#and then start a collection of nerdy cookbooks

[surveillance-0011]

I have never played a fallout game in my life but I need to make the Nuka Cola recipes rn.

#they sound tasty… #.txt #I have a babish cookbook. I could get the fallout one #and then start a collection of nerdy cookbooks

[stardewremixed]

Let's celebrate International Women's Day with some fun headcanons about the women of Stardew Valley!

Abigail did stage makeup and hair for her high school theater. She can apply eyeliner flawlessly, whether on herself or others. Her favorite play is A Midsummer Night's Dream. Sam played Puck, and Sebastian ran the sound and lights. After every show, she made sure to collect every cast member's signature in the program.

Emily volunteers at a aviary rescue in a nearby town. She sets up a coin fund at the register at Pierre's every winter to save endangered birds. She has an expensive set of binoculars and enjoys surveying the ocean birds from the shoreline. She broke her ankle once falling out of a tree while trying to return a baby bird to its nest. She doodled blue jays and cardinals on her cast.

Haley could get lost in an Art Gallery for hours. Her favorite works are black and white. There is something powerful in the stark image. She particularly loves trees, capturing the seasonal progression. When she was a little girl, she really wanted a tree house. Her dad helped her build one, and Haley hosted tea parties for all her dolls and teddy bears. The tree house stands to b this day, and now Vincent and Jas can play in it.

Leah loves Farmer's Markets, wandering through and finding the freshest produce and flowers. She once filled Elliott's cabin with roses when he competed graduate school. He was embarrassed but appreciated the gesture. Leah dislikes popcorn, unless it's kettle corn, bagged from the Farmer's field. She is keen on arranging a food truck stop on the docks if she can get approval from the Town Council. She is convinced a farm-to-table dinner will also win over Mayor Lewis.

Maru built her first telescope when she was 15. Her favorite memory with her dad was a class trip to the Planetarium when he was a chaperone. She got sick on the bus and couldn't enjoy the trip. He brought her back later and they spent the whole day together, just the two of them exploring the exhibits. She really wants to make her dad proud and she likes that they are both into science and can be nerdy together. Maru's favorite gift that she ever received was a robotics kit from Seb on her 17th birthday. She makes him watch I, Robot every year and they eat cake and sit on the floor and make a pillow fort.

Penny likes bubblegum. Chewing helps relax her jaw and she feels less tense. She taught Vincent how to blow bubbles. She likes sleepovers at Maru's house. Maru actually had a bathtub and Penny can take long soaks with an avocado face mask. Afterward, they do each other's nails. Penny is always red and Maru is always purple. Like Maru, Penny enjoys stargazing. Sometimes she climbs up on the roof of her mom's trailer with a cozy wool blanket and a thermos of hot cocoa and looks for the North Star..

Robin loves a good comedy. She rents movies to watch with Demetrius every Saturday night. She borrows a joke book from the library and practices on her lunch break. Once a year, Demetrius takes her to a comedy club in Zuzu City for their anniversary. She wants to learn magic tricks too.

Marnie went to art school. It was later in life. She decided to go back for lessons and stayed for a degree. It's how she met Leah. Marnie isn't a great sculptor like Leah, or woodworker like Robin, or a photographer like Haley, but she does enjoy sketching. She thought about dance when she was a young girl, but struggled with body insecurity as a teen when she started filling out. She decided to follow her love of animals instead of ballet. But she wouldn't mind if her boyfriend took her to the opera every once in awhile.

Jodi wanted to apply to culinary school when she got pregnant with Sam. When she first got married, she taught herself how to cook. She would watch YouTube videos when Sam would nap, and has checked out every cookbook from the library twice. She has talked to Caroline and Marnie about compiling a Stardew Valley cookbook. She watches The Queen of Sauce religiously.

Caroline has her fitness coach license. She has been thinking about offering to teach swim lessons at the spa. She also is considering yoga in the park in the summer and crossfit on the beach. She organized a fun run on Spooky Day one year, ending in the cemetery. When she was a teen, Caroline and a group of her friends did a sleepover on the graveyard. Everyone chickened out and went home. Only Caroline made it to morning.

Pam joined a bowling league. She only likes cheese pizza and she hates olives. She bowls close to a prefect game regularly. She owns her own bowling ball (hot pink) and bowling shoes. The beer and food are cheap at the alley, and she's thought about applying for a job there if the bus line isn't repaired soon. It's kind-of simple, but it's something to look forward to on Sunday nights. Better than getting trashed on the couch watching reruns of cop shows.

Evelyn loves to bake. It's no secret. She took a trip to Paris with George on their twenty-fifth anniversary to learn how to make crepes and other pastries. Sometimes she wishes she could dance with George, but she sways a little when she bakes in the kitchen. She taught Alex how to dance for his high school prom in the living room and she picked out his corsage.

Some other Stardudes sneaked in there. 😉

#stardew valley thoughts #international women's day #stardew valley #stardew valley headcanons #sdv headcanon #sdv abigail #sdv emily #sdv robin #sdv maru #sdv caroline #sdv jodi #sdv marnie #sdv penny #sdv haley #sdv leah #sdv pam #sdv sam #sdv sebastian #sdv vincent #sdv jas #sdv elliott #sdv george #sdv evelyn #sdv alex

[notjanine]

2020 in books!

the only kind of new year’s resolution i made as a naive baby last january was to try to read 40 books for the year. (i read 37 in 2019, for context.) well, with all of my commuting time eliminated and an increased need for immersive escapism, i ended up surpassing that goal three times over lmao (thanks library ebooks!)

idk how to summarize my year in books in a way that makes sense but

(f) = fiction, (nf) = nonfiction, (p) = poetry.

books that rewired my fucking brain:

braiding sweetgrass by robin wall kimmerer (nf)- GOD?!?!?! good. dr. k is right. ostensibly a book about plants, but actually a book about shut up and go outside. consumerism and capitalism are doing their damnedest to fuck you up, but you can just choose to value different things. take care of yourself by taking care of your environment. etc etc.

wasp by richard jones (nf)- lissen. when i got this book, my wasp-phobia was so severe that i had to put it away face down on a high shelf because there are wasps on the cover and i couldn’t bear to RISK even GLIMPSING them. now i am like... a wasp evangelist. (also due to the bugs 101 course on coursera it’s so good.)

wag by zazie todd (nf)- i have a dog, but i am NOT a Dog Person (i.e. i love my dog, but please keep yours away from me, thanks.) this book helped me understand my little guy better, plus it gives actionable tasks and activities to do with and for your pup! plus, y’know, learning about things you’re scared of helps to lessen that fear. i’d recommend this to anyone who has, wants, or regularly interacts with a dog.

a closed and common orbit by becky chambers (f)- is this series complete fluff? absolutely. am i fundamentally different after reading this one? maybe.

the best we could do by thi bui (nf)- this is so far outside of my personal experience but somehow still made me come to peace with my relationship with my mom?? and it’s barely even about that?? idk. this is probably objectively the best book i’ve read this year.

books that were just fun as hell:

mexican gothic by silvia moreno-garcia (f)- this book made me YELL out loud

death on the nile by agatha christie (f)- i grew up on agatha christie shows, but never actually read her before this year! she really was That Bitch. read this before the movie comes out

cosmoknights by hannah templer (f)- i read this in one sitting through the worst headache i’ve had in years. it is a goddamn DELIGHT. this book has everything: spaceships. mech suits. fighting the patriarchy. a perfect otp. fun art in bright colors with clean lines. onomatopoetic WAPs from before the song gave that hilarious context. 800 lesbians. this is an antidepressant in graphic novel form.

stiff by mary roach (nf)- ms. roach is like the 4th most represented author on my bookshelf because she 1. stays writing about shit i’m interested in and 2. manages to talk about gross and ridiculous things without resorting to sensationalism. it takes skill to write a hilarious book about corpses.

black sun by rebecca roanhorse (f)- excellent sexual tension between a horny siren pirate and a hot doomed... monk, kinda? set in the pre-columbian gulf of mexico with magic and shit.

cuisine chinoise by zao dao (? n/f)- this graphic novel about chinese food history/mythology is BEAUTIFUL.

the color of magic by terry pratchett (f)- you’d think a hardcore douglas adams stan would have gotten to this sooner, but no, i had to date a nerdy white boy to get here. it’s fun though! i’m not gonna read them all, but this one was good. bonus: contains one (1) great himbo.

gideon the ninth by tamsyn muir (f)- like 500 pages of action and mystery and jokes and space necromancy. harrow the ninth gets a special mention bc it has a meme reference that took me out so hard i had to close the book, lie down, and groan for an entire minute before continuing.

other minds by peter godfrey-smith (nf)- i love octopuses. on one tma bonus ep, jonny sims says that if a creature can choose to do evil, then it’s a Person. octopuses are People. but anyway frfr this has an explanation of the evolution of consciousness that is cool af. (this one is much better than the other recent popsci octo book which i will not name out of politeness.)

the perfect predator by steffanie strathdee and thomas patterson (nf)- i read this bc my microbiology prof recommended it and it’s cool as heck! it’s got adventure, drama, mystery, Science-with-a-capital-S. i’m biased bc i’m a bit of a microbes nerd, but i had a blast with this. (but only bc we know going in that everything works out okay; if i hadn’t known that, i would have been TOO stressed!)

books that were a little less fun but still very readable:

my sister, the serial killer by oyinkan braithwaite (f)- i couldn’t find this as funny as other people bc i, too, have a beautiful sister who’s an insufferable narcissist, so it hits a little too close to home, but. it is a wild ride.

piranesi by susanna clarke (f)- idek what to say! i went into this one blind just bc it had a cool cover and title, so i guess i’d recommend that for other people too.

the sixth world series by rebecca roanhorse (f)- monster hunting! a post-apocalyptic take that doesn’t feel tired.

the shades of magic trilogy by v.e. schwab (f)- easy escapism. some ideas feel a little first draft-y, but idk, it’s also a pretty simple premise (which isn’t a bad thing). it’s a decent urban fantasy set in ~georgian?-era london. very actiony. suffers from a bit of i’m-not-like-other-girls disease, but i didn’t even notice until book two or three, so.

the only good indians by stephen graham jones (f)- starts off a little ??? (and reeks of being Written By A Man) but picks up. the pacing’s great and there’s just a super fucking cool monster.

robopocalypse by daniel h. wilson (f)- this reads like a tv miniseries so much that i can’t believe it isn’t one yet.

confessions of the fox by jordy rosenberg (f)- not my usual cup of tea, fiction-wise, but still compelling. a fresh take on the white-male-english-professor-self-insert? but not insufferable. gets weird!

spinning silver by naomi novik (f)- rumplestilstkin, but make it interesting! a great, richly-told fairy tale, but like, large scale. good to read on a cold day while you’re wrapped up in a blanket with some hot tea.

interior chinatown by charles yu (f)- compulsively readable. a couple things bugged me, but not enough to make me dislike it. a fun companion piece to how to live safely in a science fictional universe. i like this guy’s style.

cannibalism by bill schutt (nf)- COOL. mostly covers the animal kingdom (fun), spends too much time on the donner party (less fun), ends with a SPICY take on prions that i cannot get out of my head!!!

buzz, sting, bite by anne sverdrup-thygeson (nf)- BUGS! broad but not overwhelming, neither dumbed down nor overly scientific, short enough to finish in a day or two. recommend this to literally everyone.

books that made me want to read everything else in the author’s ouevre:

the time invariance of snow by e. lily yu (f)- this FUCKS but it’s too short!!!

an unkindness of ghosts by rivers solomon (f)- okay this book is SO good and so well-written and interesting and blah blah blah all the good things, but... the whole time, i was just like?? why???? why is this what you’re choosing to write about??? (i did also read the deep and blood is another word for hunger after this one, and i did like them both, especially the latter, but i think they can do better! like i think they could write a perfect book and i am gonna be *eyes emoji* until then.)

the space between worlds by micaiah johnson (f)- a fine debut novel, but i want to see her do something a little more... idk, refined? i think she overreaches here, like it’s a little... idk looper? this is how you lose the time war? there’s a better comparison, but i can’t think of it, but you get the idea. and then halfway through it shifts gears to mad max. there’s something weird about one of the central relationships, like it’s not complex enough to take as long to resolve as it does. idk idk. there are just a lot of little nitpicky things. it’s not bad! but i think she can do better and i look forward to finding out.

postcolonial love poem by natalie diaz (p)- thinky! like i tried to read this before bed, but it’s not the sort of thing to parse out while you’re falling asleep, it requires more attention than that.

books that Learned Me Somethin:

smoke gets in your eyes by caitlin doughty (nf)- i am a self-professed death obsessed weirdo, fascinated by death and mourning, but i didn’t know all that much about what happens to a body between the dying and the funeral! this book isn’t big, but it covers a lot and doughty’s writing style is engaging and honest. it’s very memorable.

queer by meg-john barker and julia scheele (nf)- i’m gonna be totally honest and say Queer Theory is above my intellectual pay grade, but this book takes you by the hand and explains the basics.

vitamania by catherine price (nf)- LMAO my fellow americans, never take a supplement. this book is great and well-researched, but normal folks don’t need to read it, just listen to season two of the dream podcast, which definitely cribbed from this.

vegetable kingdom by bryant terry (nf)- this is a fine cookbook, my favorite of his that i’ve read so far. gets a special mention bc i had a religious experience just reading one of his kohlrabi recipes. absolutely gutted that i didn’t have an opportunity to try it this year, since the pandemic put the kibosh on all family bbqs.

the best american food writing 2020 edited by j. kenji lopez-alt (nf)- this really is just a great collection.

are prisons obsolete? by angela y. davis (nf)- yes.

i moved to los angeles to work in animation by natalie nourigat (nf)- before reading this, i had basically zero knowledge of how the animation industry works. now i know like three things.

the secret lives of bats by merlin tuttle (nf)- BATS! okay this book is more about the adventures of being a bat scientist than it actually is about bats, but there are bats in there. insectivorous bats basically shit glitter, you should know this.

books from valuable perspectives:

hood feminism by mikki kendall (nf)- a breakdown of who’s getting left out of feminist spaces, why that’s happening, and why it shouldn’t be happening.

all you can ever know by nicole chung (nf)- a (transracial) adoptee’s take on adoption and learning more about her birth family. the personal storytelling of this one really stuck with me.

motherhood so white by nefertiti austin (nf)- a single-mom-by-choice’s take on the foster system/adoption process. walks you through some things i always wondered about and some things i wouldn’t even have thought about.

this place by kateri akiwenzie-damm et al (? n/f)- i, like a lot of non- native americans, only know that history in broad strokes. getting this many highly specific stories in one dense and beautiful book felt like a lucky find. and taking that perspective into the future in the context of that history is v good.

empty by susan burton (nf)- eating disorder stories are important to me bc i care about food so much. this one is so relatable- not in its specificity, but rather its generality. it’s easy to empathize with her perspective because it’s like, Oh, i don’t have that exact problem, but i struggle with different problems in a very similar way. (feels like the opposite of roxane gay’s hunger, in a way.)

obit by victoria chang (p)- this exploration of grief is... woof.

short story collections are hard to evaluate bc you’ll never read one where every single story hits but i generally enjoyed these:

a thousand beginnings and endings edited by ellen oh and elsie chapman (f)

how long til black future month? by n.k. jemisin (f)

her body and other parties by carmen maria machado (f)

books i revisited:

the broken earth trilogy by n.k. jemisin (f)- i read the series backwards this time and like... i can’t really find any faults in these books, man. they’re just the best.

everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too by jomny sun (f... but is it really?)- half of this book’s sales are from me buying it for other people bc it’s the only way i know how to say i love you. i reread it every time just to make sure it still feels right and it always does.

other honorable mentions:

white is for witching by helen oyeyemi (f)- not to pit two bad bitches against each other, but this book does what akwaeke emezi’s freshwater was trying to do. it’s a little weird, a little haunted, a little of a lot of things. read this only in the dead of winter. (and with stephen rennicks’ score for the little stranger playing in the background.)

homie by danez smith (p)- there’s a lot going on here, but this just made me crack a smile a couple times in a way that no other book of poetry has ever done.

the murder of roger ackroyd and murder in mesopotamia by agatha christie (f)- That Bitch!

blues by nikki giovanni (p)- she sure has some Things To Say

the three-body problem by cixin liu (f)- interesting concepts, but... idk something’s missing? felt weirdly soulless to me. i’m probably not gonna read the sequels. but it did make some points!

the sisters of the winter wood by rena rossner (f)- i’m a slut for shapeshifting, okay. but this is a good fairy tale, it works!

parable of the sower by octavia butler (f)- i read this in march, when the pandemic was just kicking off and boy that was not the right time. def my least favorite of hers so far, but an octavia butler i don’t love is still better than a hell of a lot of other books. no idea when or if i’ll get to a good enough headspace for the sequel.

faves:

saturnino herrán by adriana zapett tapia (nf)- i got to learn new things about my mans and see some of his paintings i’ve never even seen online! GOSH.

on food and cooking by harold mcgee (nf)- yeah yeah, i’ve already mentioned this book half a dozen times on here this year, but i don’t care. this book lives off the shelf in my home bc i reference it like every other fucking day. this book is a part of me now.

#long post #final total for the year will be 120 by the end of the day! #and i had a pretty good hit rate. would probably recommend at least half #and only outright hated four

[princessbee23]

Just the Two of Us, Pt. 5

I’d never felt we had a super traditional marriage. We eloped to the Oregon coast, a road trip that we didn’t come home from for nearly a month. I wore a different white dress every day until we’d gotten married, and on that day I still didn’t wear an actual wedding dress—just a simple white sundress that I still wore from time to time. We both worked full time—although your career was much more involved than mine. We’d both decided having kids just wasn’t for us. We didn’t go to Church on Sundays and a good portion of our home decor were nerdy trinkets we’d collected on the way. But, I did do most of the cooking and you did usually end up behind the wheel if we were going anywhere. You took the traditional role as the more dominant one in our relationship—both in general and in bed— which wasn’t a small feat considering that I generally had a very dominant personality. “You’re a fucking brat and I love that about you,” you’d always say.

But, nevertheless, the comment your new friend made when he saw me in my ruffled Pioneer Woman apron still made me feel... domesticated. “What a pretty little house wife,” he’d said. His wife had smiled politely, nodding in agreement.

I stared down at the lemon curd I was working with and tried to hide my look of disgust. You didn’t say anything about the comment, but you didn’t even try to mask your own disapproval. Jonas, the man in question, dropped it with an awkward laugh.

This was only our second attempt at having a couple to be friends with. The wife—Laura—had spotted my day collar while we were out at our favorite little hole-in-the-wall bar playing darts and compared it to her own.

“Oooh, another couple in the lifestyle I see!” She’d chided.

People didn’t often recognize that the necklace I now kept around my neck had any meaning beyond looking elegant, so you’d looked at me and shrugged, and I grinned at her. “I see you know your stuff.”

She’d brushed her hair away from her neck to show us hers, although it was significantly more flashy. A thick silver band to make up the choker and a thick ring—it was slightly more obvious and not made to be elegant, but a day time show piece. “Of course!”

She and her husband had joined us for a few drinks and another round of darts. Our conversation flowed so smoothly that we even opted for a game of pool. I, for the record, can’t play pool to save my life, so you spent your time behind me, hands guiding my arms to teach me how to shoot. I’d get so distracted from conversing with our new friends, feeling your girth through your pants pressed against my ass. You’d sneak a hand down to pinch mine after every good shot I’d made. We had a really good night that night.

Now, though, being in the privacy of our home, it seemed we’d be seeing their true colors. We’d both been worried about it just before we asked them over for dinner.

“I dunno, B,” you’d groaned. “You know how couples that say they ‘live the lifestyle’ can be. The guy’s usually a douche, the woman is more of a thing to him than a person.”

I’d nodded. “I know, I know. If we don’t like them we can forget they ever existed though.”

You were right, to be fair. The dom/sub relationship that WE had was just a part of our life, something we’d discovered we both enjoyed that made existence feel relevant again since we’d given up on believing in some grand meaning. Sure, I had multiple night time collars and the beautiful, simple day collar you’d surprised me with in England, but we still had the rest of our relationship as well. We both played our roles well, but it didn’t consume the entirety of our lives together.

Others, though, if they “lived the lifestyle,” they really LIVED the LIFESTYLE. At least the ones we’d met. The doms, the men, were usually incredibly demanding, and the women just gave into it. The other couple we’d tried befriending after finding out had invited us over and the wife had been in a full on French maid outfit... just for us to be there. He called her all sorts of filthy names. I gave you one look and you snuck away to text your buddy to call and say a pipe had busted at our house so we could bail. We never spoke to that couple again.

I looked up from my mixer just long in time to catch the look you were giving me. I told ya so.

I looked back down to my curd, now turning a lovely milky yellow after the cream was added. Lemon silk pie was one of your absolute favorites, and I’d been excited to make it for you all week.

Jonas made polite conversation with you for several minutes, about similar interests and work. I’d let out a quiet sigh of relief, hoping maybe he’d just started off on the wrong foot.

My stomach sank, though, when I heard him clear his throat. “So, uh, you ever thought about letting your buddies use your wife? Or we could even just switch wives for a night?”

I knew you so well that I could’ve swore I heard you grit your teeth, even over the sound of my mixer. “Absolutely fucking not.”

I didn’t dare turn away from the counter. You weren’t an angry guy; you kept your cool relatively well in the majority of situations. This wasn’t going to be one of them.

“Okay okay, I get it. What’s yours is yours, I just figured—“

You cut him off right there. You didn’t yell, but I knew how you sounded when you were livid. “Number one, share my wife? Are you fucking kidding me? I don’t OWN her, it’s not my place to say ‘hey my buddy wants to fuck you tonight so you’re gonna do it.’ That’s not how this works. Number fucking two, switch wives? Hell no. Women aren’t fucking Pokémon cards, you don’t trade them when you want a good time.” I heard you scoot in your chair; you tended to stand up when you got heated.

“Relax, man, it was just a suggestion. You know, some fun. Laura likes to join couples for three ways sometimes, or we could do a couple thing too so you’d still be in the room.”

“Yeah!” Laura piped up. “Jonas has a gorgeous cock, I’m sure you’d love watching him fuck your pretty wife and she’d like it too.”

Now I ground my teeth. This is what i hated about trying to befriend other couples who may be into similar things that we are. I was never B, I was always just your wife, as if you owned me—just another toy, and that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“The two of you should probably go.” I knew you were frustrated. You’d always been adamant on keeping our personal lives between the two of us, regardless of if we happened to meet someone that recognized the subtle signs—like my necklace, or you leading me by the wrist instead of my hand.

“On c’mon,” Laura purred. “You know you could have a lot of fun with me, too.”

I spun around at this, ready to finally put in my two cents, but you’d already taken a large step back and headed to the door. You opened it wide, motioning with your arm. “Out.”

I hated that things had gone poorly; we both thought it may be interesting to have friends in our life that we could be open with to some extent, but this seemed to be common place with most couples. At the same time, though, seeing you completely shut down ideas that a lot of men wouldn’t be opposed to sent a tingling down between my legs. I turned back to my pie and went back to debating if I wanted to do meringue or whipped cream for the topping. You’d handled everything flawlessly.  

You walked into the kitchen and settled your chin on my shoulder. “We don’t actually NEED to be friends with a couple, right? We’ve been fine for this long.”

I nodded and turned toward you, and you settled your hands on my waist. I touched the tip of my nose to yours affectionately. “I’m content with just you.”

You grinned and let your lips drift down to my neck. “I’d hope so.” You nibbled at my skin, and I let out a soft moan. “Besides, now I don’t have to be unwillingly patient.”

I grinned and spun around, purposely bending over just a bit to let my ass press up against your hardening cock. I took my pie off the counter. “It still needs a topping... meringue or whipped cream.”

“Canned or fresh?”

“The squirty kind. I used all the cream I had for your pie.”

“Mm...” you settled your chin back onto my shoulder and slid a hand under my apron and between my legs, rubbing me through my jeans. “Meringue. You can finish it later, though.”

I bit my lip and place a hand on his forearm, it moving up and down as he rubbed me. “But it’s your favorite. You don’t want me to finish it now?”

You worked your way up and unbuttoned my jeans, pulling at them to force the zipper down. Your hand found its way to my panties and you rubbed me through those, kissing the back of my neck now. “It’ll still be my favorite tomorrow, kitten. I’m hungry for something else right now.”

I pulled away from you unwillingly to put the pie back into the fridge. You grabbed the can of whipped cream from the door and set it on the counter before it could swing shut, and then grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me to you to lock me into a kiss. You pushed me back against our kitchen island, which was clear except for a cookbook and two bottles of wine. Using your forearm, you pushed them to the side to clear space for me to hop up onto the countertop.

You untied the string of my apron and pulled the loop from around my neck, letting it fall to the floor with a soft thud. You kissed down my neck and wrapped your fingers under the bottom of my shirt to pull it off over my head, leaving it in a puddle with the apron.

I slid my fingers up into your hair as your lips found my nipples, relishing the feeling of your tongue making a big circle around each one. You pulled my jeans off and let those fall to the floor too, leaving me only in my little cotton boy shorts.

You kissed back up to my lips, making me lean back just enough to make it easier for you to have a hand wrapped around my throat and another in between my legs.

Your kisses were generally so soft and sweet, not too terribly wet, just enough to keep me wanting more. The way you kissed me while teasing me endlessly was the same way you’d kiss me if we’d been cuddled up in bed.

You stepped back and pulled my panties down over my thighs, let them fall with the rest of my clothes, and spread my legs wide, standing in between them with your crotch pressed into mine. You cupped one of my cheeks in your hand, running your thumb across it gingerly. “You know, that pie you make me is actually my second favorite dessert.”

I pressed my face into your hand and batted my eyelashes at you. You were so incredibly handsome; dark hair, dark eyes, thick eyelashes. A sharp jaw and always just a bit of stubble. You had tattoos up and down your arms, just like I did, and you had the most dazzling smile I’d ever seen in my life. “Oh?” I murmured, trying not to get too caught up in admiring you.

“Mhmm.” You stepped back to the counter and grabbed the can of whipped cream. “You’ve always been the first, Princess.” I leaned back for you, propping myself up on my forearms to give you absolute access to everywhere you’d need to be.

You took the can and covered both of my tits in whipped cream, spread my legs a bit wider and covered my freshly shaved pussy in it as well.

You set the can down and immediately started licking my newly found, edible bikini off of my body. Your tongue felt so good against my tits and nipples. I let my head lean back and just enjoyed the sensation, letting out soft moans every so often.

The thing that no one would ever guess about you, from the outside looking in, was that you were incredibly attentive to my feelings and emotions—honestly, that was one of the biggest reasons our dynamic worked. So, when something like this happened, you exclusively focused on me and my pleasure during our play time—you hated the thought of anyone possibly making me feel like I wasn’t as valuable as I was. Idiots like Jonas rarely ever did, but you always felt the need to correct it anyway.

You kissed down my body slowly, a hand now on each of my thighs, pushing them just a bit wider with every kiss. Once you’d made it down to my pussy, you started licking everywhere but the most sensitive spots, taking your time to clean up the sweet mess. Once the majority of it was gone, you ran your hands up my inner thighs and spread the lips of my pussy. I bit my lip and glanced down at you, and you smirked up at me before running your tongue from between the lips to my clit.

I laid back against the counter, running my hands up to my tits as you started to work my pussy with the width of your tongue. I slid my hands back down my stomach and into your hair, curling my fingers into it.

I don’t know how long you swirled your tongue over my clit and lapped at the entirety of my pussy, but the cum that came gushing out of me attested to how good you were. You licked my pussy just a bit longer, enough to get my legs shaking.

I was panting when you kissed back up my body. You kissed up my neck to my ear and whispered, “One more time. You ready for that baby?”

I nodded and locked my lips to yours, having sat up so that it was easier. I loved the way I tasted on your lips. I think it was because... somehow, someone as perfect as you had taken the time worship my pussy. You did it often—any other time you would’ve been far more strict about letting me cum. But I always loved tasting myself on your lips.

I pulled your t-shirt over your head, and at the same time, you dropped your pants and boxers below your waist. You pressed the head of your dick up against my pussy. “Beg for me, kitten,” you whispered against my lips, not bothering with pausing out kisses.

“Please fuck me, Daddy. Please.”

"I dunno...” Your voice was playful, a subtle grin across your lips. You pushed my legs a bit further open, taking a second to just barely push the head of your dick into me--just enough that it was the worst kind of teasing, the kind that left me helplessly begging. “I may like hearing you beg.” 

“Please?” I whined, shimmying my hips to try to get you further into me. 

“Please what?” 

“Please fuck me, Daddy. Please? I’ll do anything you want.” 

“Anything, huh? Like what, Princess?” 

“I’ll--” You’d starting running the head of your cock up and down my pussy, in between the lips, and it was making it hard to speak. “Mm, I’ll--I’ll blow you for--” You dipped the head of your cock back into me before going back to teasing me. “I’ll blow you for as long as you, mm, baby, for as long as you want. Down on my knees--” You ran your hand up my stomach to play with one of my tits, leaving the head of your cock in me for the moment. “--looking up at you just the way you like. I promise.” 

You ran your hand up to my face to run your thumb along my cheek affectionately. “That’s my good girl,” you purred, ever so slowly pushing your dick into me--inch by inch, letting me cling to your hand as you stretched me. You kept pushing into me all the way up until my moans had gotten high pitched and my grip on your hand couldn’t have been any tighter. “Awh, baby, is that all you can take?” 

I nodded, biting down on my lip, and wasn’t surprised when you gave your hips a hard thrust and pushed just that much further into me. “Mm--Daddy--”

“‘Daddy’ nothing, baby.” You slipped two fingers into my mouth to keep me from protesting any further, the look on your face making it evident that you liked the way my tongue felt against them. 

You lowered your hands to take both of my wrists, pinning them against my stomach while your other hand pushed my leg to the side. 

The way your cock filled me was one of the greatest pleasures I had in life--I felt myself stretch every single time you pushed into me, my pussy filled as much as it possibly could be. It didn’t matter how wet I was or how easy it was for you to push in; it never failed to make me gasp. 

You pushed in and out of me for a few minutes, tightening your grip on my wrists every time I started to squirm. “Now, Princess,” you’d lean down and whisper. “You know to take it like a good girl.” 

I nodded, fighting the urge to buckle my hips. You were pushing in and out of me deep and slow, looking up to occasionally make eye contact with me, but you were mostly focused on my pussy lips wrapped around your cock. Every single time you pushed back into me, your dick would hit the back of my pussy, encouraging high pitched moans. That, as much as it could hurt, felt incredible at the same time. The way your warm, thick cock felt with every slow inch... I wanted to wait to cum. A second orgasm this soon would’ve been too exhausting. 

You pulled out of me suddenly, leaving me pouting and longing for more, but that didn’t last long. You took hold up my legs behind my knees and jerked me forward, planting your hands on the counter with your forearms behind my knees now, forcing my legs up and open. “Was that a whine I heard?” 

“Yes, Daddy...” 

“You know better.” You didn’t give it to me slowly this time. As soon as you had the head in, you slammed into me, leaving me to bite down on my lip to keep from damn near screaming. 

“Ah--Baby--” I ran my hands up over my face and into my hair, tits bouncing with every hard thrust into me. I couldn’t help it this time--my back arched, just making it easier for your cock to get further into me, and I slid my hands back down to my chest to cup my tits.

“Uh uh,” you said sharply. “Move your hands.” 

“Yes, Daddy...” I opted to instead kind of prop myself on my elbows to be able to look you in the eyes and, to my delight, you slowed just enough to lean in and kiss me. 

“How’s that feel?” 

“Mm.” I cherished the feeling of your lips on mine while you were fucking me, your face so close to mine that I could really see that hungry look in your eyes. “It feels so good, Daddy.” 

“Oh yeah? And just why is that, Princess?” 

You were guiding your dick in and out of me slowly, and I was struggling to keep myself from cumming. I don’t know exactly what it was--maybe the position, maybe just the way my pussy stretched slowly instead of quickly. “It just feels so good when your cock stretches me out like this, baby,” I managed. “I love it when you use me this way.” 

“That’s my girl.” You pulled me down off of the counter and spun me around, pushing me up against it so that I had to use my hands to keep myself steady. You wasted no time pushing back into me, wrapping my hair around your hand to pull my head back while you pumped in and out of me. You kissed the top of my ear gently and whispered, “You need this, don’t you?” 

“Ah--y-yes Daddy. I always need this.” You used your free hand and ran it down my stomach, your fingers finding my clit, making it substantially harder to keep myself in check. “Daddy,” I whimpered. “I’m gonna cum if you don’t stop--” 

“So cum, baby.” You let go of my hair to get a hold on my throat, tightening your grip as I finally gave in and let my pussy clench around your cock. I used one hand to keep my head steady and the other to dig my nails into your forearm, moaning out your name as I gushed, my own cum covering your balls and your cock and dripping down my legs. “Did that feel good, Princess?” 

I nodded and you let go of my throat while I collapsed down on the counter, arms folded to rest my head on as I panted and enjoyed the feeling of you finishing yourself of with a few hard, deep thrusts, your cum soon joining my own dribbling down my legs. 

We took a second to catch our breath before I turned to face you, satisfied. You finished rebuttoning your jeans and kissed my temple. “Love you.”

“I love you.” I bent down and picked up your t-shirt, pulling it on over my head before scooping up the rest of my clothes to stick into the hamper. “So... no threesomes?”

You chuckled and took my chin between your fingers, giving me a peck on the lips. “Not a chance, baby. Afraid you’re mine.”

I stole another kiss from you and laughed myself. 

Yours.

 I could live with that.

You grabbed both of the bottles of wine from the counter and headed for the living room. “C’mon Princess, that lame anime on Netflix is calling our names.”

I tossed my clothes into the hamper in our laundry room and followed you into the living room for what I was sure would be a low key night of cartoons and possibly a wine fueled round two.

Perfect.

[supacutiepie]

I have headcanons... Head Cannons if you will

I thoroughly believe Bakugou is the type to bullshit his way around every little truth so honestly this shit might as well be canon bc he is Absolutely That Extra

- The new reveals told that: The reason we didn’t see his room is because it’s got shelves of romance manga.

-Therefor : Bakugou is a MAJOR BOOK NERD NESTER

-He has cookbooks, his trashy literature, his classics, his mangas, every school book he ever owned has been kept. 

-This includes shit he wrote himself

-Cookbook notebooks, its a full wall to wall scenario. He has books in every language and they make a librarian weep.

-The books he can’t read?? He has notebooks filled with translations he’s jot down after hours of scouring the internet and his OTHER books.

-TBFH his self written notebook collection puts “shitty nerdy fanboy deku” to shame

-Not only does he have this many books, they have consumed him. His room is wall to wall with them and they are so neatly organized to his mind that he just AUTOMATICALLY knows EXACTLY where every little page is. 

-However

-You may think, “Bakugou is the neatest of the students”

-Bullshit

-He understands his methods. You could never. I’m not shitting you, we have only ever seen his bed because its the only clean spot. He has piles of books, his closet is filled with his novelty t-shirts--

-Oh, he swaps out his wardrobe every season. Not because he cares per say but rather if he didn’t he’d drown in the clothes. His parents own a fashion line, every. single. month. he gets something new.

-Clothes mean jack shit to him. Sure, he gets it. He understands that clothes are “Expressions”... but to him its just bullshit extra merchandise that he gets in  packages once a month since he born. He long since left behind any attachment to anything that wasn’t some doofy bs novelty shit. His skull shirt collection is hideous and he loves it. 

-Bc he gets clothes so often, he just as often donates them.

-Everyone in 1-A has received a mysterious package of clothing. Everyone. And it’s always customized because like hell he’d just throw clothes at people puh-lease his father DESIGNS FASHION FROM SCRATCH

-It’s also ‘secretly’ his way of trying to put some kind of fashion sense in the heathens he lives with. 

-So his closet is full, his walls are lined with shelves and stacks and notes.

-But the rest of the “clear space” is filled with art.

- Drawings, Sketches, Designs. Little thing stacked up or tapped together. Prototypes over a desk thats STUFFED with pencils and erasers and extra paper and books. 

-Photographs of the places he’s been. So many different shots of Paris, mountains, rivers, lakes. He has a series of photo albums for the best and one is entirely dedicated to sunrises- another to sunsets.

-He has a map above his bedside. It’s the only spot big enough because it doesn’t have a big ass bookshelf on the wall.

-The map is big and delicately detailed. But it’s still just a map.

-The cool shit is that it is COVERED in tack-markers. Well, most of it is. 

-Europe is washed out by tacks. France has so many different colored tacks its an eyesore. Paris has a big ass push pin bc he’s been there so many times. Enough that when Aoyama starts mumbling obscenities at their classmates he has to stop himself from cackling along.

-He has a trail of pushpins along the Alps and Pyrenees. 

-The different colors mean things. But only he gets its.

* Black is Done. Been there, done it, no point going back.

*Green is Good. It’s a place he kinda liked, but its not somewhere he needs to go back to. Paris is a big ass green push pin.

*Red is for a place he wants to go back to. The mountains are a trail of red that grows inch by inch longer.

*Blue is for Potential. He marks his next trips in blue, but not his dream trips.

*Those would be his nice, doofy, silver tipped push pins. the classic “string on a crime board” kind. He has major cities plotted out with these. Theres a large mishmash over america filled with silver and blue. He has books and books and BOOKS on american mountain ranges and cuisine and he not-so-secretly plotted out a course all-might themed rest stops.

*Yellow is for his favorites. The first mountain he ever hiked, the onsen he found while his parents dragged him out to a business trip up north, the island they went on once for a family vacation. (He fell in love with the sunset. It was clear and bright and there were so many colors at once that its his ‘happy place’. He sat on top of a fucking volcano and it was AWESOME.)

-The map is obsessively picked over, the pins are carefully arranged, and the map itself its surrounded by his favorite snapshots of the places marked.

-His room is a mess. But he does know the exact inch everything belongs in.

-He may not seem it, but he is sentimental. He just doesn’t keep all the sentimental shit in the dorms. Those things are at home. On shelves and wall caddies and tucked between his even BIGGER collection of books and cd cases.

-He does have All Might merch, but again, at home. The few things he has at the dorm are hand drawn posters, so much cooler than the cheap shit you get in the store.

-He doesn’t have time for movies and shows, but when he does its either “cheesy romance serial” or “blood, guts, and glory”

-TBFH his FAVORITE movie is a bastard child of a romcom, an action, and a suspense thriller. It’s horrible, its audacious, its cheesy and the vgi is awful but its one of those Things he loves. (On really bad days, when his arms ache for hours and he didn’t sleep well the night before he lets the movie go on repeat just for the cheese. It’s a soothing ‘nothing really matters’ kinda Thing)

-Oh, lets not forget his arms.

-His quirk is DEMANDING. Its a needy little princess. He gets sick of it acting like a bitch. His arms will ache if he over does it, so he has a giant fucking box of tiger balms and compression wraps and weird fucking icy-hot concoctions.

-He DOESN’T have skin car shit. Surprise surprise, he doesn’t need it. He is soft. He is also, incredibly fucking annoyed.

-He has those super obnoxious spray colognes, some super expensive shit, and inbetweeners. Because otherwise he smells like he just rolled out a vat of butterscotch and step into a shower of caramel. But BURNT.

-Seriously, his room would be noxious from the nitroglycerin smell alone. He constantly has a fan going and the window open. And while the room is cluttered he CANNOT let it go uncleaned or he risks a build up of explosives. He has to change his sheets daily, he has a routine for covers and pillow cases, and he is damn near religious in clothes washing because otherwise he’s destined to explode Something he Doesn’t Want Exploded. (The books. The very flammable sometimes RARE books.)

-Oh, and he has MANY a blanket and throw. He swaps them out so he isn’t doing huge loads of laundry for the big shit. It’s mostly thin blankets anyways, but they’re super soft and cozy and he nestles up to read his books like a demented caterpillar. The blanket he sleeps with ALWAYS ends up on the floor. 

-He doesn’t like to think himself overly conceited. But he is cocksure and arrogant and he has an image to keep. So of course he has routines to make himself look good.

-This is just a Bakugou thing TBQH.

-More of a personal headcanon, but he’s definitely gay. Not in the super obvious way, but he’s definitely confident in it. He isn’t about to go plastering his walls with flags (as if they’d fit), and he isn’t jotting down crushes in a journal (he does have journals, they’re just... incredibly volatile and profane)

-He’s just, confident.  He has a single little rainbow picture, its a picture he took and its super cool and shit. A rainbow in the mountains, right after a shower. He keeps in in a frame in one of the bookshelves near his manga. It’s tasteful, and it’s subtle. He knows what its for, and the littleness of it feels nice and secure.

-He doesn’t shy away if asked. But no one asks. He’d be honest, if anyone did. It’s not something he will hide- that’d be cowardly...

-But deep down, it does give him pause. It’s something he wrestled into submission since he figured it out. He had this big dream of being N.1 and then one day he realized that, had society not advanced the way it did, he could have nothing. He’d never tell a soul but it scared him, to know that despite all his ‘perfections’  he had this one thing that would turn heads in a way he didn’t want.

-He realized though that it as just one more thing he’d own. So he noosed it, that fear, and he throttled it into submission. He’d be N.1, he’d be open, He’d pioneer that shit if he had too- but he didn’t have too. It ended up being something that added character if nothing else, and he was determined to make it a trait and not a flaw and to build his pride with it.

-That all being said, much like any self respecting gay- he does has a string of lights tastefully weaving over the wood of his bookshelves.

-Extras:

* He doesn’t get sick often. Just, doesn’t. He keeps a close watch on his health, is always good on hygiene, and in general doesn’t jeopardize his well-being.

* When he gets sick. It hits him like a FREIGHT TRAIN.

* He only gets fevers once in a blue moon and he’ll fight the damn moon itself to keep it this way because when he DOEs get a fever its like a putting a handful of firecrackers into a cooking pot.

* He pops when sweaty. He just DOES, It’s INCREDIBLY annoying but thankfully localized to the hands. But when the fever strikes, his whole body pops. He spends the majority of his fever curled up in something flame-proof to wait it out.

*If he’s sweating, and by some MIRACLe he blushes, he CRACKLES.

* He’ll kill you if you witness it.

* I said he’s confident, not that he can’t be flustered.

* On that note, he’ll take it to the grave, but he definitely made Kaminari discharge in front of the dorms that first day by kissing him. It was on the cheek though! And it fucking hurt. Touching Kaminari is like playing roulette and his finger tips smell funny afterwards so he tries to avoid it.

* Honestly, the same can be said for anyone with a quirk that can react to his.

*Fucking half-and-half actually worries him. For the sanctity of his clothing.

* That fight with Deku in ground-beta set off every nerve ending he had and for a solid 24 hrs afterwards he actually had trouble keeping his quirk under his skin. He can still vividly recall the arc of electricity over his face and it never fails to leave a lasting echo in his mind.

* Kirishima is good for this though. Ironically, he’s grounding. He’s the one person Bakugou has never worried about hurting or leaving damage behind. Likewise, he knows that Kirishima high-key needs the confidence boost that Bakugou drags with him everywhere, so he amps up his attitude when the red-head seems down.

* He has no earthly idea how to describe his relationship with Kirishima and it shows. He would never dare say it allowed, but he knows that the boy is his best friend and he’d honestly kill for him. But more so, he’d be willing to live and fight beside him.

* Kirishima is one of the VERY FEW who has a picture in Bakugou’s room. It’s from a hiking trip, and its really backlit so you honestly wouldn’t know at first glance, but its beautiful. A sunrise, right at the summit. A figure standing on a rock with a hand excitedly outstretched towards the horizon.

* The other people with photos, are his parents- and the Midoriya’s.

* It’s not as obvious this one. But he keeps a family photo on his bookself of the three Bakugous, and then theres an old photograph tucked away between some of his older school book collections.

* It’s a beach photo. He couldn’t be more than, maybe three? 

* It’s a whole other life. A time before his quirk. Before he knew he was destined.

*He’s sitting on a rock with a backsplash of salt and foam. He’s got an arm wrapped around a tiny Izuku. It was the only thing keeping the other boy from tumbling off into the waves. Their moms are sitting on either side, big happy faces all around.

*The boys were burnt, both heavily freckled, and smiling like the world was endless.

* The photo...makes him sad. He can’t explain it, not even sure what words could do so. It’s nostalgic sure, but something between the pixels of ink has him at a lost. It was such a different time, and the little boy in the photo is a stranger.

*Sometimes, rarely and in the dead of night when a nightmare finally gets him awake, he thinks about life. About how different it could have been, about the paths he chose and the ones he burnt. He wonders, he regrets, and he moves on before morning.

*Bakugou Katsuki refuses to dwell. He bottles and compartmentalizes and he tucks it away like a pamphlet in a library. Notes and subscripts to be lost in translation. 

( He’s vocal, he’s vivid. He writes. He loves his book collection and he writes his own short stories. His imagination is as vivid as the rest of the class, and he jots down half finished ideas all the time. He has a memory that makes an elephant cry, so his school notebooks are tiny and his idea notebooks are scattered. The words he can’t get out into the air are sometimes trapped in ink. )

#bakugou #bakuboom #bakugou katsuki #kacchan #my BOY #look I love one Good Rowdy Boy #bnha #my hero acadamy #yeah yeah heres my newest fixation #its blonde #angry #and a big ass fucking bookworm

[the-media-home]

Books (PDF) The Kiss Thief

Suchen Sie dieses Buch?  The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook: Sweet Treats for the Geek in All of Us By Rosanna Pansino

 Book Excerpt :

The long-awaited first cookbook from the creator and host of the Internet?s most popular baking show, Nerdy Nummies: a collection of Rosanna Pansino?s all-time favorite geeky recipes as well as sensational new recipes exclusive to this book.The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook is quirky, charming, and fun, featuring the recipes behind Rosanna Pansino?s celebrated, one-of-a-kind creations, as well as beautiful, mouthwatering photographs throughout. It is the perfect companion that you?ll turn to whenever you want to whip up a delicious treat and be entertained all at once. And best of all, these treats are as simple as they are fun to make! No need for costly tools or baking classes to create these marvelous delights yourself.The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook combines two things Rosanna loves: geek culture and baking. Her fondness for video games, science fiction, math, comics, and lots of other things considered ?nerdy? have inspired every recipe in this book. You?ll find the recipes for many beloved

 >>> START READING NOW

"This book is available for download in a number of formats - including epub, pdf, azw, mobi and more. You can also read the full text online using our Ereader."

 #EPICBOOK, #KINDLE, #EPICBOOK2020

[hermitlibrarian]

Amazon  –  Barnes & Noble  –  Goodreads

Published: 15 September 2017

Publisher: Race Point Publishing

Category: Food & Drink/Non-fiction

The Geeky Chef Strikes Back is your chance to finally drink Estus, nibble Seed Cakes, slurp White Dragon Noddles, and a lot more.

The Geeky Chef is back with even more delicious, real-life recipes from your favorite sci-fi and fantasy books, movies, TV shows, and video games. Discover the foods you’ve always wanted to taste from realms like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter to The Legend of Zelda, Firefly, Minecraft, Final Fantasy, and more.

In the Geeky Chef Strikes Back, author Cassandra Reeder has imagined the delicious foods in these faraway worlds and created recipes that are sure to transport you to galaxies far, far way. So if you’ve found yourself craving Pumpkin Juice from Harry Potter, Lingonberry Pancakes from The Big Lebowski, Norma’s Cherry Pie from Twin Peaks, Wife Soup from Firefly, or the White Dragon Noodles from Blade Runner, then look no further.

With easy step-by-step instructions and fun theme photos, these creative recipes are perfect for your next big viewing party or your standing reservation for a party of one. Fantasy foods are fantasy no longer!

Rating: 4 Stars

I may not be in the kitchen much at the moment, but when I do I prefer to use recipes and what better way to incorporate my geeky interests and eating than using recipes based on titles I’ve read or seen? The Geeky Chef, back with a second collection of nerdy delights, has made it her business to bring together fans of Minecraft and Doctor Who, Games of Thrones and Harry Potter with something we all need…food.

The recipes include measurements for chefs outside the U.S. (good old metric system) as well as suggestions for substitutions should you or the person you’re cooking for be vegan. Before the book even starts, there are also base recipes, such as for simple syrup or a soup base. These base recipes will be handy for a cook to learn as the skills within them translate to other cookbooks you might be tempted to try.

There is quite a lot of variety in this book, from alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages to seaweed noodles and herring/pumpkin soup. I wasn’t too sure about some of these from the titles alone (here’s looking at you, Kiki, for that fish & gourd soup), but like the hotter spices, I’d be willing to try it at least once.

My favorite recipes in The Geeky Chef Strikes Back include Otik’s Spiced Potatoes. There were spices and herbs used throughout that, while I had heard of, were not ones I usually ate because I am not a huge fan of heat in my food. I admit to being inspired to try bolder flavors, particularly if I could imagine favorite characters eating the same meal with me. The Mushroom Stew, inspired by Minecraft, was also a recipe I was anxious to try because I love mushrooms, soup, and the recipe sounded so rich and hearty.

I would have liked to see more pictures alongside the recipes. There were a couple, but in a cookbook I would expect at least one for every entry, at least of the finished product. This may have to do with the fact that this was a digital copy and sometimes e-arc copies have errors. Please be sure to check the final product for the full range of photographs of this delicious food.  The soup section had the most overall that I could see, making my mouth water as the weather cools in my region and it becomes proper soup season again.

Most of the games, books, or movies in the book were either ones I enjoy myself or have come across in my geeky travels. For the properties that I was not intimately familiar with, the author gave a brief overview of the title and why she was inspired to create the dish of the moment. Any reader may well feel the need to try put a new game or watch a new film while sampling the dishes within The Geeky Chef Strikes Back.

I was surprised that the author, in the introduction to the book, thought that geeky cooking was still a niche market, that “you wouldn’t think” there were so many geeks out there willing to make and taste pop culture inspired food that she was able to write a second book (I have not read the first in her collection entitled The Geeky Chef). I don’t agree and before you leave this review, let me share with you some geek themed cookbooks I’ve found, and cooked from a few, that have been published over the years:

Dining With the Doctor by Chris-Rachael Oseland

Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook by Georgeanne Brennan & Frankie Frankeny

The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook by Dinah Buchotz

The Narnia Cookbook by Douglas Gresham

Doctor Who: The Official Cookbook by Joanna Farrow

Roald Dahl’s Revolting Recipes by Roald Dahl, Felicity Dahl, & Josie Fison

The Secret Garden Cookbook by Amy Cotler

  Do you have a recipe based on your favorite book/game/movie that you turn to from time to time? What book do you wish had more recipes based on it? Let me know in the comment section below.

        I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

All pictures, quotes, and videos belong to their respective owners. I use them here solely for the purpose of review and commentary.

Review: The Geeky Chef Strikes Back: Even More Unofficial Recipes from Minecraft, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Twin Peaks, and More! by Cassandra Reeder Amazon  -  Barnes & Noble  -  Goodreads Published: 15 September 2017 Publisher: Race Point Publishing Category: Food & Drink/Non-fiction…

[mizannethrope]

Mother’s Day - it’s complicated

Today is Mother’s Day. I’m trying not to be sad.

I have been very open about discussing my mother’s fight with cancer and her death. I write about it a lot. I find catharsis in it so I continue. By writing about it and examining the feelings I have, I keep her alive with me a little bit longer. I keep up the exploration because I continue to learn so much from it. To counter the sense of loss I feel around the Hallmark holiday of Mother’s Day, I have sought to focus on all the other women in my life who have been like mothers to me. My mother loved me to an infinite degree but she also was acutely aware of her own limitations. I think she overestimated them but they were very real to her. My mother pushed me toward others that she felt would “improve” me. During my early life my mother sought out other women who could teach me the things she felt she could not. She was always striving on my behalf. In this pursuit my mother found or encouraged me to seek out surrogate mothers to learn from. She actively encouraged my friendships with these other women.

Let me tell you about some of these women and what lessons I learned from each.

When I was in early elementary school, Bonnie lived down the street from us in our townhouse complex. I’m guessing she was early 30s then. She had no children of her own, though I believed she wanted very much to be a mother. It wasn’t in the cards for her. Bonnie’s husband was a career Army officer and Bonnie was, at that time, a stay at home wife. My brother and I got to know her because we loved playing with her black lab, Machen, German for “girl.” Just as kids would go knock on a friend’s door and ask, “Wanna ride bikes?” I would knock on Bonnie’s door and ask, “Can Machen come out and play?”.

Bonnie had a challenging relationship with her own mother and father. Her mother favored her older brothers. Her father was remote and often cold. My mother, facing disappointment and problems in her marriage, confided in Bonnie and the two became close. Hours in Bonnie’s kitchen would reveal stories of her youth that stay with me today.

Bonnie had studied home economics in college. I’m sure this would be a questionable choice at best today, if such a choice were even an option. People often ask me about my love of food. I got it from Bonnie. My mom was not a very good cook. She never learned to cook in Korea. She improvised once she got to America but her repertoire was largely traditional American fare she learned from my great-aunts. Meatloaf. “Broiled” steak (more like boiled steak). Stew. Mashed potatoes. Frozen green beans and succotash. Because my mother worked, she stocked the house with Hostess cupcakes and Hungryman frozen dinners.

Bonnie was not a gourmet by today’s Food Network standards but she could work a cookbook. What I loved more than anything was watching Bonnie make and decorate cakes. She would make buttercream frosting and turn it into roses and flowers and leaves and grass and basketweave along the edges of a sheet cake. It was like watching something come to life out of a Wilton how-to pamphlet. Every cup of flour was carefully leveled. Every bowl of powdered sugar was meticulously sifted for lumps. Bonnie could also sew and crochet. At her side, I hooked endless potholders. One Halloween I recall we made sugar molds of black cats to put alongside a cake she baked for a friend. We tried over and over to get the sugar to turn pitch black (no gel food coloring back then). When I got the mix just right, we pressed the sugar into the molds and voila! Angry black sugar cats emerged, ready to stand along the orange frosted cake.

Bonnie was my main adult supervision and spirit guide for all my Girl Scout badges. We would pour over the Girl Scout Handbook and dog ear the pages with the badge requirements for the ones I hoped to earn that year. I hosted my first complete dinner party at her house (of course I got a badge for that one). I made whipped sweet potatoes with marshmallows and Swedish meatballs. I invited my parents over and served the whole thing. Bonnie gifted me cookbooks and let me watch her make sewing patterns and sew baby dresses for her nieces. She had a silver collection and a closet full of Kewpie dolls that she collected from childhood. Bonnie also had a weight problem and as a fat kid myself, we bonded over it.

Bonnie had lost 30 pounds at Weight Watchers but she had gained a good portion of it back when I met her. I was just a chubby kid. My mother fed me and fed me and then complained about how fat I got. I remember going to my first Weight Watchers meeting with Bonnie at the age of 12 at my mother’s urging. Having Bonnie to talk to about this was such a help. My mother had been too thin growing up and had never been fat. Her push-pull with me about food gave me whiplash. Bonnie could understand the torment I felt of loving food but hating it at the same time. It was good to have someone to confide in who got it.

Bonnie also had some coping mechanisms that were unusual. When in pain, Bonnie would laugh hysterically. One day she burned her hand in the kitchen. Rather than yelp or cry out, she began to... laugh. I looked at her like she was deranged. Once we wrapped her hand, she confided that her older brothers had often picked fights with her when they were children. When they would hit her, she learned to hide her tears so as not to give them the satisfaction of seeing her hurt. Instead, she began to laugh. Her reflexive pain reaction was laughter. Never let them know you are hurt is something animals know as a survival skill. I had never met a person who had adopted this strategy in such a way. It made an deep impression on me.

Then Bonnie moved away.

Pat was our immediate next-door neighbor. She moved in when I was in 4th grade. She seemed to me to be a successful career woman. She was recently divorced with custody of her 3 kids who were all around my age. Pat subscribed to Cosmopolitan magazine and drank White Russians and pink wine. She was a potty mouth but very pretty. You could tell that she had been sought after in her younger years. Even in her mid-30s, life had not yet worn her down. In my 11 year old brain, Pat was very sophisticated. It was obvious she had had many boyfriends after her divorce. I had never met anyone like her before.

In our neighborhood everyone’s door was always unlocked. We all came and went without knocking, especially in the summer when everyone was home from school. No one went to summer camps back then. Some kids visited their grandparents. Most of our neighbors had family in Tennessee and when summer came, off they went to the Smoky Mountains. My best friend’s family was Cuban so her summers were spent in Miami with her abuelo and abuela. I was bereft without her company. The summers were long. One year Pat’s kids went to spend the summer with their father. I spent almost all summer at Pat’s house while they were gone. 

Pat had a stash of Cosmo magazines from the late ‘70s. Every issue was about sex, make-up, and dieting. It was the summer between 5th and 6th grade and I would go over to Pat’s house and spend hours going through issue after issue. I learned about the Grapefruit diet. I read articles about the mythical G-spot. Does it exist? Is it real? How would you know? The Atkins Diet was a thing. Lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks! Then the Beverly Hills Diet was a thing. Eat this, don’t eat that. Eat ONLY this. For 2 weeks. Then eat that. How much should you tweeze your eyebrows? Here is how to get the ultimate St. Tropez tan. I read every word and memorized every image. This was what being a liberated woman was all about. Right there in those pages.

Pat had, in a prior life, gotten her cosmetology degree and license. I would sit in her kitchen and she would cut my hair and put it on rollers. She also sold Mary Kay Cosmetics and had drawers and drawers of samples. Make up nirvana! All in pretty pink bottles. I would try on the different colors but because we had read Color Me Beautiful together, I knew that I was an “autumn” and should stick to the warmer shades. Pat also always had perfectly done nails. Long, polished talons, she would rap them on the counters and on the dashboard while she was driving. Click, click, click, click. When one broke, she would slap on an acrylic tip and lickety-split, they would be perfect again. Perfect looking but not real.

For all that she was worldly and intriguing to my 11 year old mind, she was also clearly struggling to stay afloat. Her job situation was often erratic. She moved from one thing to the next, finally falling back on her cosmetology degree and working in a beauty salon. Her kids seemed to be in perpetual trouble and were not doing so well in school. Her oldest son went to go live with his father. She found herself pregnant by her married boyfriend, had the baby and then found herself pregnant again. Her liberated woman veneer didn’t hold up so well once you scratched the surface. Sometimes the most important lesson you learn is what not to do. Pat was like that older sister you are intrigued by but who winds up being a cautionary tale. I caught onto that pretty quick.

Then my family moved to a new neighborhood.

I met Jenna in high school. She was my boyfriend Garrick’s mom. I think I was probably a sophomore when we first met. In senior year, Garrick and I dated. He was my prom date and we were together until the end of our first semester of college. While in high school, and even after we started college, all of our friends hung out together and we often landed at one house or another near our high school campus. Garrick’s house was one of those houses where we often found ourselves. We were a small posse of nerdy kids who got together on Saturday night to play charades and board games and did student government and band in school. (I was not in band, for the record but I was a big into Model UN and student government.) If we weren’t at Garrick’s house we were at Torunn’s house. Torunn remains to this day, the only truly natural blonde I’ve ever known. Garrick and Torunn lived in the same neighborhood and both had split level houses. The lower level of each home became our regular gaming and movie haunts.

Jenna and her husband were from Oklahoma. They were 25 years out of the University of Oklahoma but she still had a clearly distinct southern twang. Her husband Jim had a deep voice with no discernible trace of southern inflection to my ear. He was a perpetually calm presence. As even-keel and reserved as Jim was, Jenna was vivacious, warm, and very, very chatty. You can pluck a girl out of the south but you can’t pluck the southern out of the girl. I immediately took to her. We were fast friends, me at 17 and her at 46. Which is, funny enough, how old I find myself as I write this.

Garrick had an older brother so Jenna was mom of 2 sons and no daughters. I have even more in common with Jenna now than I did then. As the mom of 3 boys, I understand how impenetrable their lives can seem. More than just a friend to her, looking back, I’m convinced I was her conduit to her younger son and his social circle. Like Jenna, I live for conversation. Through our long talks I think she got to know her son just a bit better. Because I was a girl and I would spill. Boys share so little. I got to be a surrogate daughter and in exchange, I got another surrogate mother out of the deal.

Jenna would invite me to join their family dinners often. She had little choice. I would overstay my welcome at every chance because I so enjoyed the company of this family. At their dinner table I found a more adventurous menu than I had ever seen in my own home. Jenna made an arugula salad with strawberries. What is this insanity? Arugula? What is that? Fruit? In a regular salad? Salad in my house was iceberg lettuce and Wishbone Italian dressing. Jenna was a meticulous chef. Also a Weight Watchers veteran, she weighed and measured every meal like it was a science experiment. Everything was portioned and plated meticulously. It seemed so… fancy. I learned a lot from watching her prepare each meal. Salad, entree, dessert. Each carefully and lovingly prepared with more thought than any meal I’d ever seen in any person’s home. More than the food, there was the spirited verbal sparring that took place like nothing I’d ever seen. Words were not blunt force instruments lobbed across the table intended to inflict fatal injury like they were at my house. Here they were carefully sharpened little barbs meant only to agitate the opposing party enough to up the state of verbal play.

Garrick’s dad was an economist for the International Monetary Fund. Their dinner conversation covered world affairs and national politics. I soaked it up and tried my best to keep up with the conversation. Once in awhile, I managed to hold my ground and even best my companions. I recall one dinner where Garrick, in an effort to show his clear superiority in all things world affairs, threw down and challenged me to identify what the acronym SWAPO stood for. Having just dealt with a Model UN resolution regarding recognition of the South West African People’s Organization as the official government in exile of Namibia, I felt pretty confident on that one. I did not, however, correctly identify the role of the Shining Path in Peru in the follow-on questioning. This was the kind of thing we talked about. It wasn’t the kind of thing we did in my home. I didn’t go back to dinner there without reading the day’s Washington Post headlines.

This was also a family that had lived abroad and had traveled extensively. I was perhaps the only 17 year old girl in all of Northern Virginia, perhaps the entire eastern United States, who enjoyed watching multi hours-long travelogue slideshows with live commentary. But I *really* did. Garrick’s family had trekked all over the world, whereas I had never left the DC metro region. Sitting in his basement, I traveled the world with this family through their carefully curated slideshows. It made me curious. I loved their stories and I loved being part of their family rituals. I felt included and I felt like I became a little bit smarter just by being around them all.

There was an episode of Sex and the City where Carrie reluctantly breaks up with her boyfriend. Reluctant only because she really, really liked his mom. I can relate. I think I spent almost as much time on the phone with Jenna as I did with Garrick. When Garrick and I finally broke up, I might have been sadder to lose my girlfriend than to lose my boyfriend.

Of course we kept in touch but over the years that too, has waned. I hope that I can be a friend to my sons’ girlfriends and, someday, wives in the way that Jenna was to me. I recall that she was the first person who ever told me that I was a good writer and who encouraged me.

No one is shaped by only one person. These women I write about were not the only ones who influenced me or taught me things. It’s a complex calculus, making a whole person. I think my mom understood this. Only much later in my life did I come to realize how difficult it was for my mother to see me connect with these other women. How much it made her feel inadequate and how jealous she was of the time I spent with them. She never said this to me. One day I just understood it to be true. In knowing this and upon looking back, I value her and those relationships even more.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the women who shape our lives.

[kingsbridgelibraryteens]

Middle School Monday: The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook by Rosanna Pansino

This book starts with a set of basic recipes like brownies, cookies, and pound cake.  These are followed by lots of recipes that expand on these basics but go into some very creative directions that are geeky, nerdy, and cool.  Use this book to learn how to make unusual and awesome desserts like Loch Ness Cupcakes, Zombie Brain Cake, Unicorn Poop Cookies, and Video Game Controller Cookies.

This book is usually in our adult collection, but adults and teens of all ages will be able to enjoy these recipes and think about things they can make that will amaze their friends and families!  And if you’re looking for more recipes like these, make sure you check out Rosanna Pansino’s Nerdy Nummies YouTube channel!

#Middle School Monday #The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook #Rosanna Pansino #nonfiction #cookbooks #humor #Kingsbridge Library #NYPL

[tinymixtapes]

Feature: Screen Week: Favorite 30 Films of 2016

Just as it’s difficult to pinpoint what truly defined 2016 overall, the same goes for film. In 2013, as we pointed out, shit got real. So, one year later, we escaped. Thus, the social outsider grew. And the social outsider didn’t go away. Shit got real again, but this time, perceptions in reality clashed with another. Citizens escaped into validating takes and talking points. Divisions widened. Murderers, as ever, came with smiles. The social outsider’s definition became elastic. Depending on where you stood, you may have been that social outsider and were judged harshly for it. All the while, tests getting put out for agility, strategy, and luck. If you survived them, if you made the right moves, you were powerful enough to survive anything. And if there’s a common thread through 2016, particularly our own list of 30 films, it’s just that: survival. Unless you’re in a cultural elitist bubble like myself, cinema must be pretty boring. Very few of the films on our list were met with dump trucks full of cash, but let their inclusion serve as a reminder that the mainstream does reward intelligence. There’s a lot of good shit on our own screens at home. People want something different — they’re just not required to get it themselves. So it goes. Luckily, some studios continue to be as reliable as record labels — the A24s and Drafthouses offered dazzling singular experiences that didn’t waste their meager budgets. Amazon could offer you auteurs after you order kitty litter and Ecto Cooler. Even as budgets shrank, the best films of the year knew how to play, often in ways that were flat-out absurd. Be it a nudist awakening and a set of teeth in Toni Erdmann or delusions of an introvert’s lost life scored by farts in Swiss Army Man, the worlds presented were just as unfair as our own. But they were also, in a way, strangely optimistic in how to deal. As though lit up by what was at stake, filmmakers stopped taking it for granted, and the reliable auteurs — Villeneuve, Verhoeven, Refn — brought their A-game. As the mainstream order remained largely conservative and derivative, chaos and confusion prospered. The old guard fought the new wave. In this context, the world was unarguably better for it. One film that didn’t make the cut, Jake Paltrow and Noah Baumbach’s ode De Palma, reminds viewers how vastly different cinema has become in the latter half of its century-long existence. It takes an outsider, for sure, but we learned this year that the approach of the social outsider doesn’t need to be one of nihilism and terror. As you’ll see in our top 5, the notion that the marginalized can prosper, even in the smallest of triumphs, took our collective breath away. Respect was dealt and earned. Hell, even if your nerdy ass never dug jocks, Everybody Wants Some!! made it possible for at least two hours. Women of the year, through different centuries and some of the nasty persuasion, grabbed back. Companionship was found in the most bizarre and wonderful ways. Even if our personal or political narratives didn’t succeed the same way, we could still be fired up; we know plenty of radical-leaning people inspired by something as half-baked as Rogue One. We’ll take what we can get. –Snacks Kyburz --- 30 Paterson Dir. Jim Jarmusch [Amazon Studios] In Jim Jarmusch’s film Paterson, a man named Paterson who drives buses in the city of Paterson, NJ, writes poetry in his spare time and is obliquely inspired by the book-length poem by William Carlos Williams called Paterson. This Patersounds like a very bad Pateridea. At least it might to those unfamiliar with William Carlos Williams’s poem: despite being inspired by Ulysses and Pound’s Cantos, his ode to Paterson, NJ is accessible, ordinary, and nearly prosaic save some lingering moments of illuminated mundanity. Jarmusch’s film, the same. Paterson captures the work of creating poetry, work that is — for many — markedly unpoetic. Adam Driver’s Paterson (his most subtle performance — not like there’s competition) is content, not troubled; we see him observing his own blue-collar work routines and tranquil family life with his affectionate wife Laura (Golshifteh Farahani), who flits from hobby to hobby, and his dog Marvin (Nellie), who he walks every evening as an excuse to secretly (his wife knows, and he knows she knows) have one beer alone at his neighborhood bar. As a sort of trantricly muted climax, Marvin eats Paterson’s only copy of his work. Then, he starts writing again. The most famous line from Williams’s Paterson is, “No ideas but in things.” Jarmusch’s film is full of such concreteness, using a literal, unadorned filmic language. Presently, this straightforwardness seemed important. Paterson kept going, without a struggle. –Benjamin Pearson --- 29 The Sky Trembles and the Earth is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers Dir. Ben Rivers [Artangel] Wherein UK multimedia artist Ben Rivers delivered another obtuse, slow-motion triptych even more expansive and hypnotic than his last obtuse, slow-motion triptych (the 2014 Ben Russell collab A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness). This time, Rivers paid tribute to a vision of Morocco that has historically resided mostly in the mind’s eye of legendary polymath/(relatively) benign colonialist Paul Bowles, even going so far as to dedicate one third of the film to a freewheeling update of the classic Bowles story “A Distant Episode.” Hazy and heavy-loping, it was the sort of film in which one could easily get fully lost, a time-bending jeep ride through unfamiliar terrain. In other words, it was trippy as fuck, but leave the hallucinogens in your mom’s underwear drawer: Rivers had you covered sans controlled substances and managed as much with nary a stock “psychedelic” trope in sight. –Dustin Krcatovich --- 28 The Pearl Button Dir. Patricio Guzmán [Atacama] Since the beginning of the modern state, the relationship between politics and metaphysics has become increasingly contentious. Unanswerable questions are too often seen as suspect. Suspects, meanwhile, are too often seen as guilty. In the end, suspect questions — and people — are silenced, vanished. Virtually every tyranny of the 20th century bore witness to this reality. For example, in 1970, Chileans elected a man who would dare to question the evil of economic imperialism. In the United States, economists and analysts would then ask, “But how, now, might we develop Chile into a malleable state?” The unspeakably painful answer would become the subject of nearly all of Patricio Guzmán’s astounding films. Following Nostalgia for the Light, The Pearl Button continues to call out, like Job, the question of pain — and of reconciliation — into the seemingly infinite. On the one hand, there is no answer. On the other, it is not at all infinite. Along the world’s longest coastline, a remnant was discovered — a button. From a remnant unravelled the story of a people. The present spoke to the past, and the past to the present. In so much space, the disappeared reappeared. Beyond the stripped-down facts of the modern state’s brutality is a glimmer of hope in the water. A question rediscovered. –Max Power --- 27 Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World Dir. Werner Herzog [Magnolia] “Because the internet” is a sort of trembling, isn’t it? We often hide our existential overwhelm about infinite screen permutations of information and mis-information (which now reveals, or informs on, itself with a nihilistic shrug). We dismiss and diminish with pithy appraisals, momentarily reducing the vast phenomenon into a sort of eye-roll-inducing gimmick. With characteristic wanderlust, Herzog considered our increasingly complex, module-based existence with a refreshing disregard for the mundaneness of adaptive ambivalence. Whether a chapter explored people online trying to cure cancer or traumatizing a family with vicious trolling, Lo and Behold was neither damning nor cold nor distant, as the director’s work is often mischaracterized. With his unmatched mix of stoicism and honest, unforced emotional asides, things were allowed to happen outside of the Q&A rhythm, be they awkward or endearing (or both). It’s sprawlingness may’ve been intimidating, but it was a film for grappling, not elucidating, and Herzog’s instincts are still sharp enough for a hearty wander. The ubiquitousness of the internet casts a vast shadow over our dismissive objectification of it, and Lo proved a novel place to reckon with this. –Willcoma --- 26 The Alchemist Cookbook Dir. Joel Potrykus [Oscilloscope Laboratories] A lesson from 2016: Don’t try to predict Michigan (my adopted state). Director Joel Potrykus blew us away with 2014’s Buzzard, a film with such a perfectly idiosyncratic kind of dirtbag comedic sensibility, I thought that I had the grimy genre that Michigander Potrykus had carved out for himself pegged. Then, this year, The Alchemist Cookbook came out: a refined piece of cult horror that observed trailer-dwelling Sean’s (Ty Hickson) isolation (there’s also a cat and one other character) in the Michigan woods as he tries to make gold out of batteries and shit. This film should not really exist (neither should Anti-Birth, the other unclassifiable film set — but not, like this one, also filmed — in Michigan this year). Played for both realism and humor are the Michigan touches we saw in Buzzard — Doritos and pop — but also a pivotal reference to Sleepaway Camp I think and the conjuring of Satan. Despite that thematic matter, though, the look nearly convinced me I was watching Michael Haneke’s follow-up to Caché. Was it a parable about how entrenched American materialism’s tentacles are on our alt-iest of citizens? A dismantling of myths of rugged self-sufficiency? Just terrifying horror done weird? Even Nate Silver doesn’t know, but I heard that he predicts with overwhelming odds that Potrykus will continue to meet our expectation to be defied. –Benjamin Pearson --- 25 Tickled Dir. David Farrier & Dylan Reeve [A Ticklish Tale] Tickled was not an exposé on any sort of large-scale conspiracy. Cheese pizza and the supernatural were not involved. Instead, Tickled revealed a more common form of abuse, what Joe South might have called “The Games People Play.” One man, not the Illuminati, playing games, small games, but big enough to make life difficult for its participants, their innocence exploited, not for profit, not for kink, but for small-scale power, for psychological kicks. It took very little to cause damage. Although it was hard not to laugh, it was torture — harassment, abuse, extortion, tickling — not at the inquisition level, but at the domestic level, behind closed doors and blinds; domestic terror, green alert. Which got us thinking: if the strange yet seemingly innocent world of competitive tickling was not what it seems, what else is not what it seems? What’s actually going down at that skeet competition? Or in the basement of that pizza shop? At that quilt festival? And what about that chili cookoff down in Terlingua? –Weaver --- 24 Knight of Cups Dir. Terrence Malick [Broad Green] Terrence Malick has now released as many films in the past five years as he did in the previous forty, and our relationship with the enigmatic director has shifted. His motifs, often inscrutable but instantly recognizable, are now a yearly occurrence, as present as the litany of car and phone commercials aping his style. With this in mind, Knight of Cups, already a semi-autobiographical piece, comments on itself and its creator. As Christian Bale’s Rick stumbles half-dazed through the beauty and luxury of Los Angeles, of his partners, of pensive moments, the viewer wonders how their version of the protagonist’s journey would be different. What would we feel in his life; could we possibly be so jaded? The tarot card chapter headings invoke fate, though the narration seems to be recalling, as if divining one’s own past. A dreamy state where direction is unclear and rhythm is everything. Malick’s world, and we’re deep into it. Are we being pummeled by navel gazing and gorgeous imagery, or are we boring toward the core of the artist’s vision? With time, we’ll see the shape of this stage in the oeuvre more clearly, but for now, Knight of Cups remains an exploratory work, rich with thoughtfulness and mystery. –Jake Marcks --- 23 Kubo and the Two Strings Dir. Travis Knight [Laika] When you get past Charlize Theron voicing a monkey, you stop acting like the dumb adult you are. When it comes to yearly animation strongholds, Zootopia and Moana made me experience wonderment through an adult lens. Kubo and the Two Strings made me feel like a child watching a memory maker in a special time and place, outside of myself. There is no suspension of belief needed when one-eyed Kubo plays his shamisen, making origami come to life in vivid storytelling. The magical world of Kubo is child logic. It’s pure imagination without the expected Pizza Planet easter egg or pop culture reference or Justin Timberlake dance number. Laika once again proves they are the humbled and inspired underdog. Kubo’s journey is at its core a child looking to be reunited with his family. The animation is so dreamlike and wavy that you feel closer to the action and emotion that Kubo experiences. Kubo may lose out to the mouse when it comes to the gold man, but this is the type of film that truly digs deeper into your heart and psyche. Oh, and Matthew McConaughey voice a beetle. Alright, alright, alright. –Emceegreg --- 22 A Bigger Splash Dir. Luca Guadagnino [Fox Searchlight] A quartet of brave, masterful performances anchored this sumptuous and tense portrait of ennui and rage among the beautiful people. Comparisons to Antonioni were inevitable, but we were also reminded of Paolo Sorrentino’s studies of aging, jealousy, and soulless debauchery. Unlike The Great Beauty and Youth, however, A Bigger Splash didn’t buckle under its pretensions, turn maudlin, or succumb to awkward fits of magical realism — it was also a hell of a lot more fun. Ralph Fiennes stole the show with his spastic Jagger-like dance moves and his leering, predatory gregariousness (the polar opposite of his other great supporting role this year in Hail, Caesar!) and Tilda Swinton perfectly balanced radiance and exhaustion, strength and dependence as a Bowie-esque superstar taking an extended sabbatical following vocal cord surgery. Guadagnino’s direction was smart and nuanced, shifting gears between fluid and jumpy, flashy and restrained, always holding just a little something back. The high wore off in the final act, however, as the real world — the world of death and consequences — finally encroached upon their charmed, cloistered idyll. And unlike the snakes and geckos that trespass upon their impossibly gorgeous Italian villa, those problems cannot be blithely discarded. An unexpectedly affecting and sometimes chilling love square, intelligent and unvarnished while remaining carnal and raw. Beauty has rarely been so ugly, and vice versa. –Christopher Bruno --- 21 Weiner Dir. Josh Kriegman & Elyse Steinberg [Sundance Selects] Despite the rubbernecking quality of this doc of unprecedented access (and it is undeniably a hoot in this regard), what really stunned about this film was how effortlessly engrossing it was as drama. The filmmakers and their subject seemed to be struggling for tone together, and the way that things spun out was palpably tragic, even as Huma’s gameness about the experiment falls away and her side of things becomes harder to know. Our protagonist was eminently watchable: an unpredictably malfunctioning blender of affability, braggadocio, soul-searchingness, hokey humor, and infectious urgency. His libido and the decision making around it was something, even in his open contrition, that remained a confounding mystery. In the end, as we saw him seeing us seeing him, his raw limo outburst felt like a “how’s this for an ending?” answer to that awareness. Having witnessed key moments in the breakup of his family and the disastrous end of his political career, Antony Weiner’s battle-torn narcissism was the last lingering filament of possible redemption. And watching it snap, we couldn’t help but sigh with him. –Willcoma [pagebreak] --- 20 Love & Friendship Dir. Whit Stillman [Amazon Studios] In Whit Stillman’s first film (1990’s Metropolitan), the chronicler of the American urban haute bourgeoisie directly mentioned Jane Austen in such a way to make it readily apparent how much influence the author would have on his career. The cherished British novelist was something of a throughline in the four films that preceded this one, and nearly two decades ago, Stillman expressed an abiding desire to adapt one of Austen’s lesser-known works. This year, we finally got to see what he’d do with source material from one of the most overdone authors in cinematic history. A lofty undertaking to be sure, what really floored us about Love & Friendship (adapted from an epistolary novella of Austen’s called Lady Susan) was its energetic humor, pacing, and irreverence, particularly on display in the gut-busting performance of Tom Bennett as a blithering suitor to both Kate Beckinsale and her daughter. Stillman’s directorial choices and Austen’s witty sensibilities regarding social mores dovetailed so seamlessly that the resulting film felt like neither a period piece nor an adaptation — it captured the joy and playfulness that are usually the very first things to go when production commences on one of the countless adaptations of her work. Who knew Austen could be so fun? –Paul Bower --- 19 The Neon Demon Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn [Amazon Studios] Only one luminous, musically-textured ode to Hollywood warmed my heart in 2016, and Gosling’s piano-acting was nowhere to be found. Call it a perfume commercial à la Argento, a Vogue issue edited by Bret Easton Ellis, whatever — The Neon Demon chomps hard at “fresh off the bus” apocrypha. Although not novel — Elle Fanning, bloodied and glittery like a Nihilisa Frank nightmare, seems doomed from the start — Refn’s candy-flipping slasher actually bothers to flesh out warnings spouted to all showbiz hopefuls. You’ve heard of models being vampiric, of fetishizing ghosts, of chewing up and spitting back out: it’s here, and it doesn’t hold back. Following the visually tasty nihilism of Only God Forgives, Refn only cranks the empathy a smidge. His objective here is sick glee; with its dedicated camp (he’s finally attempting the likeness of Andy Milligan/Paul Morrissey), it’s his funniest film in years. And when mortuary cosmetologist Jena Malone spits on a cadaver’s tongue during a passionate sex scene, I stood up and cheered. –Snacks Kyburz --- 18 Swiss Army Man Dir. Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert [A24] Swiss Army Man was easily misconstrued and dismissed as “that farting corpse movie with Harry Potter.” On the surface, yes there are lots of farts, and boners, and similar “low brow” type elements; however, they were all in service of painting a rich tapestry about finding companionship and revealing our intimate selves to each other. A touching story that straddles the line between the platonic and the romantic, between madness and inspiration, between the juvenile and the profound, the Daniels crafted a film about accepting oneself despite all of the things that make us feel weird or gross or alone. Powerful performances by Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe propelled this story of two souls finding each other in a sea of trouble and loneliness and rediscovering what it means to be human and to be loved. It was easy to neglect the film because of its absurd premise, but viewers who took the plunge were rewarded with an inspired look into the power of creativity, the nature of life, and the emancipating honesty that comes with true friendship. –Neurotic Monkey --- 17 High-Rise Dir. Ben Wheatley [HanWay] Brutalist council estate flats birthed punk rock and dystopian futurism in 1970s Britain, shaping a counterculture whose sensibility Ben Wheatley has drank from. Perhaps the defining document of such breeding grounds, J.G. Ballard’s novel High-Rise has finally made it to the screen thanks to Wheatley’s elegantly decadent and darkly funny take on the material. If the novel’s many complexities meant it failed to be adapted despite several attempts over the decades, Wheatley tackles the problem by streamlining the narrative to its most essential (and contemporarily relevant) elements; namely, violent class struggle. Hence, the director presents the story exclusively through ellipsis, first to emphasize the primary urges that the titular building’s amenities seek to satisfy (the main character, played by Tom Hiddleston, moves into his luxury flat in a montage that’s quasi-advertorial in nature) and later to court the hallucinatory (non-metaphoric class conflict regularly takes place in the complex’s supermarket). The implication being that the building merely triggers some of the lurking, darker impulses of its occupants. While this design might prove harder for audiences to stomach than the depravity or grisly violence on display, Wheatley’s vision is strong enough to grip the viewers through 120 minutes of strange, albeit quite recognizable in their naked proximity — and thus Ballardian — deranged fun, clever social critique, and kitschy retro-futuristic decor. –jrodriguez6 --- 16 Cemetery of Splendor Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul [Kick the Machine] Its opening shots established a contemporary story of the world unearthed by state mechanisms, even as the rest of its running time blended the setting into a world of contemporaneity: jungle floors and ancient kingdoms, hospital bedside and a childhood bomb shelter. Cemetery of Splendor was not an elaboration of events, but a series of enfolding moments, like a field recording, that dwelled on rehabilitation. Weerasethakul centered the little movements of the movie in bodily functions and the motion of simple machines. As always, his direction makes a true and gentle medium of film, translating the affective charge of scenes into an open window, an ambient showing. The camera is almost always fixed at a static eye-level, an inviting witness to the unhurried mystery of the sleeping soldiers at the story’s center. The dialogue between the soldiers and their nurses is hushed and matter-of-fact. At this decibel, small talk sounds profound without meaning to. If you listen closely, from the innermost whisper of the heart to the furthest extension of microbes in the sky, Cemetery of Splendor is a program to honor the quiet confusion of being awake for the dreams of life and the march in place toward the certain smile of death. This is a good place to sleep. –Pat Beane --- 15 Hell or High Water Dir. David Mackenzie [Sidney Kimmel Entertainment] A bona fide barnburner, Hell or High Water never let up. From the initial heist in a dry and desolate town to a staredown between cold-blooded adversaries, nary a minute of our time was wasted. Watching Chris Pine and Ben Foster knock over banks on a mad but noble dash was like watching a pair of manic whirling dervishes with pistols and shotguns. With jolts of violence and gut-ripping humor, the story refused to sit still. Call it an anti-Western, a black comedy, or just a damn fine chase flick, the film insisted on defying categorization and exceeding expectations. Yet as fun as these delinquents were, they had to share the stage with a scene-stealing lawman spitting casual racism and his stoic partner who shoved it right back (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham). There was love there, but there was reality too. Rules of propriety don’t always apply in West Texas. If you needed proof that an explosive and exhilarating action flick doesn’t need a billion-dollar budget or a complete CGI makeover, Hell or High Water was Exhibit A. –Ryan Patrick Mooney --- 14 Elle Dir. Paul Verhoeven [SBS] In a central moment in Elle, Michèle (masterfully played by Isabelle Huppert) removes her rapist’s ski mask to reveal him as her handsome, mild-mannered neighbor, Patrick. Complicating matters, Michèle spends the first half of the film flirting with him and even masturbates while watching him set up a life-sized nativity scene with his wife (one example of the film’s sly wit). After the revelation, she continues to see him, though her motives for doing so remain troublingly opaque. As she discovers, he is incapable of consensual sex with her. “It has to be like before,” he says. Wearing a mask allows Patrick to play a role he can step out of when it no longer suits him, but Michèle cannot easily separate the man she was attracted to from the man who raped her. Like many of Verhoeven’s films, this one was at risk of being dismissed as exploitative pulp, but it raised some crucial questions about the representation of rape on screen. Elle refused to place people into categories: Victimhood doesn’t always eliminate agency or inspire revenge, and too often, monsters wear the faces of neighbors and friends. We contain multitudes, and we carry our monstrosity within us, just waiting to be unmasked. –Kate Blair --- 13 Embrace of the Serpent Dir. Ciro Guerra [Oscilloscope Laboratories] The “white guy going through an intense, eye-opening journey in the jungle” storyline has been done to death, but no matter how sympathetic or well-intentioned, it’s still usually told from the perspective of said white guy, with natives serving as scenery or, at best, “Noble Savages.” With Embrace of the Serpent, Colombian filmmaker Guerra upended the trope, and unlike his Eurocentric precursors, he did so without denying sympathy to the film’s ostensible antagonists. As the guide Karamakate, both Antonio Bolívar Salvador and Nilbio Torres (as the elderly and young version of the character, respectively) infused the film with resilience and fury in the face of imperialism, making for one of the most intriguing, deeply felt characters in recent memory. The film’s turns from grotesque violence to pervasive stillness were jarring, but resembled shifts of scenery in a dream: as with the two explorers who voyage down the Amazon through the film’s dual timelines, one found themselves too deep into the world of the film to not accept its twists. –Dustin Krcatovich --- 12 American Honey Dir. Andrea Arnold [A24] Where would we be without the promise of the fresh start, the open road? Andrea Arnold’s winding, visually resplendent ode to the American Dream positioned us as witnesses to the reckless journey of Star, an 18-year-old Muskogee runaway who finds a new home for herself on a van full of acne-laden misfits, bumping E-40 as they tear across the country selling bullshit magazines. From the moment the film opened with a passing car bearing the bumper sticker “God Is Coming,” American Honey led us on a mythic trek across the Midwestern United States, with trials and temptations and fleeting moments of love folded in between the suburban desolation and languor. Finding a kindred balance between the desert romance of Badlands and the destructive dreaming of Spring Breakers, American Honey unlocked a rare human sympathy: an understanding of our own common indecency, our basest needs to both be wanted and to be free. As Star slowly finds herself tangled up in the same hustle as the rest of us, a wage slave even in the drift of the endless interstate, American Honey revealed the greater pattern of our lives — always leaping from one trap to the next, caught in a moment just as it begins to fade. –Sam Goldner --- 11 Zootopia Dir. Byron Howard, Rich Moore [Walt Disney] Zootopia’s real clincher is that it isn’t a perfect allegory. It isn’t a parable either. It’s too complex and too incomplete for either of those. Zootopia itself is too big a place. Zootopia’s narrative whirlwind of convoluted, deeply political stories doesn’t remotely represent Zootopia in its entirety, and its creators know this. Zootopia is messy because Zootopia is messy; its characters, its inhabitants (protagonists and antagonists alike) make snap judgments about those who look or act different, create biological narratives that systematically oppress minorities, deviate from norms, and face persecution while taking intersectionality for granted. Zootopia succeeds not because it depicts triumphs, but because it focuses our imaginations on how inequality structures all of our interactions within our REAL communities. That it explores this in so many complex ways is impressive. That it does so while remaining entertaining and hilarious even more so. That its main characters are a talking bunny rabbit cop and a hustling fox couldn’t matter less. –Jackson Scott [pagebreak] --- 10 Toni Erdmann Dir. Maren Ade [Sony Pictures Classics] The cliché is true: watching Toni Erdmann, I laughed and I cried. The tale of an oil industry consultant and the uncomfortable adventure she has with her prankster father during a trip to Bucharest, Maren Ade’s third feature is packed with everything: family melodrama, business intrigue, Whitney Houston karaoke, nudity, Austin Powers fake teeth. At heart, though, this sprawling film is about the simple struggle of communicating with the people you are closest to. Folding together the mundane, the grotesque, the high and the low, Toni Erdmann never loses sight of an almost old-fashioned desire to entertain that keeps the film from slowing down, even as it nears the three-hour mark. It is true magic to see a movie that not only takes seriously adult family relationships, the social gymnastics of being a woman in a male-dominated business, and the cultural displacement of the aging, but also manages to land a great fart gag. You can almost hear a Hollywood remake already being developed for Robert De Niro or whoever, but Ade’s epic family comedy is that rarest of works: indulgent and giving in equal measure, an entire universe of feeling that deserves to be cherished. –Dylan Pasture --- 09 Green Room Dir. Jeremy Saulnier [A24] Jeremy Saulnier’s debut feature Blue Ruin was a year-end-listable beast of a film, but even it couldn’t prepare us for the taut, stately carnage of Green Room. This tense, bloody tale of The Ain’t Rights, a hapless touring band forced to fight their way out of an isolated neo-nazi club, was at once a siege movie to end all siege movies and a love letter to the DIY punk scene. While Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, and Alia Shawkat all delivered standout performances, it was Patrick Stewart who stole the show, playing against type as the sinister Darcy, club-proprietor with a velvet voice and ice-cold blood in his veins. Following the results of the 2016 election, the film has taken on a grim new timeliness. A resurgent white nationalist movement has gained new visibility, bolstered by what they see (correctly or incorrectly) as an ally in the White House. Ideas long thought taboo are gaining fresh currency, threatening to infect right-wing policy as a whole. In 2017, we are all The Ain’t Rights. May we fight as bravely and live to see a brighter morning. –Joe Hemmerling --- 08 Wiener-Dog Dir. Todd Solondz [Amazon Studios/IFC Films] A long trail of dog diarrhea, captured in a long, slow-tracking shot, summarized the ethos of Wiener-Dog, in which Todd Solondz turned the nihilistic rage and bitterness up to 11 for another grimacing comedy of human suffering. Solondz’s career seemed to be in a cul de sac circa Palindromes, but then he roared back to life, experimenting with form and somehow cranking up the contrast even further on his particular point of view. The canine connection between the four segments in Weiner-Dog was nicely abstract and got surreal in the film’s “dog around the world” intermission. Name actors got a chance to play in the darkness: Julie Delpy as a mom who damages her son with spiritual misinformation; Greta Gerwig as a grown-up, utterly self-esteemless Dawn Wiener; Danny DeVito as a stand-in for Solondz, a depessed film professor in a losing battle with soulless students; Ellen Burstyn as a defeated woman who doles out cash and rancor to her codependent granddaughter (Zosia Mamet). Solondz still coats his bitter medicine with a sweet shell of playfulness, but his films have lost the goofy baby fat of Welcome to the Dollhouse, revealing the skeletal souls of his guileless perpetrators and agonized victims. –water --- 07 Certain Women Dir. Kelly Reichardt [IFC Films] Kelly Reichardt has made a career out of mining the subtleties of life on the fringe of society, her characters’ existences marginalized, if not entirely ignored, by corporate America and failed by both private and governmental institutions. With Certain Women, Reichardt returns to the open plains of Montana that she captured so effectively in her feminist Western, Meek’s Cutoff, which are now sparsely populated by chain restaurants and stores serving only to heighten the sense of economic anxiety dominating a community whose way of life has little worth within our current model of late capitalism. Adapting three Maile Meloy short stories for the screen, Reichardt deals explicitly with resolute females whose unflappable tenacity clashes with the various forces aligned to keep them in check. Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, and Kristen Stewart each exceptionally embody a feminine resiliency and fortitude that acts as a corrective to Hollywood’s singularly musclebound vision of female strength. But it is Lily Gladstone’s breakthrough performance, gracefully conveying a quiet dignity in her nascent desire and emotional isolation against Stewart’s icy demeanor in the film’s final segment, that acts as both a unifying coda and a tender, heartbreaking portrait of unrequited love, elevating Certain Women to the level of something truly special. –Derek Smith --- 06 Everybody Wants Some!! Dir. Richard Linklater [Paramount] PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be latched to the centerfield wall and pelted with horsehides, because jesus, freshman, figure it out. It’s the American Dream as sweet-swing college preen, two (!!) exclamations of wisdom and vulgarity matriculating invincible in the lost weekend before classes or life. Is it possible to slice a fastball in half with an axe? Does it matter if it’s not? No plan, no problem; persons attempting to find a moral will be assailed with unrequested advice that only means as much as the meaningfulness you give it (also, I don’t know: too much of this smells like cat piss). Persons looking for a plot just get pop-up as pop song, a frontier fraternity for Mark Twain and John Belushi. There’s self and passion in the tangents between framework, and there’s a real stereo democracy when every voice gets a verse, from the black to the white, the red to the brown, the purple to the yellow. Everybody Wants Some!!, freshman, but maybe nobody gets any if we don’t play this game the right way. Practice is mandatory. Everyone impacts the outcome. Shake your groove thing. Come for a good time, not for a long time. The rest is F-L-Y. –Frank Falisi --- 05 Arrival Dir. Dennis Villeneuve [Paramount] “Abbot is death process.” This four-word sentence alone should be enough for Arrival to earn a place on every critic’s year-end list and at every awards show. It’s amazing on so many levels: (1) screenwriter Eric Heisserer presumably typed that into the script with a straight face; (2) it stayed in the film; (3) in its immediate context, that is, uttered in squid-alien language and translated for us onscreen (in subtitles, if memory serves), its seemingly hokey technicality keeps the film honest to genre, but; (4) it does so while also speaking directly to and illuminating the brainy twist that gives the film its heart and soul. All great sci-fi reveals that the barrier between supposed “high” and “low” art is bullshit; this film arrives at that point with such finesse that you might miss it if you aren’t paying close attention. But then, like the film’s title, this says more about humanity than anything else. “Abbott is death process.” –Samuel Diamond --- 04 The Handmaiden Dir. Chan-wook Park [Magnolia/Amazon Studios] The Handmaiden wasn’t just a daring, prurient thriller. More importantly, this story of two women’s sexual awakening was one of the most tender and moving romances to grace the screen this year or any other. In the beginning, Lady Sideko and Sook-He are separate pawns in a long, twisted con orchestrated by the thief, Count Fujiwara. By the end, the two women have taken control of the narrative and rewritten the ending. The Handmaiden demonstrated the power of stories and imagination, even pornography, to empower and transform our experiences. In one of the film’s central metaphors, an idea gleaned through a pornographic story becomes a catalyst to transformation. Thus, a set of bells, first used as an instrument to abuse the young Lady Sideko, becomes the soundtrack to a joyful erotic coupling. Love, too, performs a kind of magic, allowing inner and outer worlds to collide through the body, in a touch, glance, or embrace. This movie has a lot more to offer than the already slick, glittering veneer it presents. Its undercurrents are far subtler than even most of the positive reviews gave it credit for, and it earned a rightful place in Chan-wook Park’s oeuvre of masterworks. –Kate Blair --- 03 Manchester by the Sea Dir. Kenneth Lonergan [Roadside Attractions/Amazon Studios] Manchester by the Sea imparts a narrative, not so much of family, but of anti-family. Trailers, whispers of the mouth, and other various year-end reviewers could all tell you that the film is a melancholy picture. It has no clear denouement, nor a happy ending, nor is it, of itself, an uplifting experience to be party to. But it is so much more than just a sad story, a simple bildungsroman à clef. A character study of the deeply-wounded men and boys of our past, its immediate shifts in temporality beget a protagonist’s wayward memory and sense of self; it is a detachment and brokenness so profound that it is hard to overcome bearing. It betrays more than its formality, its distinctly New England space-time, and the approaches of its characters, though its mise-en-scène are masterfully clear. Although presenting a rather quaint space, it touches the coward and the stalwart internal and international, beyond the trappings and sentiments of the white working class, beyond those of the outsider. It is a painful portrait, a crying-out of the spirit that never seems to shut off. –S. David --- 02 Moonlight Dir. Barry Jenkins [A24] At this point, is there more to say about Moonlight? In a fractured era, Barry Jenkins’s second feature film received nearly universal acclaim from pretty much everyone who’s seen it (and it’s on this list, which means you should see it). Per some media sources, 2016 was in fact a discordant year that polarized around identity issues of class, race, and sexuality. Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney’s story of a young black boy’s journey into manhood gracefully danced over these topics, as it charged full speed past the obvious labels and stereotypes that might otherwise define Little/Chiron/Black. The destination: a greater understanding of the human threads that not only connect us to other people, but also to ourselves as complex individuals who construct our own identities over the course of our lives. As complete fucking film snobs, we’ve obviously read about the overwhelming reaction viewers had to Francois Truffaut’s classic 1959 coming-of-age film The 400 Blows, but we’ve perhaps never experienced something close or even equivalent to this in our own lifetimes. Thanks for something, 2016. –Jafarkas --- 01 The Witch Dir. Robert Eggers [A24] Plenty of classic films touch upon witches or witchcraft (Häxan, Rosemary’s Baby, Paradise Lost, The Blair Witch Project), but it wasn’t until The Witch hit screens this year that cinema finally had a quintessential film about witchcraft in the early modern period. Writer-director Robert Eggers relied on folklore archetypes and historical documents to craft a film in which a deeply religious family is beset by the dark forces of witchcraft in 17th-century New England. The film was subtitled “A New England Folktale,” but as Eggers repeatedly stated, period contemporaries would see no difference between the fairy tale world and the real world. They would not consider the idea of witches, curses, and possession fanciful, but instead the very real causes of daily tribulations. So when their crop fails and their youngest disappears while in the care of their oldest (newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy), it’s not a huge leap for the film’s characters to go from blaming a wolf to blaming a witch. From here, you can probably guess what happens next: family trust quickly unravels, crises of faith are had, and increasing paranoia plagues the family until they are (literally) at each other’s throats. The Witch placed its faith in the pre-existing particulars of the folklore (a goat, a hare, the forest, sabbats), with the hope that none of their terror has been dulled in the last 500 years. And first-time director Eggers succeeded by not only relying on these aspects, but also reinforcing them. Eggers, a veteran of the theater, demonstrated an impressive command of film technique and aesthetics. This was made especially clear during a sequence in which he attempted to imbue the forest with evil intentions, beginning with a few establishing shots (accompanied by the atonal score) of the woods that evoked a foreboding quality. It was followed by a sequence used during the vanishing of baby Sam that implicated the forest in his kidnapping, establishing a shot-reverse shot pattern between Thomasin and Sam as they played peek-a-boo, with the sequence’s final shot of the blankets where Sam lay moments ago, which then pans up to reveal the woods in the distance. It is the camera move itself that damns and points at the woods. (The sequence is so great that its on full display in the film’s trailer). And of course, these are the same woods in which Caleb, the purest soul in the family, finds the hovel of the maiden witch and later where Thomasin, after everything has fallen apart, looks for salvation. In fact, execution was nearly perfect across the board. The shot composition and framing showed enough to frighten us, but it also left plenty in the shadows so that we had to fill in the blanks with our nightmares. The color palette, aided mostly by natural light, ensured the film looked as bleak as it felt. The performances (and I’m including Black Phillip’s shallow breathing, scene-stealing rearing among them) made us believe it. And director Eggers produced those performances from a young lead in her first credited role, several child actors, and a God-damned goat. Maybe it was because The Witch was confident enough to avoid deliberate ambiguity or retreating behind a Shyamalan twist. Maybe it was because it’s a feminist parable or an allegory about how society, shouting “Guilty until proven innocent!,” turns us into the monsters it accused us of being. Or maybe The Witch was our favorite film of the year for its ability to weave the disparate strands of a historical film and a genre film into a tight tapestry of folklore and terror that never ripped from the strain. The Witch was not just a great genre movie or an exceptional period piece, but also a nearly flawless film. It was the quintessential witchcraft film we didn’t know we were missing. Sign your name in its book. We did. –Jeff Miller http://j.mp/2kbl7lj