at the Hollywood night sky. Wouldn’t it be funny indeed. 

– Alec Bojalad

9. Legends of Tomorrow

There is no superhero TV show that has strayed as far from its superheroic roots than Legends of Tomorrow. Despite the fact that its full official title is quick to point out that this is indeed DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, you’d be hard pressed to find a DC show less overtly concerned about its comic book roots, or even with any synergistic responsibilities it may have to the other DC shows in its orbit. Sure, Supergirl, Black Lightning, The Flash, and Stargirl are great, and they’re note perfect representations of what makes those characters special, but Legends does everything those other shows do, but with far less recognizable characters, with far more laughs, and an effortlessly perfect ensemble cast boasting chemistry for days.   

No matter how high the reality-altering stakes, it all seems less important than watching the friendships between this crew of superheroic time traveling misfits. Legends of Tomorrow is everything good and hopeful and pure (ok, well…maybe not pure, especially where Matt Ryan’s John Constantine is concerned) about superhero shows without any of the baggage, and often without the superheroics. Always hilarious and often surprisingly touching, there’s not a single superhero team on the big or small screen that you’d rather actually hang out with. You don’t have to love superhero TV to love Legends, you just have to love TV. 

– Mike Cecchini

8. Schitt’s Creek

People who love Schitt’s Creek LOVE Schitt’s Creek. It’s almost become cult-like in its following, so the arrival of the sixth and final season felt like an event and the end of a journey not just for fans of the show but the stars themselves. Season six isn’t the best season of Schitt’s – it leans into the schmaltz and sentiment heavily and throws realism to the wind in favor of the absurd but if you’ve come this far with the displaced Rose family and the sometimes odd but overall endearing residents of Schitt’s Creek, you won’t be disappointed. 

All the major players get their arc. Alexis and Ted’s separation is heartbreaking, Moira’s Crows movie premiere is a hilarious mess, some of the Jazzagals almost join a cult… the season is packed with ridiculous scenarios in between many more moments of genuine sweetness as it gently guides its characters to an end. The finale comes together with David’s wedding to Patrick – a perfectly idiosyncratic affair in the Schitt’s Creek town hall. It’s a moving send off to which we’re all invited. 

This is a show about family and community, created by a real family – father and son Eugene and Daniel Levy (sister Sarah plays Twyla) – that spawned a community of fans. This might be the end of Schitt’s Creek but we can always re-visit. 

– Rosie Fletcher

7. Devs

Alex Garland’s unsettling, yet visually gorgeous science-fiction parables are always thought-provoking, but FX’s Devs asks bigger questions than any of the writer/directors previous projects. Do we determine our own fates? Does the multiverse exist? Can computers predict our future? Devs isn’t just heady techno-philosophical musings, it spends its runtime being a pretty satisfying corporate thriller, with our protagonist Lily (Sonoya Mizuno) investigating the mysterious disappearance of her boyfriend.

This is a somewhat scathing indictment on Silicon Valley culture, with a Google-esque tech company operating with unmatched power in the shadows. Featuring a moving dramatic performance from Nick Offerman and a star-making turn from Sonoya Mizuno, Devs is just as pretty, existentially threatening, and hard sci-fi as Garland’s beloved films Ex Machina and Annihilation. If you love thrillers, but are also interested in Quantum Theory, this was the limited series you’d been waiting for in 2020.

 – Nick Harley

6. The Mandalorian (READERS’ CHOICE)

Starting with its first season and extending into its improved second, The Mandalorian just works. Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni’s creation about the galaxy’s most beloved bounty hunter dad is the kind of forward-thinking Star Wars project that works perfectly on a streaming platform. 

If you’re a massive Star Wars nerd, The Mandalorian continues to provide plenty of Easter eggs and callbacks for you, but the show excels at being both a fun reentry point for fans fatigued with the sequels and prequels, and a standalone adventure series for viewers who don’t have much knowledge of Star Wars at all, deftly creating a string of sidequests in a galaxy far, far away that put you firmly in the beautiful Lone Wolf and Cub-like tale of Mando and Grogu as they fly toward an unknown future.

As we recently learned, there will come a time in the next few years when we will be simply drowning in Star Wars TV series, as ten(!) of them are in development, but for now, we get to really savor the intricate worldbuilding going on in The Mandalorian.

This is the way. 

– Kirsten Howard

5. The Boys

The Boys was a breakout hit when it first landed on Amazon’s streaming service, but when the series returned, there was a bit of a backlash from fans of the show who were enraged that some of its new episodes would arrive weekly, unlike the binge-ready first season. Luckily, Season 2 had so many “what the fuck” moments in store that the griping soon quietened down, and the show eventually found its stride again after a slow start. Our diabolical, supe-fighting team led by a rather distracted Billy Butcher dealt with one bonkers revelation about Vought International after another this season, while the Supes themselves battled with their own humanity, and both groups often found common ground where they least expected it. 

It’s really hard to pick a favorite moment from Season 2, but if you’ve forgotten how out there it was, let us present a wild bouquet that includes “Homelander angrily wanking over the city in the form of his own demented Bat-Signal”, “The Seven filming a very (very) thinly-veiled Zack Snyder-esque superhero movie that had undergone a Joss Whedon rewrite”, “a massive-dicked supe-in-captivity called Love Sausage”, and “a timid child getting confidently pushed off the roof of a house by his own beaming father”. And that’s without bringing up the whole “immortal Nazi” stuff that occasionally propelled the narrative into Verhoeven-level satirical territory.

There were things that didnt work about Season 2, and we can argue about them forever, but there’s one thing that everyone can agree on: if Antony Starr doesn’t get two armfuls of awards for his performance as Homelander, a fucking travesty has occurred. 

– Kirsten Howard

4. I May Destroy You

On a night out while writing the second series of her acclaimed sitcom Chewing Gum, Michaela Coel was drugged and sexually assaulted by strangers. What she did with that experience – alchemizing it into a wise and fearless TV drama about trauma and survival – was extraordinary. 

I May Destroy You is an extraordinary series. In it, Coel plays Arabella, a young writer also drugged and raped on a night out, while under pressure from publishers to follow up her hit book debut. With long-ranging flashbacks, the story moves through the next year in Bella’s life. We see her draw power from her new identity as a survivor and (often clumsily) navigate close friendships and new sexual relationships. She strays from likeability, changing in response to what happened, and in a transcendent, experimental finale, teaches herself how to live.

Coel is a bewitching lead with excellent support from Weruche Opia and Paapa Essiedu as Bella’s friends Terry and Kwame. This is no dreary misery memoir. It’s surprising, confrontational, often funny and always buzzing with life – a frank and much needed course correction for telling this kind of story on screen.

 – Louisa Mellor

3. What We Do in the Shadows

Over the past decade of television, we’ve come to expect a lot out of our TV comedies. Since the Emmy Awards now categorize just about anything that’s 30 minutes long as comedy, the genre is now home to things like shockingly dramatic coming of age tales, intensely personal narratives, and experimental structures. This evolving of the half hour format is a welcome one. At the same time, however, sometimes you just want to laugh.

Enter What We Do in the Shadows. In its remarkable 10-episode second season, this FX adaptation of Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi’s movie of the same name made a serious case for itself as the funniest show on television. And it did so in shockingly simple fashion. In season 2, the character list remains short: just Nandor (Kayvan Novak), Laszlo (Matt Berry), Nadja (Natasia Demetriou), Guillermo (Harvey Guillen), and Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) make up the show’s cast of characters for the most part (give or take a Mark Hamill or Nick Kroll). And that’s all they need. 

This year, the writers and performers all operate at the top of their game to make every possible plotline work and every character pairing sing. The comedic energy is top notch from the season’s opening “Resurrection” episode through midseason classics “Colin’s Promotion” and “On The Run” and all the way to the finale “Nouveau Théâtre des Vampires.”

– Alec Bojalad

2. Better Call Saul

The penultimate season of Better Call Saul was an absolutely brilliant run of episodes that perfectly set the stage for a climactic conclusion that looks to be every bit as heart-wrenching and explosive as the final season of parent series Breaking Bad. The show successfully introduced Lalo, perhaps the most charismatic and terrifying villain in Vince Gilligan’s Albuquerque, and merged the series’ seemingly disparate storylines by bringing fan-favorite Kim Wexler closer to the dangerous dealings of the cartel.  

It turns out that Jimmy becoming Saul wasn’t the tragedy that we should have been anticipating, it was Kim embracing the Saul way that we should have been worried about. The show’s strengths have always been its meticulous attention to details, fascination with processes, and humanistic view of exactly why someone like Jimmy McGill might break bad and become a dishonorable huckster like Saul Goodman. Those strengths only became more apparent in the thrilling, low-key heartbreaking fifth season.

 – Nick Harley

1. The Queen’s Gambit

Oftentimes when assessing the quality of TV shows, we talk about how “timely” they are. In fact, if you scroll back through this list, you will find at least a few instances of just such language. The appeal to Netflix’s stylish, thrilling limited series The Queen’s Gambit, however, is just how timeless it is. And in a year with plenty of timely TV shows, that distinction was enough to launch the show to the very top of our best-of list. 

Though we on the television side of Den of Geek are loath to call any rightful TV show an “x-hour movie,” there’s no denying that The Queen’s Gambit fits that mold. But this is not just any kind of filmic experience. It’s a throwback to a ‘70s and ‘80s style of simple, elemental storytelling that simply knows how to win over an audience. The beats of The Queen’s Gambit are predictable, but elegant and perfectly executed. Beth Harmon (the ethereal Anya Taylor-Joy) is a quiet, wide-eyed hero armed with one skill that can make the world care about her and in turn make her care about herself. 

So she uses that skill and assembles her tools – her King, Queen, Bishops, Knights, Rooks, and Pawns, to embark on a classical bildungsroman journey of self-discovery and chess dominance. Like a deftly executed chess game itself, each of The Queen’s Gambit’s seven episodes acts like a move on a chess board. Some moments are triumphs, some are defeats, and some are sacrifices. But they all lead into one definitive, enormously satisfying checkmate. 

– Alec Bojalad

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Other shows receiving votes: Animaniacs, Ozark, High Fidelity, Star Trek: Picard, The Last Dance, Mrs. America, Solar Opposites, The Hollow, Killing Eve, Noughts + Crosses, Outlander, Star Trek: Discovery, Vida, Saved by the Bell, Lucifer, Gangs of London, Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet, World on Fire, Crash Landing on You, Infinity Train, Locke & Key, McDonalds & Dobbs, Into the Night, The Good Lord Bird, The Last Kingdom, DuckTales, Little Fires Everywhere, Normal People, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Pharmacist, Doctor Who, Away, Dublin Murders, Great Pretender, The Babysitters Club, Tiger King, The Crown, Ramy, The Shivering Truth, Perry Mason, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, The Undoing, Westworld, Doom Patrol, Stargirl, The Clone Wars, P-Valley, Bridgerton, Homeland, Stumptown, The Magicians, Bob’s Burgers, Primal, Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, Search Party, Roadkill, Raised by Wolves, The Flight Attendant, The Eric Andre Show, Defending Jacob, The Outsider, Julie and the Phantoms, Brave New World, Utopia, Carmen Sandiego, Brockmire, Somebody Feed Phil, Adventure Time: Distant Lands, Dead to Me, The Gift, Ghosts, YOLO: Crystal Fantasy, The 100, The Spanish Princess, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, Adult Material, Fargo, Deadwater Fell, The Flash, Archer, Weird But True, Evil, Motherland: Fort Salem, Baghdad Central

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• A king is a thing men have made for their own sakes, for quietness sake. Just as in a family one man is appointed to buy the meat. – John Selden • A lot of children don’t have a developed aesthetic. I did. I made early choices in life, even about cloth; I liked flannel and not polyester. – Patti Smith • A lot of the films I’ve made probably could have worked just as well 50 years ago, and that’s just because I have a lot of old-fashion values. – Steven Spielberg • A man who graduated high in his class at Yale Law School and made partnership in a top law firm would be celebrated. But a woman who accomplishes this is treated with suspicion. – Barbra Streisand • A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. – Albert Einstein • A significant piece of the wealth that the NFL owners garner is a result of the enormous TV revenues they get – and those revenues are supported by a legislatively granted exemption from the antitrust laws that has been made applicable to sports leagues, primarily the NFL. – Eliot Spitzer • Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. – Steve Jobs • All man-made religions are limited. I go my own way. – Jill Scott • All my books are made up of other books. They’re all deeply structured on other fiction, because I was a student in fiction and I didn’t have much actual living to draw on. I suspect a lot of other people’s novels are like that, too, though they might be slower to talk about it. – Zadie Smith • All my life affection has been showered upon me, and every forward step I have made has been taken in spite of it. – George Bernard Shaw • All of the films that I’ve made are about the country I live in and grew up in… And I think if you’re going to put an artist’s eye to it, you’re going to put a critical eye to it. I’ve always been interested in the gray area that exists between the black and white, or the red and blue, and that’s where complexity lies. – Robert Redford • All of the legal defense funds out there, they’re looking for people out there with court of appeals experience, because court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know, I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don’t make law, I know. I know. – Sonia Sotomayor • All those hours exploring the great outdoors made me more resilient and confident. – David Suzuki • All your losses will be made up to you in the resurrection, provided you continue faithful. By the vision of the Almighty I have seen it. – Joseph Smith, Jr. • And now that Martina McBride knows of T.I., and T.I. knows of Martina McBride, that made me very happy, too. It’s introducing worlds to different people and bringing them together with a song. – Kid Rock • Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let’s not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources. – Ronald Reagan • As a kid, my idols were Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson, and I get into crazy races with myself. Raimi was 21 when he made movies, and when I didn’t get ‘Cabin Fever’ made that fast I thought I’d failed. – Eli Roth • As someone who has spent many years marveling at the brilliant and painstaking work of the doctors, scientists and researchers at St. Jude, I can attest firsthand to the bone-deep commitment these men and women have made in their fight against disease. They are at it around the clock – every hour of the day, every day of the year. – Marlo Thomas

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Made', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shpp All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_made').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_made img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Being a mom, it feels like I did something so powerful and amazing. It’s such a gigantic blessing, and a confirmation that the Creator exists. And all of that has made me feel sexier and stronger. I call it ‘lava in my spine.’ – Jill Scott • Being an artist doesn’t mean that you’re a good artist. That was the bargain I first made with myself: I’d say, I’m an artist, but I’m not really very good. – Paul Simon • Being fired was the best luck of my life. It made me stop and reflect. It was the birth of my life as a writer. – Jose Saramago • Big government helps the people who have made it. It doesn’t help the people who are trying to make it; it crushes the people who are trying to make it. – Marco Rubio

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling] • Champions are made from something they have deep inside of them-a desire, a dream, a vison. – Mahatma Gandhi • Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them-a desire, a dream, a vision. – Muhammad Ali • Coming Home had been made before and Apocalypse Now and Deer Hunter, different kinds of movies. – Oliver Stone • Conductors’ careers are made for the most part with ‘Romantic’ music. ‘Classic’ music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it. – Igor Stravinsky • Dane DeHaan, certainly, is kind of the best friend I’ve made through acting, in terms of another actor. He’s fantastic. – Daniel Radcliffe • Death is something inevitable. When a man has done what he considers to be his duty to his people and his country, he can rest in peace. I believe I have made that effort and that is, therefore, why I will sleep for the eternity. – Nelson Mandela • Dinner was made for eating, not for talking. – William Makepeace Thackeray • Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of. – Benjamin Franklin • Dramatic fiction – William Shakespeare made his biggest mark writing dramatic love stories. – Nicholas Sparks • Even if I’d had a really happy relationship with my father and there was no emotional hiatus for a decade and a half, I probably would still have made some of the same choices for movies that I’ve made. – Steven Spielberg • Even in India the Hindi film industry might be the best known but there are movies made in other regional languages in India, be it Tamil or Bengali. Those experiences too are different from the ones in Bombay. – Aishwarya Rai Bachchan • Every piece of entertainment is made with the idea that ‘This is going to be terrific’ and ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever done’ and then it hits the public and then the public tells you whether it’s good or bad. – William Shatner • Every record that I’ve ever made, I listen to it so much before it comes out. As soon as it comes out, I never listen to it again. It’s, like, over. – Gwen Stefani • Everything I’ve done has always been my own made up world with its own rules and its own made up stories. – Robert Rodriguez • Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than the exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise. – John Tukey • Fashion is such stuff as dreams are made on. – Anna Dello Russo • Few professors would dare to publish research or teach a course debunking the claims made in various ethnic, gender, or other ‘studies’ courses. – Thomas Sowell • Free time keeps me going. It’s just something that’s always been a part of my life. I was originally a painter, and I made films sort of as an extension of that, and then I started to try to make dramatic films because the early films were experimental films. – Gus Van Sant • Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way. – Henry David Thoreau • Great progress was made when arbitration treaties were concluded in which the contracting powers pledge in advance to submit all conflicts to an arbitration court, treaties which not only specify the composition of the court, but also its procedure. – Ludwig Quidde • Hendrix was the first person I had come across who seemed completely free, and when you’re nine or 10, your life is entirely dominated by adults. So he represented this thing that I wanted to be. Hendrix was the first person who made me think it might be good to be a singer and a guitarist – before that I wanted to be a footballer. – Robert Smith • History is made every day. The challenge is getting everyone to pay attention to it. – Adora Svitak • Hope founded upon a human being, a man-made philosophy or any institution is always misplaced… because these things are unreliable and fleeting. – Charles Stanley • How do you know antiquity was foolish? How do you know the present is wise? Who made it foolish? Who made it wise? – Francois Rabelais • I also believe our country made a promise to veterans and their families. Veterans have kept their end of the bargain, and now, the VA is looking to pull out the rug. – Ellen Tauscher • I am a most noteworthy sinner, but I have cried out to the Lord for grace and mercy, and they have covered me completely. I have found the sweetest consolation since I made it my whole purpose to enjoy His marvellous Presence. – Christopher Columbus • I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday. – Eleanor Roosevelt • I became very famous, as a teenager, and my name and photo were splashed in all the media. They made me larger than life, so I wanted to live larger than life, and the only way to do that was to be intoxicated. – Cat Stevens • I behaved worse than anybody for 15 years, and you have to pay the price for that. I used to blame other people, then therapy made me realise I had to change. – Mickey Rourke • I believe any success in life is made by going into an area with a blind, furious optimism. – Sylvester Stallone • I believe that the purpose for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation. – Siegfried Sassoon • I can tell you that too much money is corrupting American politics. Don’t blame the American public. The U.S. Supreme Court has a lot to answer for, because it has made it impossible for Congress to reduce the corrupting influence of money on American political life. – Peter Singer • I can’t get into all that physical stuff of having to have flawless skin… Sometimes you see people and it looks like someone’s got an eraser and made their face a little blurry – their traits seem to go out of focus. – Kristin Scott Thomas • I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest. There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is. – Edward Snowden • I come from a violent background. So I became hard. I realised that I had made myself that way to deal with a feeling of abandonment and shame. – Mickey Rourke • I couldn’t understand why my productivity went down when I had deliberately made more time available to write. Then I realized it was because I wasn’t flying as much. – Simon Sinek • I created my MySpace page in eighth grade, because that’s how all my friends talked to each other, so I made one, too. Then, all of a sudden, my friends started putting my songs on their profiles, and then their relatives, their friends in different states did. – Taylor Swift • I dated dozens of young men, had fun with all, made commitments to none. – Gene Tierney • I didn’t come from a trailer park. I grew up middle class and my dad had money and my mom made my lunch. I got a car when I was sixteen. I’m proud of that. – Kid Rock • I didn’t know Michael Hastings very well, but one thing about him was always obvious – he was born to be in the news business, he loved it, he was made for it. He wrote about Iraq and Afghanistan as places he had always been destined to visit. – Matt Taibbi • I didn’t leave home until 27. I was an only child raised in Philadelphia by my mother and grandmother. My grandmother controlled the stove. She made a lot of potato meals – mashed potato, potato souffle, potato pancakes. When we didn’t have electricity we ate romantically, by candlelight. – Jill Scott • I didn’t run off with the secretary. It made it seem like I had committed adultery and then ran off with a secretary, neither of which happened. – Randall Terry • I didn’t want to write a book. They made me do it. – Grace Slick • I don’t think any drug that can cause brain damage, failing kidneys, hardening arteries, pain, and suffering should be made available. – Layne Staley • I don’t think films about elderly people have been made very much. – Maggie Smith • I feel good because I believe I have made progress in rebuilding the people’s trust in their government. – Arnold Schwarzenegger • I felt alien my whole life but I didn’t feel alien because of my gender. Other people made me aware of my gender. – Patti Smith • I had a brother who was my savior, made my childhood bearable. – Maurice Sendak • I had a handful of records, but when I was 11 years old, I liked Puccini as much as Little Richard. They both made sense to me. – Patti Smith • I had seen movies before that that had made me laugh, but I had never seen anything even remotely close to as funny as Richard Pryor was, just standing there talking. – Joe Rogan • I hated singing. I wanted to be an actress. But I don’t think I’d have made it any other way. – Barbra Streisand • I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear. – Rosa Parks • I know that a good many champions have entertained the thought that the more they discourage youngsters, the longer they would reign. However, this theory never impressed me, and I always made it a point to give youths the benefit of my experience in bicycle racing. – Major Taylor • I know that I am one and I’ve made a living as an actor and I enjoy being an actor, but when I’m not actually doing it, I forget that I do it. – Wallace Shawn • I listened very, very carefully to the world around me to pick up the signals of when trouble was coming. Not that I could stop it. But it made me observant. That was helpful when I became a lawyer, because I knew how to read people’s signals. – Sonia Sotomayor • I look a hundred and weigh 110 – you won’t love me when you see the wreck England has made me. – Wallis Simpson • I looked up and saw the shape of a heart made by the silhouette of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon kissing. – Sarah Silverman • I love things made out of animals. It’s just so funny to think of someone saying, ‘I need a letter opener. I guess I’ll have to kill a deer. – David Sedaris • I love to fish offshore for billfish, and have fished all over for them from the Bahamas, St. Thomas, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico to the Texas gulf. I haven’t made it to Australia yet, but someday I’m going. – George Strait • I made a lot of money. I earned a lot of money with CNN and satellite and cable television. And you can’t really spend large sums of money, intelligently, on buying things. So I thought the best thing I could do was put some of that money back to work – making an investment in the future of humanity. – Ted Turner • I made ‘Empire of the Sun’ in Shanghai in the 1980s and want to come back one day to make a movie in China. – Steven Spielberg • I made my fair share of mistakes. – Arnold Schwarzenegger • I made my first album, and I guess it wasn’t a fluke, because now I’m on my 16th. – Bonnie Raitt • I made my last motion picture in March 1965 for Magna Pictures. ‘Harlow,’ based on the life of actress Jean Harlow… I didn’t know at the time that ‘Harlow’ would be my last motion picture. – Ginger Rogers • I made one great mistake in my life-when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made but there was some justification-the danger that the Germans would make them. – Albert Einstein • I made ‘Saving Private Ryan’ for my father. He’s the one who filled my head with war stories when I was growing up. – Steven Spielberg • I made sure no butt cheek hung out. You know, the original Daisy, Catherine Bach’s shorts were shorter than mine. – Jessica Simpson • I remember my dad came from Ireland and Scotland, and so he carried with him the fear of poverty. So when I wanted to break loose, it kind of made him very nervous. – Robert Redford • I respect and empathize with reporters and editors who must compete in today’s environment. And I know full well that when I’ve been covering campaigns, which I still do, I’ve made my mistakes and have been far from perfect. – Dan Rather • I run a lot. I do a lot of yoga. Hot yoga. Which is random and sounds lame, but it has definitely made my flexibility and balance 100 percent better on my skateboard. I do that and a lot of plyometric, biometrics, and surf. I train every other day of the week and skate for an hour everyday. – Ryan Sheckler • I sacrificed six years in L.A. I did my job out here. I made contacts and did the work I had to do. – Amanda Seyfried • I signal with an independent label, Continuum. After that I put out a totally independent record, sold fourteen thousand of them from my basement, bought a house, started raising my kid, made a decent living. – Kid Rock • I suppose what’s happened recently has confirmed suspicions I voiced in the book, and I think made clearer some of those things that I point out. For instance I have a section of the book where I talk about the possibility of torture. – Peter Singer • I tap danced for ten years before I began to understand people don’t make musicals anymore. All I wanted to do was be at MGM working for Arthur Freed or Gene Kelly or Vincent Minelli. Historical and geographical constraints made this impossible. Slowly but surely the pen became mightier than the double pick-up time step with shuffle. – Zadie Smith • I think a painting is more like the real world if it’s made out the real world. – Robert Rauschenberg • I think being on a film set for such a long time made me a technical actor without realizing it. – Daniel Radcliffe • I think Democrats made a mistake running away from liberalism. Liberalism, uh, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John and Robert Kennedy – that’s what the Democratic party ought to reach for. – Theodore C. Sorensen • I think every movie I’ve made after ‘Indiana Jones,’ I’ve tried to make every single movie as if it was made by a different director, because I’m very conscious of not wanting to impose a consistent style on subject matter that is not necessarily suited to that style. So I try to re-invent my own eye every time I tackle a new subject. – Steven Spielberg • I think God made a woman to be strong and not to be trampled under the feet of men. I’ve always felt this way because my mother was a very strong woman, without a husband. – Little Richard • I think it’s harder to forgive ourselves for mistakes that we made because we keep dwelling on it. We want to know how it affects other people, if they liked us for it, if they didn’t like us. I think we stress over it, we replay it in our mind. It becomes an old tape that years later we continue to play it in our mind. – Sherri Shepherd • I think that horror films have a very direct relationship to the time in which they’re made. The films that really strike a film with the public are very often reflecting something that everyone, consciously or unconsciously feeling – atomic age, post 9-11, post Iraq war; it’s hard to predict what people are going to be afraid of. – Eli Roth • I think the first thing you should know is that nobody in country music ‘made it’ the same way. It’s all different. There’s no blueprint for success, and sometimes you just have to work at it. – Taylor Swift • I turned down ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Spider-Man,’ two movies that I knew would be phenomenally successful, because I had already made movies like that before and they offered no challenge to me. I don’t need my ego to be reminded. – Steven Spielberg • I usually do about five cuts as a director. I haven’t ever directed a film where I haven’t made five passes through the movie, and that takes a long time. – Steven Spielberg • I wanted to make sure that the man who found the genie would not take terrible advantage of her, so he needed to be a person of integrity and honor – which is why I made the male lead an astronaut. The rest, as they say, is history. – Sidney Sheldon • I was born on the other side of the tracks, in public housing in Brooklyn, New York. My dad never made more than $20,000 a year, and I grew up in a family that lost health insurance. So I was scarred at a young age with understanding what it was like to watch my parents lose access to the American dream. – Howard Schultz • I was sitting in a chair in the patent office at Bern when all of a sudden a thought occurred to me: “If a person falls freely he will not feel his own weight.” I was startled. This simple thought made a deep impression on me. It impelled me toward a theory of gravitation. – Albert Einstein • I wasn’t trying to be an outlaw writer. I never heard of that term; somebody else made it up. But we were all outside the law: Kerouac, Miller, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kesey; I didn’t have a gauge as to who was the worst outlaw. I just recognized allies: my people. – Hunter S. Thompson • I went to Massachusetts to make a difference. I didn’t go there to begin a political career running time and time again. I made a difference. I put in place the things I wanted to do. – Mitt Romney • I would have made a lousy stripper. I’m just not very comfortable exposing myself. – Robin Wright • I’d like to believe an accumulation of experience has made me a sort of a grown-up person, so I can have judgment and taste and whatever. – Maurice Sendak • Ideologists of all kinds find a strange sort of comfort in the madness of the crowd; it confirms them in their suspicion that history, far from being made by the great mass of individuals – as Marx averred – is rather unmade by a single massive individual, a collective Other, who stands in stark contrast to you and he. – Will Self • If I revealed all that has been made known to me, scarcely a man on this stand would stay with me.’ and ‘Brethren, if I were to tell you all I know of the kingdom of God, I do know that you would rise up and kill me. – Joseph Smith, Jr. • If some really acute observer made as much of egotism as Freud has made of sex, people would forget a good deal about sex and find the explanation for everything in egotism. – Wallace Stevens • If the audience is made to do not enough work, they resent it without knowing it. Too much and they get lost. There’s a perfect pace to be found. And a perfect place that is different for every line of the play. – Tom Stoppard • If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The Earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself, and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty. – Chief Joseph • If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of. – Bruce Lee • If you made a record, I’d probably pick out tracks that I like and download that. That’s just how it is. – Ringo Starr • If you write a movie for Roger Corman, it’s going to get made. You saw it almost the next day. – John Sayles • If… many influential people have failed to understand, or have just forgotten, what we were up against in the Cold War and how we overcame it, they are not going to be capable of securing, let alone enlarging, the gains that liberty has made. – Margaret Thatcher • I’m a lifelong movie addict, and one of my favorite projects is making replica props and costumes. Nearly every one of these – from R2D2 to Hellboy’s revolver – ends with the paint job. And it’s not just cosmetic. The paint literally tells a story: what this thing is made of, where it’s been, what it’s been used for, and for how long. – Adam Savage • I’m strongly for a patient Bill of Rights. Decisions ought to be made by doctors, not accountants. – Charles Schumer • I’m thankful I grew up the way I did. It made me a hard worker and insightful to other people’s lives. – Rachel Roy • I’m very used to working with first time actors – you can just look back at ‘E.T.’ with Drew Barrymore, and Christian Bale from ‘Empire of the Sun,’ who’d never made a movie before. – Steven Spielberg • In all professions each affects a look and an exterior to appear what he wishes the world to believe that he is. Thus we may say that the whole world is made up of appearances. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld • In the Bible it says God has made everything good for man to eat and to wear their skins. Whenever we eat beef, we eat chicken, we have to kill to eat. But at the same time, hunting is a sport. I think it is a great sport… I would say most hunters are Christian men. – Luke Scott • In the heart of the Great Depression, millions of American workers did something they’d never done before: they joined a union. Emboldened by the passage of the Wagner Act, which made collective bargaining easier, unions organized industries across the country, remaking the economy. – James Surowiecki • In the old days, when a star left a still-thriving hit show, they’d celebrate by killing him or her off. But ‘The Office’ dispatched Michael Scott in a crueler and more final way: they made him normal. Since we’re talking about Michael Scott, ‘normal’ might be stretching it, obviously. – Rob Sheffield • It is impossible to get anything made or accomplished without stepping on some toes; enemies are inevitable when one is a doer. – Norma Shearer • It never made sense to me that someone would achieve any kind of success in show business, only to become a jerk. – Josh Radnor • It took putting one foot in front of the other every single day to get through it to the point where I made it back on the team and won a gold medal in 2008. – Hope Solo • It was God’s word that made us; is it any wonder that His word should sustain us? – Charles Spurgeon • It was Nietzsche who first made us conscious of the significance of the individual as a term in the evolutionary process-in that part of the evolutionary process which has still to take place. – Herbert Read • It was not until I had graduated from college that I made a professional commitment to it. Frankly, I didn’t think it wise. I was my own interior parental force, and it’s very difficult to justify a profession as a dancer. – Twyla Tharp • It’s a great thing when you can show that you’ve been successful and that you’ve made a lot of money and that you’ve employed a lot of people. – Donald Trump • I’ve always made music from the heart, and that’s what I do. And at the end of the day, whether it works or not, I can say I tried my best. – Kid Rock • I’ve been around the world and I’ve had bras made in different places, and each time I’m experiencing the same troubles: the painful shoulders, the underwire cutting into my flesh. – Jill Scott • I’ve been on ‘Days’ since I was 16, and being surrounded by such thin, gorgeous actresses made me so insecure and self-conscious. – Alison Sweeney • I’ve been playing against older and stronger competition my whole life. It has made me a better tennis player and able to play against this kind of level despite their strength and experience. – Maria Sharapova • I’ve been working as an actress since I was very young, and I know a lot of people who are actors who don’t have to deal with having a persona… You know, if you look up the word persona, it isn’t even real. The whole meaning of the word is that it’s made up, and it’s like I didn’t even get to make up my own. It can be annoying. – Kristen Stewart • I’ve definitely done something that’s made my mum and dad forever proud. – Tinie Tempah • I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. – Maya Angelou • I’ve made a decision and now I must face the consequences. – J. Michael Straczynski • I’ve made a lot of stupid action films. But when we made The Matrix, we saw that people wanted more than that. – Joel Silver • I’ve made films that I’ve given all I had to, that no one has seen. The bottom line is I want to work and I want someone to enjoy it. – Kiefer Sutherland • I’ve made mistakes, I’ve misspoke, I am sure I will again sometime, but that happens, that’s part of being human in my book. I’m OK with that. I’ve never done it maliciously, ever. – Curt Schilling • I’ve made sure that in any situation and with any record label, I’m allowed to write my own music. – Taylor Swift • John Boehner is the ultimate Beltway hack, a man whose unmatched and self-serving skill at political survival has made him, after two decades in Washington, the hairy blue mold on the American congressional sandwich. – Matt Taibbi • Leaders aren’t born they are made. – Vince Lombardi • Leaders aren’t born they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal. – Vince Lombardi • Linux has definitely made a lot of sense even in a purely materialistic sense. – Linus Torvalds • Literary life used to be quite different in Britain in the years I lived there, from 1971 to 1989, because money was not a factor – no one made very much except from U.S. sales and the occasional windfall. – Paul Theroux • Men’s moral principles are weak enough without their being made subordinate to selfishness; and their selfishness is quite active enough, without any such effort as Christianity makes to constitute it the mainspring of all their conduct. – Lysander Spooner • Mitt Romney has made it clear that he believes that President Obama was born in the U.S. – John Sununu • Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants. – Benjamin Franklin • Money’s really – you know, song writing, yes, there’s money to be made and things like that. But really, when you talk about the real money, you talk about touring. No question. – Kid Rock • My bed isn’t made, I’m tired, I haven’t slept well for two weeks. I haven’t been laid in a month. I don’t have a girlfriend. I have a warrant for my arrest. – Layne Staley • My dad was a bartender. My mom was a cashier, a maid and a stock clerk at K-Mart. They never made it big. They were never rich. And yet they were successful. Because just a few decades removed from hopelessness, they made possible for us all the things that had been impossible for them. – Marco Rubio • My family wasn’t terribly affluent and looked upon money very carefully as something that had to be saved, not spent. My father built the ducting that took air into the copper mines and made about 6 d a yard in the Thirties, which was good money back then. – Wilbur Smith • My father had a series of blue-collar jobs and never made more than $20,000 a year. When I was seven, he got injured on a job. That was a very important point – because of the injury, he couldn’t walk, and the company he was working for did not pay him. There was no compensation. So there was no money and no food. – Howard Schultz • My first year on ‘SNL’, I made $90,000 dollars. – Chris Rock • My mom has made it possible for me to be who I am. Our family is everything. Her greatest skill was encouraging me to find my own person and own independence. – Charlize Theron • My mom was a working woman. She made more money than my dad. Both my parents worked. And this was in the ’60s. – Rick Santorum • My sister made certain choices about the life she wanted. Those choices include a steady job, a husband and children. But balance and stability come at a cost. It is harder for her to be spontaneous. It is harder to just up and leave. – Simon Sinek • Nemeses aren’t born. They are made. – Roxane Gay • No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently. – Agnes de Mille • Nothing made by brute force lasts. – Robert Louis Stevenson • Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. – William Shakespeare • Parents shouldn’t assume children are made out of sugar candy and will break and collapse instantly. Kids don’t. We do. – Maurice Sendak • People are made up of flaws. – Amanda Seyfried • People who have been made to suffer by certain things cannot be reminded of them without a horror which paralyses every other pleasure, even that to be found in reading a story. – Stendhal • People will never forget how you made them feel. – Maya Angelou • Practically and commercially speaking, a dollar is not necessarily a specific thing, made of silver, or gold, or any other single metal, or substance. It is only such a quantum of market value as exists in a given piece of silver or gold. – Lysander Spooner • Religions are such stuff as dreams are made of. – H. G. Wells • Sam Wood, the director, made most of his money as a real estate agent; there was nothing of the temperamental artist about him. – Gloria Swanson • Sculpture is made with two instruments and some supports and pretty air. – Gertrude Stein • Secure our borders first. Let us know and let us make sure the American people know that we’re taking care of the important business of dealing with the illegal immigration into this country. You cannot begin to address the concerns of the people who are already here unless and until you have made certain that no more are coming in behind them. – Michael Steele • So I still seized the power, but I felt that if I officially made myself the boss, in black and white, it would be too intimidating for the other producers and the other men who worked on the show. In other words, I had the power, but I gave them the title. – Marlo Thomas • Some people think it’s because ’24’ was jump-started by what happened on 9/11. That was never why we made the show. We started production six months prior to 9/11, and we’d already done ten episodes. – Kiefer Sutherland • Such as we are made of, such we be. – William Shakespeare • Sunset Boulevard opened in August 1950, and it was pronounced the best movie ever made about Hollywood. – Gloria Swanson • The Bible tells us that God will meet all our needs. He feeds the birds of the air and clothes the grass with the splendor of lilies. How much more, then, will He care for us, who are made in His image? Our only concern is to obey the heavenly Father and leave the consequences to Him. – Charles Stanley • The campaigns of Steve Forbes, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, and John McCain all outperformed expectations on their support from independent voters. They made no effort to shy away from ideology, but conveyed to voters that their policies were driven by principle, not party talking points. – John Sununu • The Cannes film festival is about big-budget films but also remarkable films made in different political regimes by film-makers with little resources. – Kristin Scott Thomas • The claim made by Team Obama that every dollar in stimulus translates into a dollar-and-a-half in growth is economic fiction. The costs of stimulus reduce future growth. No country has ever spent itself to prosperity. The price of stimulus has to be paid sometime. – Karl Rove • The decision he made with Usama bin Laden was a tactical decision. It wasn’t a strategic decision. The strategic decision was made by President Bush to go after him. What President Obama has done on his watch, the issues that have come up while he’s been president, he’s gotten it wrong strategically every single time. – Rick Santorum • The fact is that America’s weapons systems have made it impossible for anybody to confront it militarily. So, all you have is your wits and your cunning, and your ability to fight in the way the Iraqis are fighting. – Arundhati Roy • The formal education that I received made little sense to me. – Twyla Tharp • The good life is one that’s artistically made. – William Shatner • The greatest films ever made in our history were cut on film, and I’m tenaciously hanging on to the process. I just love going into an editing room and smelling the photochemistry and seeing my editor wearing mini-strands of film around his neck. – Steven Spielberg • The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness. – Paul Theroux • The minute you or anybody else knows what you are you are not it, you are what you or anybody else knows you are and as everything in living is made up of finding out what you are it is extraordinarily difficult really not to know what you are and yet to be that thing. – Gertrude Stein • The mistake that straight people made was imposing the monogamous expectation on men. Men were never expected to be monogamous. – Dan Savage • The most important decision I’ve made in business? The choices of people I have around me. When I first started I brought everybody with me, my homies from the neighborhood, criminals. I just said, ‘Come on everybody, we made it.’ Then I had to realize we didn’t make it. I made it. – Snoop Dogg • The number one mistake is giving pets table scraps. I made the mistake thinking I was showing my dog love by giving her food and treats. You see a tiny 4 oz. piece of cheese, but for a Boston Terrier like mine, that’s like one and a half hamburgers. That’s unhealthy. – Alison Sweeney • The only peace that can be made with a dictator is once that must be based on deterrence. For today, the dictator may be your friend, but tomorrow he will need you as an enemy. – Natan Sharansky • The only people who benefit from lawsuits are lawyers. I think we made a couple of them rich. – Gavin Rossdale • The people made worse off by slavery were those who were enslaved. Their descendants would have been worse off today if born in Africa instead of America. Put differently, the terrible fate of their ancestors benefitted them. – Thomas Sowell • ‘The Queen Is Dead’ is not merely the Smiths’ best album, but it is one of those timeless, perfect, inexhaustible artifacts that could only have been made by a gang of sullen, sun-deprived rock & roll boys fighting off adulthood tooth and nail. – Rob Sheffield • The run I was on made Sinatra, Flynn, Jagger, Richards, all of them look like droopy-eyed armless children. – Charlie Sheen • The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action. – John Dewey • The soles of Neil Armstrong’s boots on the moon made permanent impressions on our souls and in our national psyche. Ann and I watched those steps together on her parent’s sofa. Like all Americans we went to bed that night knowing we lived in the greatest country in the history of the world. God bless Neil Armstrong. – Mitt Romney • The summer of 2002 at the Wilson birthday party I met Van Dyke again and I made plans to have dinner with him. – Matthew Sweet • The true treasure lies within. It is the underlying theme of the songs we sing, the shows we watch and the books we read. It is woven into the Psalms of the Bible, the ballads of the Beatles and practically every Bollywood film ever made. What is that treasure? Love. Love is the nature of the Divine. – Radhanath Swami • The wonderful thing about rock music is even if you hate the other person, sometimes you need him more, you know. In other words if he’s the guy that made that sound, he’s the guy that made that sound, and without that guy making that sound, you don’t have a band, you know. – Bruce Springsteen • There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass. – William Shakespeare • Things do not happen. Things are made to happen. – John F. Kennedy • This idea that you can’t be an honest man and a Washington politician is a myth, a crock made up by sellouts and careerist hacks who don’t stand for anything and are impatient with people who do. It’s possible to do this job with honor and dignity. – Matt Taibbi • This is the greatest society in all of human history, the greatest country ever. Many of the decisions being made in Washington today by both parties are threatening that greatness. And if we stay on this road we’re on right now, our children are going to be the first Americans ever to inherit a diminished country. – Marco Rubio • To be honest, I’ve made a game out of trying to live through my James Dean, Janis Joplin, Freddie Prinze, Jim Morrison period, those demons that we all have that we’re either successful or not at making work for us rather than destroy us. – Patrick Swayze • Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. – Robert Frost • Unless you have made a complete surrender and are doing his will it will avail you nothing if you’ve reformed a thousand times and have your name on fifty church records. – Billy Sunday • Wal-Mart’s size and scale is so vast they literally have the ability to change the face of the entire country. If Wal-Mart were to make a decision tomorrow to refuse to sell a single product made with partially hydrogenated oils, for example, we’d probably see rates from heart disease decline a few years later. That’s how powerful Wal-Mart is. – Simon Sinek • We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life – those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength. – Oswald Chambers • We are not made up, as we had always supposed, of successively enriched packets of our own parts. We are shared, rented, occupied. At the interior of our cells, driving them, providing the oxidative energy that sends us out for the improvement of each shining day, are the mitochondria, and in a strict sense they are not ours. – Lewis Thomas • We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep. – William Shakespeare • We can not continue to allow this over reliance on government to replace the cornerstone institution that has made the American experience possible. – Marco Rubio • We created a line of pet food called Nutrish that’s made to human standards, and 100 percent of the proceeds go to animal rescue. One of our top-tier donors is the ASPCA, and they help us challenge animal shelters all across the country to get more animals placed in homes. – Rachael Ray • We do not celebrate people who have made success out of serious hard work. – Iain Duncan Smith • We made a decision that monetary policy will be made by an independent European Central Bank. – Gerhard Schroder • Well mine is not gimmicky – it is the 6 food groups that God made, and exercising every day. Trying to think positively. – Richard Simmons • We’re made up of energy, so who’s to say you can’t transmit through electrical means? If you could transmit yourself wirelessly, then it’s Armageddon pretty much. – Ian Somerhalder • What I learned in jail is that I can’t change. I can’t live a different lifestyle – this is it. This is the life that they gave and this is the life that I made. – Tupac Shakur • When I did the film Generations, in which the character died, I felt like a guest for the first time. That made me very sad. – William Shatner • When I felt like an outsider, movies made me feel inside my own skill set. – Steven Spielberg • When I started CNN, I made the decision to stay out of endorsing candidates, and let the doers make up their own minds about politics, that it wasn’t going to come from me. – Ted Turner • When I was 15, I made a solo record. It made Artie very unhappy. He looked upon it as something of a betrayal. – Paul Simon • When I was a kid, there was no collaboration; it’s you with a camera bossing your friends around. But as an adult, filmmaking is all about appreciating the talents of the people you surround yourself with and knowing you could never have made any of these films by yourself.- Steven Spielberg • When I was in the Peace Corps I never made a phone call. I was in Central Africa; I didn’t make a phone call for two years. I was in Uganda for another four years and I didn’t make a phone call. So for six years I didn’t make a phone call, but I wrote letters, I wrote short stories, I wrote books. – Paul Theroux • When my children were born, I made the choice I wanted them to be raised as Jews and to have a Jewish education. – Steven Spielberg • When you campaign and have to participate in so many debates just to the win the nomination of your party, you’ve had a lot of practice. You get to figure out as you go from one debate to another where you made your mistakes. By the time you get to the big debate you’re pretty polished. – Arnold Schwarzenegger • When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it. – Dalai Lama • When you’re scared, when you’re hanging on, when life is hurting you, then you’re going to see what you’re really made of. – Sylvester Stallone • Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision. – Peter Drucker • Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe. – Frederick Douglass • Who made these laws? That’s what I want to know. So that’s why I wear two crosses now. I call it double cross. I believe in God-not religion. – Ja Rule • Why do people want to know exactly who I am? Am I a poet? Am I this or that? I’ve always made people wary. First they called me a rock poet. Then I was a poet that dabbled in rock. Then I was a rock person who dabbled in art. – Patti Smith • Why haven’t I made more movies? Nobody asked me. – Elaine Stritch • With most of the songs and music that I’ve composed, irrespective of the myriad videos made, I was always careful not to overly define the experience, leaving room for people to internalize things for themselves, making their experience more integral. – Serj Tankian • Women are made to be loved, not understood. – Oscar Wilde • You are a success when you have made friends with your past, are focused on the present, and are optimistic about your future – Zig Ziglar • You can always spot a ‘television personality’, even when they aren’t actually on television, because they carry their ‘made-up’ persona in front of them, like some sort of baffler, or Ready Brek force field. Their reach for notoriety predicated on that fulsome mediocrity of talent detailed above has become frozen in their faces. – Will Self • You can’t go through life and leave things the way they are. We can all make a difference, and if I die today, I know I made a difference. – Gene Simmons • You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. – Steve Jobs • Your sons weren’t made to like you. That’s what grandchildren are for. – Jane Smiley

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[equitiesstocks]

Made Quotes

Official Website: Made Quotes

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• A king is a thing men have made for their own sakes, for quietness sake. Just as in a family one man is appointed to buy the meat. – John Selden • A lot of children don’t have a developed aesthetic. I did. I made early choices in life, even about cloth; I liked flannel and not polyester. – Patti Smith • A lot of the films I’ve made probably could have worked just as well 50 years ago, and that’s just because I have a lot of old-fashion values. – Steven Spielberg • A man who graduated high in his class at Yale Law School and made partnership in a top law firm would be celebrated. But a woman who accomplishes this is treated with suspicion. – Barbra Streisand • A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. – Albert Einstein • A significant piece of the wealth that the NFL owners garner is a result of the enormous TV revenues they get – and those revenues are supported by a legislatively granted exemption from the antitrust laws that has been made applicable to sports leagues, primarily the NFL. – Eliot Spitzer • Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. – Steve Jobs • All man-made religions are limited. I go my own way. – Jill Scott • All my books are made up of other books. They’re all deeply structured on other fiction, because I was a student in fiction and I didn’t have much actual living to draw on. I suspect a lot of other people’s novels are like that, too, though they might be slower to talk about it. – Zadie Smith • All my life affection has been showered upon me, and every forward step I have made has been taken in spite of it. – George Bernard Shaw • All of the films that I’ve made are about the country I live in and grew up in… And I think if you’re going to put an artist’s eye to it, you’re going to put a critical eye to it. I’ve always been interested in the gray area that exists between the black and white, or the red and blue, and that’s where complexity lies. – Robert Redford • All of the legal defense funds out there, they’re looking for people out there with court of appeals experience, because court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know, I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don’t make law, I know. I know. – Sonia Sotomayor • All those hours exploring the great outdoors made me more resilient and confident. – David Suzuki • All your losses will be made up to you in the resurrection, provided you continue faithful. By the vision of the Almighty I have seen it. – Joseph Smith, Jr. • And now that Martina McBride knows of T.I., and T.I. knows of Martina McBride, that made me very happy, too. It’s introducing worlds to different people and bringing them together with a song. – Kid Rock • Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let’s not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources. – Ronald Reagan • As a kid, my idols were Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson, and I get into crazy races with myself. Raimi was 21 when he made movies, and when I didn’t get ‘Cabin Fever’ made that fast I thought I’d failed. – Eli Roth • As someone who has spent many years marveling at the brilliant and painstaking work of the doctors, scientists and researchers at St. Jude, I can attest firsthand to the bone-deep commitment these men and women have made in their fight against disease. They are at it around the clock – every hour of the day, every day of the year. – Marlo Thomas

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Made', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shpp All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_made').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_made img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Being a mom, it feels like I did something so powerful and amazing. It’s such a gigantic blessing, and a confirmation that the Creator exists. And all of that has made me feel sexier and stronger. I call it ‘lava in my spine.’ – Jill Scott • Being an artist doesn’t mean that you’re a good artist. That was the bargain I first made with myself: I’d say, I’m an artist, but I’m not really very good. – Paul Simon • Being fired was the best luck of my life. It made me stop and reflect. It was the birth of my life as a writer. – Jose Saramago • Big government helps the people who have made it. It doesn’t help the people who are trying to make it; it crushes the people who are trying to make it. – Marco Rubio

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling] • Champions are made from something they have deep inside of them-a desire, a dream, a vison. – Mahatma Gandhi • Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them-a desire, a dream, a vision. – Muhammad Ali • Coming Home had been made before and Apocalypse Now and Deer Hunter, different kinds of movies. – Oliver Stone • Conductors’ careers are made for the most part with ‘Romantic’ music. ‘Classic’ music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it. – Igor Stravinsky • Dane DeHaan, certainly, is kind of the best friend I’ve made through acting, in terms of another actor. He’s fantastic. – Daniel Radcliffe • Death is something inevitable. When a man has done what he considers to be his duty to his people and his country, he can rest in peace. I believe I have made that effort and that is, therefore, why I will sleep for the eternity. – Nelson Mandela • Dinner was made for eating, not for talking. – William Makepeace Thackeray • Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of. – Benjamin Franklin • Dramatic fiction – William Shakespeare made his biggest mark writing dramatic love stories. – Nicholas Sparks • Even if I’d had a really happy relationship with my father and there was no emotional hiatus for a decade and a half, I probably would still have made some of the same choices for movies that I’ve made. – Steven Spielberg • Even in India the Hindi film industry might be the best known but there are movies made in other regional languages in India, be it Tamil or Bengali. Those experiences too are different from the ones in Bombay. – Aishwarya Rai Bachchan • Every piece of entertainment is made with the idea that ‘This is going to be terrific’ and ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever done’ and then it hits the public and then the public tells you whether it’s good or bad. – William Shatner • Every record that I’ve ever made, I listen to it so much before it comes out. As soon as it comes out, I never listen to it again. It’s, like, over. – Gwen Stefani • Everything I’ve done has always been my own made up world with its own rules and its own made up stories. – Robert Rodriguez • Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than the exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise. – John Tukey • Fashion is such stuff as dreams are made on. – Anna Dello Russo • Few professors would dare to publish research or teach a course debunking the claims made in various ethnic, gender, or other ‘studies’ courses. – Thomas Sowell • Free time keeps me going. It’s just something that’s always been a part of my life. I was originally a painter, and I made films sort of as an extension of that, and then I started to try to make dramatic films because the early films were experimental films. – Gus Van Sant • Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way. – Henry David Thoreau • Great progress was made when arbitration treaties were concluded in which the contracting powers pledge in advance to submit all conflicts to an arbitration court, treaties which not only specify the composition of the court, but also its procedure. – Ludwig Quidde • Hendrix was the first person I had come across who seemed completely free, and when you’re nine or 10, your life is entirely dominated by adults. So he represented this thing that I wanted to be. Hendrix was the first person who made me think it might be good to be a singer and a guitarist – before that I wanted to be a footballer. – Robert Smith • History is made every day. The challenge is getting everyone to pay attention to it. – Adora Svitak • Hope founded upon a human being, a man-made philosophy or any institution is always misplaced… because these things are unreliable and fleeting. – Charles Stanley • How do you know antiquity was foolish? How do you know the present is wise? Who made it foolish? Who made it wise? – Francois Rabelais • I also believe our country made a promise to veterans and their families. Veterans have kept their end of the bargain, and now, the VA is looking to pull out the rug. – Ellen Tauscher • I am a most noteworthy sinner, but I have cried out to the Lord for grace and mercy, and they have covered me completely. I have found the sweetest consolation since I made it my whole purpose to enjoy His marvellous Presence. – Christopher Columbus • I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday. – Eleanor Roosevelt • I became very famous, as a teenager, and my name and photo were splashed in all the media. They made me larger than life, so I wanted to live larger than life, and the only way to do that was to be intoxicated. – Cat Stevens • I behaved worse than anybody for 15 years, and you have to pay the price for that. I used to blame other people, then therapy made me realise I had to change. – Mickey Rourke • I believe any success in life is made by going into an area with a blind, furious optimism. – Sylvester Stallone • I believe that the purpose for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation. – Siegfried Sassoon • I can tell you that too much money is corrupting American politics. Don’t blame the American public. The U.S. Supreme Court has a lot to answer for, because it has made it impossible for Congress to reduce the corrupting influence of money on American political life. – Peter Singer • I can’t get into all that physical stuff of having to have flawless skin… Sometimes you see people and it looks like someone’s got an eraser and made their face a little blurry – their traits seem to go out of focus. – Kristin Scott Thomas • I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest. There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is. – Edward Snowden • I come from a violent background. So I became hard. I realised that I had made myself that way to deal with a feeling of abandonment and shame. – Mickey Rourke • I couldn’t understand why my productivity went down when I had deliberately made more time available to write. Then I realized it was because I wasn’t flying as much. – Simon Sinek • I created my MySpace page in eighth grade, because that’s how all my friends talked to each other, so I made one, too. Then, all of a sudden, my friends started putting my songs on their profiles, and then their relatives, their friends in different states did. – Taylor Swift • I dated dozens of young men, had fun with all, made commitments to none. – Gene Tierney • I didn’t come from a trailer park. I grew up middle class and my dad had money and my mom made my lunch. I got a car when I was sixteen. I’m proud of that. – Kid Rock • I didn’t know Michael Hastings very well, but one thing about him was always obvious – he was born to be in the news business, he loved it, he was made for it. He wrote about Iraq and Afghanistan as places he had always been destined to visit. – Matt Taibbi • I didn’t leave home until 27. I was an only child raised in Philadelphia by my mother and grandmother. My grandmother controlled the stove. She made a lot of potato meals – mashed potato, potato souffle, potato pancakes. When we didn’t have electricity we ate romantically, by candlelight. – Jill Scott • I didn’t run off with the secretary. It made it seem like I had committed adultery and then ran off with a secretary, neither of which happened. – Randall Terry • I didn’t want to write a book. They made me do it. – Grace Slick • I don’t think any drug that can cause brain damage, failing kidneys, hardening arteries, pain, and suffering should be made available. – Layne Staley • I don’t think films about elderly people have been made very much. – Maggie Smith • I feel good because I believe I have made progress in rebuilding the people’s trust in their government. – Arnold Schwarzenegger • I felt alien my whole life but I didn’t feel alien because of my gender. Other people made me aware of my gender. – Patti Smith • I had a brother who was my savior, made my childhood bearable. – Maurice Sendak • I had a handful of records, but when I was 11 years old, I liked Puccini as much as Little Richard. They both made sense to me. – Patti Smith • I had seen movies before that that had made me laugh, but I had never seen anything even remotely close to as funny as Richard Pryor was, just standing there talking. – Joe Rogan • I hated singing. I wanted to be an actress. But I don’t think I’d have made it any other way. – Barbra Streisand • I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear. – Rosa Parks • I know that a good many champions have entertained the thought that the more they discourage youngsters, the longer they would reign. However, this theory never impressed me, and I always made it a point to give youths the benefit of my experience in bicycle racing. – Major Taylor • I know that I am one and I’ve made a living as an actor and I enjoy being an actor, but when I’m not actually doing it, I forget that I do it. – Wallace Shawn • I listened very, very carefully to the world around me to pick up the signals of when trouble was coming. Not that I could stop it. But it made me observant. That was helpful when I became a lawyer, because I knew how to read people’s signals. – Sonia Sotomayor • I look a hundred and weigh 110 – you won’t love me when you see the wreck England has made me. – Wallis Simpson • I looked up and saw the shape of a heart made by the silhouette of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon kissing. – Sarah Silverman • I love things made out of animals. It’s just so funny to think of someone saying, ‘I need a letter opener. I guess I’ll have to kill a deer. – David Sedaris • I love to fish offshore for billfish, and have fished all over for them from the Bahamas, St. Thomas, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico to the Texas gulf. I haven’t made it to Australia yet, but someday I’m going. – George Strait • I made a lot of money. I earned a lot of money with CNN and satellite and cable television. And you can’t really spend large sums of money, intelligently, on buying things. So I thought the best thing I could do was put some of that money back to work – making an investment in the future of humanity. – Ted Turner • I made ‘Empire of the Sun’ in Shanghai in the 1980s and want to come back one day to make a movie in China. – Steven Spielberg • I made my fair share of mistakes. – Arnold Schwarzenegger • I made my first album, and I guess it wasn’t a fluke, because now I’m on my 16th. – Bonnie Raitt • I made my last motion picture in March 1965 for Magna Pictures. ‘Harlow,’ based on the life of actress Jean Harlow… I didn’t know at the time that ‘Harlow’ would be my last motion picture. – Ginger Rogers • I made one great mistake in my life-when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made but there was some justification-the danger that the Germans would make them. – Albert Einstein • I made ‘Saving Private Ryan’ for my father. He’s the one who filled my head with war stories when I was growing up. – Steven Spielberg • I made sure no butt cheek hung out. You know, the original Daisy, Catherine Bach’s shorts were shorter than mine. – Jessica Simpson • I remember my dad came from Ireland and Scotland, and so he carried with him the fear of poverty. So when I wanted to break loose, it kind of made him very nervous. – Robert Redford • I respect and empathize with reporters and editors who must compete in today’s environment. And I know full well that when I’ve been covering campaigns, which I still do, I’ve made my mistakes and have been far from perfect. – Dan Rather • I run a lot. I do a lot of yoga. Hot yoga. Which is random and sounds lame, but it has definitely made my flexibility and balance 100 percent better on my skateboard. I do that and a lot of plyometric, biometrics, and surf. I train every other day of the week and skate for an hour everyday. – Ryan Sheckler • I sacrificed six years in L.A. I did my job out here. I made contacts and did the work I had to do. – Amanda Seyfried • I signal with an independent label, Continuum. After that I put out a totally independent record, sold fourteen thousand of them from my basement, bought a house, started raising my kid, made a decent living. – Kid Rock • I suppose what’s happened recently has confirmed suspicions I voiced in the book, and I think made clearer some of those things that I point out. For instance I have a section of the book where I talk about the possibility of torture. – Peter Singer • I tap danced for ten years before I began to understand people don’t make musicals anymore. All I wanted to do was be at MGM working for Arthur Freed or Gene Kelly or Vincent Minelli. Historical and geographical constraints made this impossible. Slowly but surely the pen became mightier than the double pick-up time step with shuffle. – Zadie Smith • I think a painting is more like the real world if it’s made out the real world. – Robert Rauschenberg • I think being on a film set for such a long time made me a technical actor without realizing it. – Daniel Radcliffe • I think Democrats made a mistake running away from liberalism. Liberalism, uh, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John and Robert Kennedy – that’s what the Democratic party ought to reach for. – Theodore C. Sorensen • I think every movie I’ve made after ‘Indiana Jones,’ I’ve tried to make every single movie as if it was made by a different director, because I’m very conscious of not wanting to impose a consistent style on subject matter that is not necessarily suited to that style. So I try to re-invent my own eye every time I tackle a new subject. – Steven Spielberg • I think God made a woman to be strong and not to be trampled under the feet of men. I’ve always felt this way because my mother was a very strong woman, without a husband. – Little Richard • I think it’s harder to forgive ourselves for mistakes that we made because we keep dwelling on it. We want to know how it affects other people, if they liked us for it, if they didn’t like us. I think we stress over it, we replay it in our mind. It becomes an old tape that years later we continue to play it in our mind. – Sherri Shepherd • I think that horror films have a very direct relationship to the time in which they’re made. The films that really strike a film with the public are very often reflecting something that everyone, consciously or unconsciously feeling – atomic age, post 9-11, post Iraq war; it’s hard to predict what people are going to be afraid of. – Eli Roth • I think the first thing you should know is that nobody in country music ‘made it’ the same way. It’s all different. There’s no blueprint for success, and sometimes you just have to work at it. – Taylor Swift • I turned down ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Spider-Man,’ two movies that I knew would be phenomenally successful, because I had already made movies like that before and they offered no challenge to me. I don’t need my ego to be reminded. – Steven Spielberg • I usually do about five cuts as a director. I haven’t ever directed a film where I haven’t made five passes through the movie, and that takes a long time. – Steven Spielberg • I wanted to make sure that the man who found the genie would not take terrible advantage of her, so he needed to be a person of integrity and honor – which is why I made the male lead an astronaut. The rest, as they say, is history. – Sidney Sheldon • I was born on the other side of the tracks, in public housing in Brooklyn, New York. My dad never made more than $20,000 a year, and I grew up in a family that lost health insurance. So I was scarred at a young age with understanding what it was like to watch my parents lose access to the American dream. – Howard Schultz • I was sitting in a chair in the patent office at Bern when all of a sudden a thought occurred to me: “If a person falls freely he will not feel his own weight.” I was startled. This simple thought made a deep impression on me. It impelled me toward a theory of gravitation. – Albert Einstein • I wasn’t trying to be an outlaw writer. I never heard of that term; somebody else made it up. But we were all outside the law: Kerouac, Miller, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kesey; I didn’t have a gauge as to who was the worst outlaw. I just recognized allies: my people. – Hunter S. Thompson • I went to Massachusetts to make a difference. I didn’t go there to begin a political career running time and time again. I made a difference. I put in place the things I wanted to do. – Mitt Romney • I would have made a lousy stripper. I’m just not very comfortable exposing myself. – Robin Wright • I’d like to believe an accumulation of experience has made me a sort of a grown-up person, so I can have judgment and taste and whatever. – Maurice Sendak • Ideologists of all kinds find a strange sort of comfort in the madness of the crowd; it confirms them in their suspicion that history, far from being made by the great mass of individuals – as Marx averred – is rather unmade by a single massive individual, a collective Other, who stands in stark contrast to you and he. – Will Self • If I revealed all that has been made known to me, scarcely a man on this stand would stay with me.’ and ‘Brethren, if I were to tell you all I know of the kingdom of God, I do know that you would rise up and kill me. – Joseph Smith, Jr. • If some really acute observer made as much of egotism as Freud has made of sex, people would forget a good deal about sex and find the explanation for everything in egotism. – Wallace Stevens • If the audience is made to do not enough work, they resent it without knowing it. Too much and they get lost. There’s a perfect pace to be found. And a perfect place that is different for every line of the play. – Tom Stoppard • If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The Earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself, and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty. – Chief Joseph • If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of. – Bruce Lee • If you made a record, I’d probably pick out tracks that I like and download that. That’s just how it is. – Ringo Starr • If you write a movie for Roger Corman, it’s going to get made. You saw it almost the next day. – John Sayles • If… many influential people have failed to understand, or have just forgotten, what we were up against in the Cold War and how we overcame it, they are not going to be capable of securing, let alone enlarging, the gains that liberty has made. – Margaret Thatcher • I’m a lifelong movie addict, and one of my favorite projects is making replica props and costumes. Nearly every one of these – from R2D2 to Hellboy’s revolver – ends with the paint job. And it’s not just cosmetic. The paint literally tells a story: what this thing is made of, where it’s been, what it’s been used for, and for how long. – Adam Savage • I’m strongly for a patient Bill of Rights. Decisions ought to be made by doctors, not accountants. – Charles Schumer • I’m thankful I grew up the way I did. It made me a hard worker and insightful to other people’s lives. – Rachel Roy • I’m very used to working with first time actors – you can just look back at ‘E.T.’ with Drew Barrymore, and Christian Bale from ‘Empire of the Sun,’ who’d never made a movie before. – Steven Spielberg • In all professions each affects a look and an exterior to appear what he wishes the world to believe that he is. Thus we may say that the whole world is made up of appearances. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld • In the Bible it says God has made everything good for man to eat and to wear their skins. Whenever we eat beef, we eat chicken, we have to kill to eat. But at the same time, hunting is a sport. I think it is a great sport… I would say most hunters are Christian men. – Luke Scott • In the heart of the Great Depression, millions of American workers did something they’d never done before: they joined a union. Emboldened by the passage of the Wagner Act, which made collective bargaining easier, unions organized industries across the country, remaking the economy. – James Surowiecki • In the old days, when a star left a still-thriving hit show, they’d celebrate by killing him or her off. But ‘The Office’ dispatched Michael Scott in a crueler and more final way: they made him normal. Since we’re talking about Michael Scott, ‘normal’ might be stretching it, obviously. – Rob Sheffield • It is impossible to get anything made or accomplished without stepping on some toes; enemies are inevitable when one is a doer. – Norma Shearer • It never made sense to me that someone would achieve any kind of success in show business, only to become a jerk. – Josh Radnor • It took putting one foot in front of the other every single day to get through it to the point where I made it back on the team and won a gold medal in 2008. – Hope Solo • It was God’s word that made us; is it any wonder that His word should sustain us? – Charles Spurgeon • It was Nietzsche who first made us conscious of the significance of the individual as a term in the evolutionary process-in that part of the evolutionary process which has still to take place. – Herbert Read • It was not until I had graduated from college that I made a professional commitment to it. Frankly, I didn’t think it wise. I was my own interior parental force, and it’s very difficult to justify a profession as a dancer. – Twyla Tharp • It’s a great thing when you can show that you’ve been successful and that you’ve made a lot of money and that you’ve employed a lot of people. – Donald Trump • I’ve always made music from the heart, and that’s what I do. And at the end of the day, whether it works or not, I can say I tried my best. – Kid Rock • I’ve been around the world and I’ve had bras made in different places, and each time I’m experiencing the same troubles: the painful shoulders, the underwire cutting into my flesh. – Jill Scott • I’ve been on ‘Days’ since I was 16, and being surrounded by such thin, gorgeous actresses made me so insecure and self-conscious. – Alison Sweeney • I’ve been playing against older and stronger competition my whole life. It has made me a better tennis player and able to play against this kind of level despite their strength and experience. – Maria Sharapova • I’ve been working as an actress since I was very young, and I know a lot of people who are actors who don’t have to deal with having a persona… You know, if you look up the word persona, it isn’t even real. The whole meaning of the word is that it’s made up, and it’s like I didn’t even get to make up my own. It can be annoying. – Kristen Stewart • I’ve definitely done something that’s made my mum and dad forever proud. – Tinie Tempah • I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. – Maya Angelou • I’ve made a decision and now I must face the consequences. – J. Michael Straczynski • I’ve made a lot of stupid action films. But when we made The Matrix, we saw that people wanted more than that. – Joel Silver • I’ve made films that I’ve given all I had to, that no one has seen. The bottom line is I want to work and I want someone to enjoy it. – Kiefer Sutherland • I’ve made mistakes, I’ve misspoke, I am sure I will again sometime, but that happens, that’s part of being human in my book. I’m OK with that. I’ve never done it maliciously, ever. – Curt Schilling • I’ve made sure that in any situation and with any record label, I’m allowed to write my own music. – Taylor Swift • John Boehner is the ultimate Beltway hack, a man whose unmatched and self-serving skill at political survival has made him, after two decades in Washington, the hairy blue mold on the American congressional sandwich. – Matt Taibbi • Leaders aren’t born they are made. – Vince Lombardi • Leaders aren’t born they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal. – Vince Lombardi • Linux has definitely made a lot of sense even in a purely materialistic sense. – Linus Torvalds • Literary life used to be quite different in Britain in the years I lived there, from 1971 to 1989, because money was not a factor – no one made very much except from U.S. sales and the occasional windfall. – Paul Theroux • Men’s moral principles are weak enough without their being made subordinate to selfishness; and their selfishness is quite active enough, without any such effort as Christianity makes to constitute it the mainspring of all their conduct. – Lysander Spooner • Mitt Romney has made it clear that he believes that President Obama was born in the U.S. – John Sununu • Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants. – Benjamin Franklin • Money’s really – you know, song writing, yes, there’s money to be made and things like that. But really, when you talk about the real money, you talk about touring. No question. – Kid Rock • My bed isn’t made, I’m tired, I haven’t slept well for two weeks. I haven’t been laid in a month. I don’t have a girlfriend. I have a warrant for my arrest. – Layne Staley • My dad was a bartender. My mom was a cashier, a maid and a stock clerk at K-Mart. They never made it big. They were never rich. And yet they were successful. Because just a few decades removed from hopelessness, they made possible for us all the things that had been impossible for them. – Marco Rubio • My family wasn’t terribly affluent and looked upon money very carefully as something that had to be saved, not spent. My father built the ducting that took air into the copper mines and made about 6 d a yard in the Thirties, which was good money back then. – Wilbur Smith • My father had a series of blue-collar jobs and never made more than $20,000 a year. When I was seven, he got injured on a job. That was a very important point – because of the injury, he couldn’t walk, and the company he was working for did not pay him. There was no compensation. So there was no money and no food. – Howard Schultz • My first year on ‘SNL’, I made $90,000 dollars. – Chris Rock • My mom has made it possible for me to be who I am. Our family is everything. Her greatest skill was encouraging me to find my own person and own independence. – Charlize Theron • My mom was a working woman. She made more money than my dad. Both my parents worked. And this was in the ’60s. – Rick Santorum • My sister made certain choices about the life she wanted. Those choices include a steady job, a husband and children. But balance and stability come at a cost. It is harder for her to be spontaneous. It is harder to just up and leave. – Simon Sinek • Nemeses aren’t born. They are made. – Roxane Gay • No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently. – Agnes de Mille • Nothing made by brute force lasts. – Robert Louis Stevenson • Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. – William Shakespeare • Parents shouldn’t assume children are made out of sugar candy and will break and collapse instantly. Kids don’t. We do. – Maurice Sendak • People are made up of flaws. – Amanda Seyfried • People who have been made to suffer by certain things cannot be reminded of them without a horror which paralyses every other pleasure, even that to be found in reading a story. – Stendhal • People will never forget how you made them feel. – Maya Angelou • Practically and commercially speaking, a dollar is not necessarily a specific thing, made of silver, or gold, or any other single metal, or substance. It is only such a quantum of market value as exists in a given piece of silver or gold. – Lysander Spooner • Religions are such stuff as dreams are made of. – H. G. Wells • Sam Wood, the director, made most of his money as a real estate agent; there was nothing of the temperamental artist about him. – Gloria Swanson • Sculpture is made with two instruments and some supports and pretty air. – Gertrude Stein • Secure our borders first. Let us know and let us make sure the American people know that we’re taking care of the important business of dealing with the illegal immigration into this country. You cannot begin to address the concerns of the people who are already here unless and until you have made certain that no more are coming in behind them. – Michael Steele • So I still seized the power, but I felt that if I officially made myself the boss, in black and white, it would be too intimidating for the other producers and the other men who worked on the show. In other words, I had the power, but I gave them the title. – Marlo Thomas • Some people think it’s because ’24’ was jump-started by what happened on 9/11. That was never why we made the show. We started production six months prior to 9/11, and we’d already done ten episodes. – Kiefer Sutherland • Such as we are made of, such we be. – William Shakespeare • Sunset Boulevard opened in August 1950, and it was pronounced the best movie ever made about Hollywood. – Gloria Swanson • The Bible tells us that God will meet all our needs. He feeds the birds of the air and clothes the grass with the splendor of lilies. How much more, then, will He care for us, who are made in His image? Our only concern is to obey the heavenly Father and leave the consequences to Him. – Charles Stanley • The campaigns of Steve Forbes, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, and John McCain all outperformed expectations on their support from independent voters. They made no effort to shy away from ideology, but conveyed to voters that their policies were driven by principle, not party talking points. – John Sununu • The Cannes film festival is about big-budget films but also remarkable films made in different political regimes by film-makers with little resources. – Kristin Scott Thomas • The claim made by Team Obama that every dollar in stimulus translates into a dollar-and-a-half in growth is economic fiction. The costs of stimulus reduce future growth. No country has ever spent itself to prosperity. The price of stimulus has to be paid sometime. – Karl Rove • The decision he made with Usama bin Laden was a tactical decision. It wasn’t a strategic decision. The strategic decision was made by President Bush to go after him. What President Obama has done on his watch, the issues that have come up while he’s been president, he’s gotten it wrong strategically every single time. – Rick Santorum • The fact is that America’s weapons systems have made it impossible for anybody to confront it militarily. So, all you have is your wits and your cunning, and your ability to fight in the way the Iraqis are fighting. – Arundhati Roy • The formal education that I received made little sense to me. – Twyla Tharp • The good life is one that’s artistically made. – William Shatner • The greatest films ever made in our history were cut on film, and I’m tenaciously hanging on to the process. I just love going into an editing room and smelling the photochemistry and seeing my editor wearing mini-strands of film around his neck. – Steven Spielberg • The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness. – Paul Theroux • The minute you or anybody else knows what you are you are not it, you are what you or anybody else knows you are and as everything in living is made up of finding out what you are it is extraordinarily difficult really not to know what you are and yet to be that thing. – Gertrude Stein • The mistake that straight people made was imposing the monogamous expectation on men. Men were never expected to be monogamous. – Dan Savage • The most important decision I’ve made in business? The choices of people I have around me. When I first started I brought everybody with me, my homies from the neighborhood, criminals. I just said, ‘Come on everybody, we made it.’ Then I had to realize we didn’t make it. I made it. – Snoop Dogg • The number one mistake is giving pets table scraps. I made the mistake thinking I was showing my dog love by giving her food and treats. You see a tiny 4 oz. piece of cheese, but for a Boston Terrier like mine, that’s like one and a half hamburgers. That’s unhealthy. – Alison Sweeney • The only peace that can be made with a dictator is once that must be based on deterrence. For today, the dictator may be your friend, but tomorrow he will need you as an enemy. – Natan Sharansky • The only people who benefit from lawsuits are lawyers. I think we made a couple of them rich. – Gavin Rossdale • The people made worse off by slavery were those who were enslaved. Their descendants would have been worse off today if born in Africa instead of America. Put differently, the terrible fate of their ancestors benefitted them. – Thomas Sowell • ‘The Queen Is Dead’ is not merely the Smiths’ best album, but it is one of those timeless, perfect, inexhaustible artifacts that could only have been made by a gang of sullen, sun-deprived rock & roll boys fighting off adulthood tooth and nail. – Rob Sheffield • The run I was on made Sinatra, Flynn, Jagger, Richards, all of them look like droopy-eyed armless children. – Charlie Sheen • The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action. – John Dewey • The soles of Neil Armstrong’s boots on the moon made permanent impressions on our souls and in our national psyche. Ann and I watched those steps together on her parent’s sofa. Like all Americans we went to bed that night knowing we lived in the greatest country in the history of the world. God bless Neil Armstrong. – Mitt Romney • The summer of 2002 at the Wilson birthday party I met Van Dyke again and I made plans to have dinner with him. – Matthew Sweet • The true treasure lies within. It is the underlying theme of the songs we sing, the shows we watch and the books we read. It is woven into the Psalms of the Bible, the ballads of the Beatles and practically every Bollywood film ever made. What is that treasure? Love. Love is the nature of the Divine. – Radhanath Swami • The wonderful thing about rock music is even if you hate the other person, sometimes you need him more, you know. In other words if he’s the guy that made that sound, he’s the guy that made that sound, and without that guy making that sound, you don’t have a band, you know. – Bruce Springsteen • There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass. – William Shakespeare • Things do not happen. Things are made to happen. – John F. Kennedy • This idea that you can’t be an honest man and a Washington politician is a myth, a crock made up by sellouts and careerist hacks who don’t stand for anything and are impatient with people who do. It’s possible to do this job with honor and dignity. – Matt Taibbi • This is the greatest society in all of human history, the greatest country ever. Many of the decisions being made in Washington today by both parties are threatening that greatness. And if we stay on this road we’re on right now, our children are going to be the first Americans ever to inherit a diminished country. – Marco Rubio • To be honest, I’ve made a game out of trying to live through my James Dean, Janis Joplin, Freddie Prinze, Jim Morrison period, those demons that we all have that we’re either successful or not at making work for us rather than destroy us. – Patrick Swayze • Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. – Robert Frost • Unless you have made a complete surrender and are doing his will it will avail you nothing if you’ve reformed a thousand times and have your name on fifty church records. – Billy Sunday • Wal-Mart’s size and scale is so vast they literally have the ability to change the face of the entire country. If Wal-Mart were to make a decision tomorrow to refuse to sell a single product made with partially hydrogenated oils, for example, we’d probably see rates from heart disease decline a few years later. That’s how powerful Wal-Mart is. – Simon Sinek • We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life – those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength. – Oswald Chambers • We are not made up, as we had always supposed, of successively enriched packets of our own parts. We are shared, rented, occupied. At the interior of our cells, driving them, providing the oxidative energy that sends us out for the improvement of each shining day, are the mitochondria, and in a strict sense they are not ours. – Lewis Thomas • We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep. – William Shakespeare • We can not continue to allow this over reliance on government to replace the cornerstone institution that has made the American experience possible. – Marco Rubio • We created a line of pet food called Nutrish that’s made to human standards, and 100 percent of the proceeds go to animal rescue. One of our top-tier donors is the ASPCA, and they help us challenge animal shelters all across the country to get more animals placed in homes. – Rachael Ray • We do not celebrate people who have made success out of serious hard work. – Iain Duncan Smith • We made a decision that monetary policy will be made by an independent European Central Bank. – Gerhard Schroder • Well mine is not gimmicky – it is the 6 food groups that God made, and exercising every day. Trying to think positively. – Richard Simmons • We’re made up of energy, so who’s to say you can’t transmit through electrical means? If you could transmit yourself wirelessly, then it’s Armageddon pretty much. – Ian Somerhalder • What I learned in jail is that I can’t change. I can’t live a different lifestyle – this is it. This is the life that they gave and this is the life that I made. – Tupac Shakur • When I did the film Generations, in which the character died, I felt like a guest for the first time. That made me very sad. – William Shatner • When I felt like an outsider, movies made me feel inside my own skill set. – Steven Spielberg • When I started CNN, I made the decision to stay out of endorsing candidates, and let the doers make up their own minds about politics, that it wasn’t going to come from me. – Ted Turner • When I was 15, I made a solo record. It made Artie very unhappy. He looked upon it as something of a betrayal. – Paul Simon • When I was a kid, there was no collaboration; it’s you with a camera bossing your friends around. But as an adult, filmmaking is all about appreciating the talents of the people you surround yourself with and knowing you could never have made any of these films by yourself.- Steven Spielberg • When I was in the Peace Corps I never made a phone call. I was in Central Africa; I didn’t make a phone call for two years. I was in Uganda for another four years and I didn’t make a phone call. So for six years I didn’t make a phone call, but I wrote letters, I wrote short stories, I wrote books. – Paul Theroux • When my children were born, I made the choice I wanted them to be raised as Jews and to have a Jewish education. – Steven Spielberg • When you campaign and have to participate in so many debates just to the win the nomination of your party, you’ve had a lot of practice. You get to figure out as you go from one debate to another where you made your mistakes. By the time you get to the big debate you’re pretty polished. – Arnold Schwarzenegger • When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it. – Dalai Lama • When you’re scared, when you’re hanging on, when life is hurting you, then you’re going to see what you’re really made of. – Sylvester Stallone • Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision. – Peter Drucker • Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe. – Frederick Douglass • Who made these laws? That’s what I want to know. So that’s why I wear two crosses now. I call it double cross. I believe in God-not religion. – Ja Rule • Why do people want to know exactly who I am? Am I a poet? Am I this or that? I’ve always made people wary. First they called me a rock poet. Then I was a poet that dabbled in rock. Then I was a rock person who dabbled in art. – Patti Smith • Why haven’t I made more movies? Nobody asked me. – Elaine Stritch • With most of the songs and music that I’ve composed, irrespective of the myriad videos made, I was always careful not to overly define the experience, leaving room for people to internalize things for themselves, making their experience more integral. – Serj Tankian • Women are made to be loved, not understood. – Oscar Wilde • You are a success when you have made friends with your past, are focused on the present, and are optimistic about your future – Zig Ziglar • You can always spot a ‘television personality’, even when they aren’t actually on television, because they carry their ‘made-up’ persona in front of them, like some sort of baffler, or Ready Brek force field. Their reach for notoriety predicated on that fulsome mediocrity of talent detailed above has become frozen in their faces. – Will Self • You can’t go through life and leave things the way they are. We can all make a difference, and if I die today, I know I made a difference. – Gene Simmons • You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. – Steve Jobs • Your sons weren’t made to like you. That’s what grandchildren are for. – Jane Smiley

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