#I tweaked Trophy's design a bit

[chocochurrozz]

Can you pls bring back the Needle and Trophy beef 🙏

Needle should totally beat him with a grandfather clock guys who's with me?/j

[silverwhittlingknife]

Good morning. I'm fairly new to batfamily comics and I was wondering if you know what the design inspirations for the nightwing black and blue suit are? Is it mentioned in the comics? I live in New Zealand and all the robins here are all black, except the south island robin which has a splash of white on its chest. To me the nightwing suit looks very reminiscent of New Zealand robins, though I'm sure that's just familiarity bias.

GOOD MORNING!!! I had no idea there were blue robins!! That is extremely cool & these birds are my friends now <333 There are (tragically) no blue robins in comics AFAIK, but the Nightwing costume design is still fun to trace...

The Nightwing Costume: A History

Nightwing I, Nightwing II, and a 1980s punk rocker.

Short version: The Nightwing black+blue+yellow costume is something Clark Kent wears in 1960s Superman comics, where the colors are inspired by Batman's costume - both in-universe and out-of-universe. So when Dick originally takes on the costume, it's an homage to both Batman and Superman. <3 The exact history gets tweaked a few times, but those basic vibes are usually consistent.

Long version: IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO HEAR SO MUCH MORE THAN YOU WANTED TO KNOW re:a bunch of Doylist comics history followed by the various Watsonian explanations for Dick's costume choices, I have rambled about this below the cut in three parts:

1960s and 70s: Nightwing I: Superman and Jimmy Olsen, the Dynamic Duo of Kandor!!

1980s and Onward: Nightwing II: Dick Grayson's New Teen Titans & Gen X Influences

In-Universe Explanations for Dick's Costume: A History

1960s + 70s: The DYNAMIC DUO OF KANDOR

Superman 158: The first appearance of Nightwing I!

Nightwing I - he's actually just Superman in another costume - was created for adventures in the Bottled City of Kandor! Kandor was invented in 1958 by Action Comics writer Otto Binder; it was a Kryptonian city shrunk by Braniac and kept as a trophy. Clark rescued the bottled city from him, kept it in the Fortress of Solitude, and sometimes used a shrink ray to shrink himself down to visit the city. (This was the 50s and 60s! Goofy sci-fi was in!) Kandor was a great setting for Superman stories because Clark could interact with a Kryptonian city without time travel. Plus, since Kandor had a miniature red sun, Clark could have adventures there where he didn't have powers.

In 1963, Superman writer Edmond Hamilton got the idea of having Superman and Jimmy Olson go undercover in Kandor. They have to come up with superhero disguises -- so naturally, Clark "takes a cue from his old friends Batman and Robin, and he and Jimmy Olsen become - The DYNAMIC DUO OF KANDOR!"

Nightwing and Flamebird's names got linked to newly-invented Kryptonian birds (you can see the birds in the cages behind them) - therefore paralleling Batman and Robin, inspired by Earth's bats and robins!

Readers loved Clark and Jimmy's buddy-movie adventures as Nightwing and Flamebird, and the story conceit stuck around for quite a while. If you're curious, you can read a bit more about the stories here! I like them; they're goofy but adorable.

Kandor eventually got written out in 1979, when a writer who was bored with it "fixed" the city and had Clark find a way to make all the people normal size. No more adventures for Clark and Jimmy...

This meant that the Nightwing name was up for grabs.

1980s: The NEW TEEN TITANS & Gen X Influences

In 1984 - five years after Kandor, Nightwing, and Flamebird had gotten written out of Superman comics - Marv Wolfman and George Pérez wanted to give Dick a new name and costume in Tales of the Teen Titans 44. They landed on Nightwing. It was a perfect legacy identity, representing an homage to both of Dick's role models: an identity that was used by Superman, but modeled after Batman.

Although the name stayed the same, the costume changed quite a bit! The design changes are IMO revealing both of the era in general and of some characterization choices Wolfman and Pérez were making for Dick.

Pérez - the artist, and therefore the guy who redesigned the Nightwing costume - gave a 1987 interview where he said this about Dick:

Robin/Nightwing, I like him a lot because of his history, he’s been around so long, and there’s a certain sleek sexuality about the character. He’s got a certain sense of everyman, a young swashbuckler type...

IMO you can see those elements in Pérez's design - it's got vaguely piratical/swashbuckler vibes, and my extensive research (...okay, this article on 80s fashion trends) suggests that this very silly-looking Halloween costume may indeed be riffing on edgy sex symbols of the 1980s.

And both those choices are in keeping with the vibe of New Teen Titans, an aggressively not-kid-appropriate comic that was trying to do a more mature / edgy / adult take on superheroes.

What does that mean, "more mature"? Partly, it just meant, uh, sex. Dick and Kory were actually the first DC couple to ever be implied to be having premarital sex (in NTT 28 in 1983, where they're shown in bed together); in earlier eras, this would've been forbidden by the Comic Code Authority, which banned "illicit sex," sympathetic criminals, and a bunch of other things.

But it's not just about sex. In the 80s, comic readers were getting older and more impatient with moralizing in general; wholesome role models were out and sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll were in. Wolfman and Pérez were reinventing Dick as an aged-up, angsty, angry young man who was part of a more soap opera-esque team, with characters sleeping with each other and getting jealous and getting married and fighting with each other and generally making a lot of understandable-but-edgier decisions.

The switch to the Nightwing costume, a few years in, aesthetically mirrors Dick's shift in characterization from preppy good kid to angsty rebel:

Nightwing II, or, "What would happen if you took Superman-pretending-be-Batman and stuck him in a blender with Billy Idol?"

Pérez started with the blue-and-yellow color scheme of the original Nightwing - which is just copying Batman, right down to the utility/antigravity belt. But for Dick, Pérez tweaked it to add 1980s fashion details that were Hip With The Edgy Youth, like a deep V-neck showing the chest, bling-y accents, and big flaps for the shirt collar.

(Billy Idol had become a huge success in 1983, the year before Dick became Nightwing; the punk rocker was a college dropout and fashion icon for Gen X's edgy young men ... Look, I'm not saying he's a direct inspiration for Dick's costume, I'm just saying!! Similarities, no?? The other obvious point-of-reference is 70s disco - thus the fan nickname "disco-wing" - which had been popularized by John Travolta, another celebrity dropout.)

You can see a parallel shift in Dick's relationship to education - in the 1970s, he was basically a Good Role Model And Responsible College Student at Hudson University, where AFAIK he stayed in his first semester of college for about a decade. By contrast, in 1980, the first issue of New Teen Titans kicks off with Dick having dropped out of college and having tensions with Bruce about it - not a stereotypical "good kid" choice.

Dick in New Teen Titans 1, looking... a little bit dopey, let's face it; he may be a cool & edgy college dropout now but his motorcycle kinda looks like it belongs to a middle-schooler

By NTT 34 in 1987, Dick's costume had gotten more dramatic and his motorcycle had gotten significantly cooler-looking:

Over time, the Nightwing costume got tweaked in various ways to get more sedate and to add a more birdlike V-shape to the chest, but that's the Nightwing origin story!

Okay, so that's out-of-universe. But what about IN-UNIVERSE EXPLANATIONS for Dick's costume?

WHAT A GOOD QUESTION. There are three you can choose from!

FIRST OFF, in the original 1984 story, Dick says he got the idea from a costume Clark wore - a reference to Clark and Jimmy's adventures in Kandor.

BUT THEN, in the post-Crisis reboot, the Bottled City of Kandor got deleted from continuity for a while, along with Clark and Jimmy's history of being Nightwing and Flamebird. (Crisis on Infinite Earths was a late-1980s event that merged DC's Earth-One and Earth-Two, retconned a lot of backstories, erased a lot of goofier story elements, and tried to create a more streamlined DCU. Fans usually call the comics that were published after this event "post-Crisis comics," because "thecomicsthatwerepublishedpost-CrisisonInfiniteEarths" can't be said five times fast.)

With Kandor gone, the name's origin had to be tweaked a bit. In post-Crisis, Dick still gets the name idea from Superman, but it's from a Kryptonian legend that Clark knows, as opposed to a costume Clark wore.

And then in Nightwing: Year One, a retcon/retelling midway through post-Crisis, Dixon tweaks things a bit further, so that instead of the Robin costume being an homage to the Graysons' costumes (a Wolfman retcon in LPoD), it's instead the Nightwing costume which is an homage to the Graysons' costumes, and it's deliberately modeled after something John Grayson wore.

... So in-universe, the possible explanations are basically:

Pre-Crisis: Dick got both the name and the costume design from Superman, who came up with them in order to imitate Batman, OR

Post-Crisis: Dick got the name from Superman, and Dick came up with the costume on his own - probably still deliberately imitating Batman's color choices, OR

Post-Crisis: Dick got the name from Superman and the design from John Grayson's acrobat costume.

(The post-Crisis period ended in 2011 with Flashpoint, so for a while people called post-2011 comics "post-Flashpoint," but nowadays it's usually divided into DC's branded eras: new 52, Rebirth, and Infinite Frontier. I don't think those eras have any significant retcons to Dick's costume origin, but I'm not 100% sure.)

ALL THAT SAID, I love the idea of "it's Robin, but blue," so thank you; that's adorable and it's gonna live in my heart forever now <333

[doppel-doodles]

Since everyone is making their own little version of the characters I thought I would join the fun for my Fallen crown Au! These were supposed to be quick little sketches just to get some ideas down but they still took me the whole day:'D will probably change as I draw them but I wanted at least something down on for the time being and I do like how most turned out!

Single versions plus some info and ramblings about each under cut for those interested:

My lamb was mainly based on both, yes the actual player character but also the vibes of my own plathrough which were very "oh god who let this child be in charge?-" while I'll still mostly just call them Lamb I figured they should still have a proper name so I went with my friends @/tamaruaart suggestion as it suits them rather nicely! And most note worthy detail is honestly just the fact that they carry something from each bishops realm on their person now, I like to think they treat those items like little trophies:>

Narinder is probably my weakest I feel like, he definitely needs something to give him some extra "ompf!". I basically made his undertaker fit a sorta reverse or at least loosely inspired by his white robes in game. I imagine he is very boney or a straight up skeleton underneath so he covers it all up beneath heavy fabrics, but because I lack subtly I still covered him in bones regardless-

And yea I kept the veil cause 1. It's a look and 2. It coviently covers up his now sewn shut third eye.

There wasn't much reason behind making him an undertaker, I simply thought it suited him, when your the former god of death you aren't exactly squeamish around corpses. Lastly the dark blues are there to contrast the other followers warm tones, as they kinda seen him as an outcast which is just fine for narinder he isnt exactly thrilled to be here.

I'll put Leshy and Heket together as they were sorta designed as a set.Since they are both youngest among the bishops I sorta latched onto the headcanon that they get along pretty well and just stick together after getting into the cult so they just share a lot of their duties. So I gave them some matching elements like the puffy shorts but also stuff that contrasts like Leshy having looser clothing and Hekets being more tight. Or Heket getting working gloves with a little belt to hold tools plus a hat for the sun, meanwhile Leshy will happily dig through the dirt bare clawed in the sun for hours-

I debated on giving Heket an apron but honestly I think she would only wear one while cooking or tending the farm plots there is no reason for her to wear it casually, the gloves though stay for I reason I utterly love because its PETTY-

Literally the only reason she keeps them on almost constantly is because when the lamb asks she can be like "ew, I'm not touching you with my bare hands." Yes, my humour is broken moving on-

I also gave Leshy a cane just so he actually has something to feel around with when he is areas he isn't too familiar with so he isn't running into crap- on that note, Heket can speak a bit but not exactly loud or for a very long time without seriously hurting her throat, once I properly learn it I definitely wanna draw her using sign language.

Lastly bodies, Leshy was based off a previous drawing I made of him in bishop form, I simply made it less monsterous but he is in charge of chaos so he had to remain a creature- Heket is more straight forward, she is a frog and she is large and in charge.

There was one reason why I made Shamura a tailor and that was the mental image of them sewing the bishops clothes when they were younger and dressing them up all cute.

I went for more pink colors mainly because I thought it better suited the purple and would make their red eyes pop! Honestly I really love their colors they remind me of a Berry! I've drawn shamura before but honestly the only things that stuck were the colors,face and then also the hand markings I did tweak their eyes a bit I wanted something more stern feeling.

For clothing I kept everything nice and loose, while they are the tailor I also love the idea that in their spare time they either teach the youths in the cult or are like the champion of the fighting pit because war is also their domain and they can be- so I wanted them dressed pretty comfy to deal with whatever may come! But still keep everything pretty mature and mildly fancy maybe in the future I'll do some fancy gold and silver embroidery to the pants because of that.

As for body type I wanted them to be pretty thin but unlike Narinder who is twink material under his cloak they have a bit more bulk on top to show that they can choose violence if they so wish-

I adore me some pathetic but still serving men, honestly except for the cross on his belt I completely ignored the fact I made him a medic- If he needs to treat something gross he can throw something over to protect his clothes but just like Heket there is no reason for him to wear that while not working.

Otherwise my main goal was simply to make Kalamar look pretty and fancy. I debated on either short or long bottoms until I realized I'd have to figure out his tentacle situation, then realized I don't hate myself THAT MUCH so bro got put into a floor length gown, work smarter not harder kids.

If I have an excuse to give a character a shawl I will take it so fast.

His body type I mainly wanted to flesh out the roster so I tried making him very squishy and huggable looking, I debated on thinner so he looked more dangly and stretchy but that made him kinda to similar to Narinders build for my liking.

[quibbs126]

So inspired by @i-ate-a-purse and @skybristle posts that both featured a sort of form for the Strawberry Jam Sword, I decided to try and come up with something of my own, and so I made Strawberry Jam Cookie, the original form of the Strawberry Jam Sword

To be honest, I’m not 100% on the design, it’s kind of a first draft and I feel like it looks a bit iffy, but I still like some of the elements. I might end up tweaking it more

The hair color I based on Dark Choco’s weird red gradient thing at the end of his hair, with it’s shape being more reminiscent of flowing jam, sort of like Vampire Cookie. Although maybe you could see it as being like storm clouds too, since the Strawberry Jam Sword shoots lightning. The outfit is basically just the Sovereign of Darkness’s armor but with different shoulder pads and no cape. Also it was originally black but I changed it to purple bc that’s the color of the Sovereign’s sword and thought it would match better, assuming that’s the original look and color of the sword. Also I gave them the Sovereign’s sword. As for the thing in their eye, I wanted to call back to the Sovereign’s diamond eye (which is likely the sword’s gem), so I gave them the shape in their left eye

To be honest I’m not sure what gender Strawberry Jam Cookie is, or if they even have one, I’m just gonna refer to them as they or it for now. The lashes aren’t supposed to be indicative of any gender, I just added them for flair

Alright, so I have some lore for them, but it’s not complete, so I’ll give you what I got

Although I’m not sure yet how they came to be this way or if they were just baked like this, Strawberry Jam Cookie was a being of unparalleled power, existing millennia before any of the Ancients were even born. And it’s only desire in this world was destruction, and the jam of every Cookie. You know the Shattered Kingdom from Ovenbreak (I only know it from the Trophy Race so apologies if I get things wrong)? Well here, in this telling of Kingdom, the Shattered Kingdom was destroyed by Strawberry Jam Cookie. Although the names have been lost to time, legends speak of a great ancient kingdom that was attacked by this destructive force, who brought red clouds and darkness wherever they went, and while it decimated the kingdom, they had a plan to stop it and it’s reign of terror. They lured the Cookie into a trap set by their wizards, in the hopes of sealing it away, but Strawberry Jam Cookie refused to accept defeat, using the last of it’s power to create an outburst of energy unlike any seen before. After it fired, and the dust settled, all across the land only crumbs remained of the Cookies of that kingdom, the only thing showing they were there in the first place was their swords, cast away onto the ground, the Shattered Kingdom destroyed in a single night, Since then the region has been haunted by the spirits of the warriors, constantly stuck in that very night and warding off all who trespass. And the only remnant of the Strawberry Jam Cookie was their sword, glowing crimson in anticipation for the day it would be used again. Some say the being died with the rest of the kingdom, but some say the wizards’ plan worked, and somewhere out there, it still lives. But none have been able to find the sword, until a young prince came along, and heard it’s crimson call…

I just thought that sounded cool. Anyways I need to study for my math final in an hour, so I’m gonna go do that. Hope you enjoy!

Also here’s Strawberry Jam Cookie with black armor

[ericmhe]

I mentioned on Godzilla that I was going to do four of these and see how it went. Probably obvious that Ghidorah kind of has to be on the list, so I was just going for the kaiju cast of Godzilla vs Gigan. However I've felt slightly weird about not doing Mothra but figured that there should be another aggressive enemy kaiju for balance. Someone asked for Biollante and you know, I think she has great potential so I'll expand it to six monsters for now. "Hero-verse" Anguirus Not a big variation from the Showa design, just taking advantage of being drawn and not needing to accommodate human proportions and turn him into a poorly proportioned quadruped. Overall there's a little tweaking to try and give him something of a loyal dog sidekick vibe. His shell is also a ways more turtle-like because I really like turtle shells and use any half excuse to make something more like a turtle shell. Anguirus was originally intended be the main support character for Godzilla but he was initially over-designed and after his first couple of appearances animators complained about the complexity of his shell and spike combo. This caused him to be hastily written out and replaced with other benign monsters for a few episodes that are known for being a bit janky writing-wise and displaying strange characterization for monsters like Rodan and Mothra. However the design was eventually fixed and the character re-introduced. As a result Rodan undergoes a very rapid character shift and Mothra is treated as though being introduced for the first time a little later. Fan theories go from alternate realities, out of order episode airings and suspiciously aimed amnesia. "Horror-verse" Anguirus Mostly pulls from his appearance in Singular Point but there's references to everything from injuries recieved in various media, Godzilla Destroy All Monsters Melee and the abandoned idea of a splitting shell in Godzilla Raids Again. While a giant prehistoric reptile set loose in the modern era has often been depicted as a destructive event, it's hard to paint it as gross out or gory horror so it took some thinking here. Anguirus is well known for being a stubborn creature, applauded among some western fans, and showing up again in spite of dying in his first appearance. Therefore, horror Anguirus has enhanced healing fueling the never give up attitude, even apparent death is just a delay. However his healing is flawed, the initial tissue is incomplete and merely enough to stop bleeding but then as the process continues the tissue is erroneously replaced with armor or claw. Anguirus sports several patches of sprouting bone armor, claws and teeth from the areas he's been wounded in the distant past. More recent injuries like the lower torso wounds from Godzilla, the neck and shoulder wounds from Gigan, and the jaw injury from what seems to have been another bout with Godzilla are all still partway through the healing process and bony material can bee seen emerging. Another apparent death saw his thagomizer being claimed as a trophy by a robotic adversary only for Anguirus to ressurect once again and begin growing a new club of much more random spikes. Anguirus lacks true energy attacks like Godzilla and other kaiju, but is capable of producing a roar so loud it generates a shock-wave. If it raises its shell it can vibrate it at intense speeds and seemingly harmonize with its roar to amplify the effects. Humans and animals at our scale can easily be killed some distance away from Anguirus' threat display alone. The tissues and tendrils exposed when its shell is lifted seem to serve some other purpose in making Anguirus hyper aware of its surroundings, the most commonly accepted theory is that these organs feel and smell the air with great sensitivity allowing Anguirus to track things that it doesn't seem should be able to, however the odd crackpot will insist that Anguirus's predictive abilities are too great for that to be the explanation and hypothesize the creature is somehow seeing the future. The retort to that is easy, surely if the creature knew the future it would get wounded much less. All in all Anguirus is one of the more benign kaiju but can still cause intense destruction in its wake.

[the-firebird69]

Watch "VW Bradley GT 2" on YouTube

He's cruising along and says you put wider tires on and bigger rims it says all like pirelli and I said yeah you can use Goodyear and he said good and he found him and then he said I'm going to tweak the motor and he did both and it fills out the wheel well so it doesn't look hokey he said this looks like an illegal supercar probably get too much attention from the cops and sunset and he said maybe so he goes out there and he's got like 180 nails it 220 comes back and says no way this is the car that says yeah it's Bradley and it's about my people but it's really the other way around and Max was messing with it the code and it's quite an interesting story it started with Trump and went to Billy z and he said no way and I designed it for my pinewood derby and it's about pining and I won but the clone his first clone took the win trophy and everything and I think Mac orchestra the whole thing he looks around and said this is the story so yeah you got to keep that and his history because I help you they said that thing I don't know what to say you can put in the new interior and that there's a list of parts and it comes from Corvettes and other things so I put it together and said this is the best car I've ever had and it flies it goes like 250 I didn't change the motor it's some Volkswagen motor it's pretty smart and he's an engineer and he's a Mac and he figured out the code a little bit

Thor Freya

[bananaofswifts]

Taylor Swift Turns on a Facsimile Machine for the Ingenious Recreations of ‘Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’: Album Review

Swift recreates her entire 2008 album literally down to the last note, then gives herself room for stylistic latitude on six never-before-recorded "vault" tracks.

By Chris Willman

Swift recreates her entire 2008 album literally down to the last note, then gives herself room for stylistic latitude on six never-before-recorded "vault" tracks.

There is no “best actress” award at the Grammys, perhaps for obvious reasons, but maybe there should be this coming year. And the Grammy would go to… Taylor Swift, for so persuasively playing her 18-year-old self in “Fearless (Taylor’s Version),” her beyond-meticulous recreation of the 2008 recording that did win her her first album of the year trophy back in the day. It’s impossible to overstate just how thoroughly the new version is intended as an exact replica of the old — all the way down to her startling ability to recapture an untrained teen singing voice she’s long matured and moved on from. It’s a stunt, to be sure, but a stunt for the ages — mastering the guile it takes to go back to sounding this guileless.

There are two different, very solid reasons to pick up or stream “Taylor’s Version,” regardless of whether you share her ire for the Big Machine label, whose loose ways with her nine-figure catalog precipitated this, the first in a six-album series of remakes where she’ll be turning on the facsimile machine. One is to marvel at her gift for self-mimicry on the album’s original tracks, where she sounds as possessed by her younger self as Regan ever was by Pazuzu. The other reason is, of course, to check out the six “vault” numbers that Swift wrote during that time frame but has never released before in any form, which dispenses with stylistic fealty to the late 2000s and frames her “Fearless”-era discards in production and arrangements closer to “Folklore.” Those half-dozen (kind of) new tracks really do sound like modern Taylor Swift covering her old stuff.

But those original lucky 13? It’s the same damn record… which is kind of hilarious and marvelous and the kind of meta-ness that will inspire a thousand more think-pieces than it already has, along with possibly efforts at forensic analysis to figure out how she did it.

It would not be surprising if, as we speak, Big Machine was putting a combined team of scientists and lawyers on the case of the new album’s waveform readouts, to make sure it’s not just the original album, remixed. Honestly, it’s that close. The timings of the songs are all within a few seconds of the original tracks, if not coming in at exactly the same length. The duplication effort doesn’t allow any detours. If “Forever and Always” had a cold open then, it’s going to have a cold open now. If the 2008 “That’s the Way I Love You” had slamming rock guitars with an almost subliminal banjo being plucked beneath the racket, so will the 2021 “That’s the Way I Loved You.” A drum roll to end the old “Change”? A drum roll to end its body-snatcher doppelganger. And if she chuckled before the final chorus of “Hey Stephen” 13 years ago, so will that moment be cause for a delighted giggle now.

Of course, much analysis will be put into whether the new laugh is a more knowing-sounding laugh. And that will be part of the fun for a certain segment of audiophile Swifties who will go looking for the slightest change as evidence of something meaningful. When “Love Story (Taylor’s Version)” first came out weeks back to preview the album, there were reviews written that swore she’d subtly changed up her phrasing to put a contemporary spin on the song. And maybe they were right, but, having done a fair amount of A/B testing of the two versions of the album, I found myself feeling like I do when vinyl buffs insist there are significant sonic differences between the first stamper version of an LP and one that was pressed a year later. If you can spot those very, very, very modest tweaks, go for it.

But my suspicion is that if Swift has decided to turn a phrase a little differently here or there on this album, or done anything too differently aside from brighten the sound, she’s doing it more as an Easter egg, for the people who are on that kind of hunt, than anything really designed as reinterpretation. Because the last thing Swift wants most of her fans doing is A/B-ing the two versions, the way I did. The whole point is to have folks retire the OG “Fearless” from their Spotify playlists, right? The Swift faithful were already threatening to rain down damnation on anyone caught sneaking an audio peek at the old version after midnight. What she intended was to come up with a rendering so faithful that you would never have a need to spin the vintage album again. In that, she has succeeded beyond what could have been imagined even in the dreams of the few self-forgers who’ve tried this before, like a Jeff Lynne.

Is there any reason to find value in the new versions if you couldn’t care less about the issues of masters and contracts and respect in business deals that made all this strangely possible? Yes, with the first one being that the new album just sounds like a terrific remastering of the old — the same notes, and you’d swear the same performances, but sounding brighter and punchier just on a surface level. But on a more philosophical one, it’s not just a case of Swift playing with her back catalog like Andy Warhol played with his soup can. It’s really a triumph of self-knowledge and self-awareness, in the way that Swift is so hyper-conscious of the ways she’s matured that she has the ability to un-mature before our very ears. With her vocals, it’s virtuosic, in a way, how she’s made herself return to her unvirtuosic upstart self.

On Swift’s earliest albums and in those seminal live shows — at the time when she was famously being told she “can’t sing,” to quote a song from the follow-up album — there was a slight shrillness around the edges of her voice that, if you lacked faith, you might’ve imaged would be there forever. It wasn’t. That was partly youth, and partly just the sheer earnestness with which she wanted to convey the honesty of the songs. She’s advanced so much since then — into one of pop’s most gifted modern singers, really — that the woman of “Folklore” and “Evermore” seems like a completely different human being than the one who made the self-titled debut and “Fearless,” never mind just a woman versus girl. It wouldn’t have seemed possible that she could go back to her old way of singing at the accomplished age of 31, but she found and recreated that nervous, sincere, pleading voice of yesteryear. And maybe it was just a technical feat, of temporarily unlearning what she’s learned since then, but you can sense that maybe she had to go there internally, too, to the place where she was counseling other girls to guard their sexual virtue in “Fifteen,” or wondering whether to believe the fairy tale of “Love Story” or the wakeup call of “White Horse,” or proving with “Forever & Always” that writing a song telling off Joe Jonas for his 27-second breakup call was better than revenge.

If at first you’re not inclined to notice that Swift has re-adopted a completely different singing voice for the “Fearless” remakes, the realization may kick in when those “vault” tracks start appearing in the later stretch of this hour-and-50-minute album. The writing on the six songs that have been pulled up from the 2008 cutting room floor seems primitive, even a little bit by the standards of the “Fearless” album; there are great lines and couplets throughout the rescued tracks, but you can see why she left them as works-in-progress. But she doesn’t use her youthful voice on these resurrections, nor does she employ the actual style of “Fearless” very strictly. Of course, she feels more freedom on these, because there are no predecessors in the Big Machine catalog she’s asking you to leave behind. Her current collaborators of choice, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, divided the co-producing work on these fresher songs, as they did for the two all-new albums she released in the last year. (The “Fearless” recreations are co-produced by Swift with Christopher Rowe, someone who worked on remixes for Swift back in that era.) They co-produce the vault songs in a style that sounds somewhere between “Fearless” and Folklore”… a more spectral brand of country-pop, with flutes and synths and ringing 12-string guitars and a modicum of drum programming replacing some (but not all) of the acoustic stringed instruments you’d expect to be carried over from “Fearless” proper.

Of the previously unheard tracks, Swift was right — she’s always been her own best self-editor — in putting out “You All Over Me” first, in advance of the album. With its imagery of half-muddy stones being upturned on the road, this song has advanced lyrical conceits more of a piece with the level of writing she’s doing now than some of the slightly less precocious songs that follow. Still, there’s something to be said for the sheer zippiness with which Swift conveys teen heartbreak in “Mr. Perfectly Fine,” which has a lyric that shows Swift had long since absorbed the lessons Nashville had to offer about how to come up with a high-concept song — the concept, in this case, being just to stick the word “mister” in front of a lot of phrases relating to her shallow ex, as if they were honorary titles to be conferred for being a shit, while she employs the “miss” for herself more sparingly.

Some of the remaining outtake songs go back more toward the sedate side of “Fearless”-style material; she didn’t leave any real bangers in the can. “We Were Happy,” the first of two successive tracks to bring in Keith Urban (but only for backgrounds on this one), employs fake strings and real cello as Swift waxes nostalgic for a time when “you threw your arms around my neck, back when I deserved it.” It’s funny, in a good way, to hear Swift at 31 recreating a song she wrote at 17 or 18 that pined for long-past better times. The next song, “That’s When,” brings Urban in for a proper duet where he gets a whole second verse and featured status on half a chorus, and it’s lovely to hear them together. But, as a make-up song, it doesn’t feel as real or lived-in as the more personal things she was writing at the time — and the fact that its chords are pretty close to a slightly more balladic version of the superior “You Belong With Me” was probably a pretty good reason for dropping it at the time.

the 18-year-old Taylor Swift is a great place to visit, but “Folklore” and “Evermore” are the place you’ll want to return to and live, unless you have an especially strong sentimental attachment to “Fearless”… which, sure, half of young America does. It’s not irreconcilable to say that the two albums she issued in the last year represent a daring pinnacle of her career, but that “Fearless” deserved to win album of the year in 2008. Has there been a greater pop single in the 20th century than “You Belong With Me”? Probably not. Did the album also have lesser moments you probably haven’t thought about in a while, like the just-okay “Breathe”? Yes. (I looked up to see whether Swift had ever played that little remarked upon number in concert, and according to setlists.fm, she did, exactly once… in 2018. Because she’s Taylor Swift, and of course she did.) It’s not certain that her duet with Colbie Caillat really needed to be resurrected, except it’s fun, because hey, she even roped former duet partners back into her time warp. But there are so many number that have stood the test of time, like “The Way I Love You,” an early song that really got at the complicated feelings about passion and fidelity that she would come to explore more as she grew into her 20s… and just kind of a headbanger, too, on an album that does love its fiddles and mandolins.

It doesn’t take much to wonder why Swift put up “Fearless” first in this six-album exercise; it’s one of her two biggest albums, along with “1989,” and it’s 13 years old, which does mean something superstitious in the Taylor-verse. In a way, it’ll be more interesting to see what happens when she gets to more complicated productions, like “1989” or “Reputation.” But maybe “Fearless” did present the opportunity for the grandest experiment out of the gate: to recreate something that pure and heartfelt, with all the meticulousness a studio master like Swift can put to that process now, without having it seem like she’s faking sincerity. Let the think-pieces proceed — because this is about six hundred different shades of meta. But, all craftiness and calculation aside, there’s a sweetness to the regression that’s not inconsequential. It harks back to a time when she only wondered if she could be fearless, before she learned it the harder way for sure. What they say about actors “disappearing into the role”? That really applies to Taylor Swift, playing herself.

[guynamedultimax]

What if Kirby had a traditional fighting game?

Listen, I know I should’ve done more “FNF fighting game characters” but i doubt anyone cared for that, and even then I lost a bit of interest, so if you actually cared sorry about that, you can still come up with whatever you want for the characters I didn’t talk about!

That being said, I think all Kirby fans here know Kirby Fighters 2. Personally speaking most of it was just the same as Kirby Fighters Deluxe BUT there were five playable Dream Friends. FIVE. Priority to the Copy Abilities a bit too high, isn’t it HAL? Sometimes it feels a bit barebones if you ask me. So I’m here to discuss what would a non-platform Kirby fighting game be.

THE GAMEPLAY

It’s the same as any basic fighting game, there isn’t really that much that the Kirby franchise can offer to make the genre a bit more varied, and that’s mostly due to the fact that Kirby makes friends wherever he goes and combat is pretty much straightforward in these platforming games, the crazy stuff comes from learning specific moves with each copy ability/character in the games and that’s also true for this game.

THE PLOT

I have quite a few ideas for how this can go:

-It’s a “what if” re-telling of Kirby Star Allies where Hyness’ ritual (somehow) also causes space-time rifts across the entire universe to be generated, pulling in Kirby villains from previous games but also allies, which would ALSO explain Dream Friends in the game’s canon a bit more properly.

-It happens in an AU. Plot would basically be Kirby Battle Royale’s but instead of shooting a loadshit of Kirbies onto Kirby, Dedede would just call upon all of their friends to fight for that cake before things escalate and Dedede loses control of the tournament to greater evils, forcing him to work with Kirby to stop the threat, be it old or new.

-Another AU idea but this time it’s original/based on Milky Way Wishes. Galactic NOVA appears every thousand years above Pop Star’s skies, and everyone tries to fight for the right to get the wish. Villain wouldn’t necessarily be ONLY Marx though, most of the Kirby villains could easily win against him if they get to NOVA and get their wish granted. Which means yes, all plots happen at once and Kirby has to deal with everyone at once.

-The least interesting idea: it’s Kirby Fighters 2′s plot but without tag team duos and with all Kirbies replaced with the roster.

THE ROSTER

Now we’re about to have some fun.

RETURNING CHARACTERS: The Dream Friends (and Kirby, of course)

-First up, all Dream Friends are coming back. You don’t even need to change their movesets that much, just add/tweak things, but just for funsies (and for a specific reason too) we’ll also give them specific copy abilities or more than one to categorize them.

-Kirby is the specific reason. He has the same moveset as his Smash Bros incarnation, although he incorporates more copy abilities (and also super powerful stuff like the Star Rod that he usually uses in endgame fights) in it now due to being a traditional fighting game. And yes, he still has his inhale. Using it will have the inhale be replaced by another move in-game, the closest one to a “neutral special” in the opponent’s arsenal. His copy ability is therefore, Smash Bros. And since the game has multiple super moves, we can make his gimmicks from the Kumazaki games the super moves: his level 1 would be a random Super Copy Ability from Return to Dreamland (cutscene is random everytime but damage is always the same), his level 2 would be using the Robobot Armor to stomp foes around, ending with a giant ground pound/fist to the ground and his level 3 is Hypernova Kirby due to the inhale being one of his most unique properties.

-Meta Knight and Dedede will also have heavy Smash influences but they’ll also use techniques from most of their boss fights, such as Meta Knight splitting himself in four clones temporarily for an attack or Dedede actually pulling out an axe instead of his hammer for some attacks based on his Triple Deluxe incarnation. Their copy abilities would formally be Sword and Hammer but with heavy Smash Bros inspiration. Meta can also call in for the Meta Knights to help him in one of his unique super moves. They’d all be there except for Sailor Dee and Captain Vul (one’s an alternate costume and the other is never seen outside of dialogue text).

-Bandana Waddle Dee’s moveset incorporates both Spear and Parasol, but due to the Spear being his most used tool he’ll be categorized with that.

-Marx is the first character with Unique as its own copy ability due to his arsenal being entirely based on his boss fight. Inhaling Unique characters doesn’t always allow Kirby to get copy abilities but when it happens he usually has their most basic move replacing the inhale. Gooey is in the same situation, but i have no idea what would Kirby get from him as an ability since he’s technically player 2 in the Dark Matter trilogy’s first 2 games. Rick, Kine and Coo would technically be categorized as Unique only because they have Fire, Water and Wind in their moveset. You could say they’d be stance characters while Marx is a zoner and Gooey a rushdown character.

-Dark Meta Knight is categorized as Mirror, and Adeleine (with Ribbon as an assist of course) is Artist. Daroach would be Animal, which is missing since its debut in Squeak Squad, as far as I can remember, but he naturally still retains his moveset of calling the Squeaks to help him.

-It’s pretty easy to categorize Magolor as ESP, and Taranza as Spider, while I have no idea what would Susie’s ability be even. Spark? She is mostly around in the Robobot Armor to be fair. The Three Mage-Sisters would be treated equally to the Animal Friends

THE NEWCOMERS

-NAGO, CHUCHU & PITCH: The other set of Animal Friends. I theorize a moveset revolving around the Cleaning ability like in Star Allies would be easy to make, although it can also incorporate moves from other abilities that have been in Dream Land 3.

-CHEF KAWASAKI: I think it’s safe to say this one is pretty easy to do just like the returning Dream Friends. He has a unique moveset in comparison to Chef Kirby that also has him use Kirby’s Final Smash from Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

-LOLOLO & LALALA: Aside from pushing boxes and Gordos they can be the Ice Climbers of the game, and most importantly one of their super moves could have them fuse into their original form in the anime to reference that further.

-SHADOW KIRBY: A clone (in terms of moveset) for Kirby that lacks the inhale ability and has more attacks based on his appearances in Amazing Mirror (and also on Kirby’s unique ability to split in four in these games) and the Kirby Fighters spinoffs. Simple as it is.

-THE MIDBOSSES: They all play the same as their fights too, so doing a paragraph for each of them would be a bit redundant. I chose to add minibosses in because most of them are pretty iconic among Kirby enemies and some of them are also technically friends of Kirby’s. I picked Bonkers (whose coconut throwing and some special moves could make him different enough from Dedede if you ask me), Mr. Frosty (also because we don’t have an Ice-based character in the game), Buggzy (which I can see being the ultimate grappler), King Doo (because we don’t actually have a Waddle Doo in the roster and he’s technically not only their king but also the most unique of them) and Grand Wheelie (look, I like Wheel as an ability ok? it’s like playing as Sonic in a Kirby game)

-KNUCKLE JOE: Taking stuff from both his Star Allies moveset and his Assist Trophy from Ultimate PLUS a few references to the anime and you have the ultimate Shoto character in the Kirby franchise. Ryu mains, this is the character for you.

-GIM: Look, my three favorite abilities are Yo-Yo, Wheel and ESP, in no particular order, so I HAD to include him and the Grand Wheelie. Magolor covers for ESP enough. This lil fella looks more unique than most of the generic Kirby enemies and even among the copy ability ones he’s always been a bit of an oddball due to being a robot. The trickshots you can do with this copy ability make Gim perfect to camp, so he’d be a pretty good zoner as well.

-TAC: He’s been a Helper in Super Star where he also has an unique moveset. Expanding on it and on Tac being generally a copy ability thief could mean more copy abilities can be implemented in a moveset, probably even more than what Kirby can do. Also his design just screams potential to me.

DLC FIGHTERS

WAVE 1: Spinoff Dream Friends

Cuz these guys have been done dirty by Star Allies’ devs. Elline would be the other Artist character in the game and call for Claycia’s assistance in specific attacks. Prince Fluff would play mostly just like Kirby himself did in Kirby’s Epic Yarn and implement specific transformations in some attacks, ending with the tank one from the end of that game. Then we have Gryll. If you know how to make a Tetris/Puyo Puyo based character in a fighting game then good for you, I absolutely don’t know how. What I KNOW however is that she has a float like Peach’s in Smash Bros and I-No’s in Guilty Gear.

WAVE 2: Dream Villains

These guys would all play exactly like their boss fights. Hyness and Sectonia would remain mostly unchanged while Haltmann in terms of moveset is the same as Susie, just without every non-Robobot move that she has.

WAVE 3: Clash of Blades

THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S ALL ANIME SWORDFIGHTERS. They all pull from their boss fights, but Morpho Knight is gonna be a bit more unique compared to Galacta, Dark Meta and Meta Knight, having in the swordfighter equivalent of Akuma’s Raging Demon. Meanwhile, Dark Matter Swordsman and Galacta Knight are completely faithful to the source material, but they’d probably be a bit nerfed due to Galacta’s universe-breaking powers. (you can bet that if we get the remaining legendary heroes who sealed Void Termina in future games they’d be their own separate Wave 5 DLC pack)

WAVE 4: Revival of Old Faces

Nightmare and Drawcia are back and they’re here to stay! Their movesets don’t really need that much changes. Void however is an entirely different beast. He’d be a mix of Kirby, both Zero incarnations and Dark Matter. His design wouldn’t just be giant orb that switches between Kirby and Dark Matter faces, he’d be Kirby-sized and with legs and stubby lil arms like the pink puffball. And you can bet your ass he’d be broken as fuck.

SKINS

If a character’s appearance changed across the series’ history (like Marx Soul, Girl Blob Gooey, Shoppe Magolor, Mecha Knight, Dark Taranza/Taranza in the Super Kirby Clash games, Masked/Shadow Dedede, Anime!Knuckle Joe, Parallel/Pres. Parallel Susie, EX versions and so on) they’d just be an alternate skin/palette swap for the specific character. Multiple characters of the same species with little changes (like a normal Waddle Dee or Sailor Dee, or literally all Kirby colors including Keeby) are the same. I’m also debating on how Dark Mind would be a skin for Nightmare or if there’d be a skin inspired by him for the Dark Matter Swordsman. Zero and Zero Two would probably be turned into palette swaps/outfits for Void (imagine a white Kirby cosplaying as Zero Two that’d be so cute lol).

ATTACKING ASSIST CHARACTERS

Characters who appear in other characters’ attacks. Like the aforementioned Squeaks, Meta Knights and Claycia. Normal Dark Matter would appear in DM Swordsman’s attacks in some capacity outside of the eye laser and the Gordo Throw would return from Dedede’s previous Smash incarnations alongside the Waddle Dee Throw from Brawl. And naturally Magolor can call in the Lor Starcutter for one of his super moves. I am actually considering giving Tac the ability to throw random items/enemies at opponents, with the Bomber being one of these. It’d be a very RNG attack with the Bomber being the best outcome, blowing on the opponent’s face.

HELPERS

All characters in the game can be called on for an Helper attack, that can help you in some form against the opponent by either damaging or tampering with the opponent or by having you get healed or with some buff. Outside from the playable roster enemies that give you copy abilities would also be Helpers, but the specific ones I’m not so sure on.

BOSSES

Characters you can fight in Arcade mode, in Story mode or in a specific Boss mode. There’d also be a Ganon’s Fury (Hyrule Warriors) inspired mode where you’d play as the bosses pitting them against each other. I specifically picked Dyna Blade, Whispy Woods, Landia, Star Dream, Kracko, Great Edge, Pyribbit, Ice Dragon, Fire Lion, Masher, Grand Mam, Metal General, Kibble Blade and Pon & Con.

STAGES

There’d be quite a lot of stages, but I haven’t thought out specific ones except for Green Greens, Butter Building, a Ripple Star stage, one for Dedede’s castle with stage cameos by Tiff, Tuff and Escargoon from the anime and every final boss’s fighting arena.

THE MUSIC

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is gonna be nothing compared to this one. We’re getting all the important music from all pre-Kumazaki games, all music from Kumazaki games and spinoffs, and online arrangements with focus on orchestral (Desolo Zantas), metal (GaMetal, of course) and EDM (Acid Notation, Qumu and various others), including stuff like Itoki Hana’s vocal arrangements. We’re going all out on this one.

Aaaaand that’s it. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Stay hydrated.

[withered-tears]

so i got an idea for a character

get it she's a Trophy wife

i think imma try and make her into an actual 3d model in blender, probably low poly tho. ps2 style maybeh?

probably gonna tweak her design a bit more tho

[inventors-fair]

New Year’s Resolutions: Group commentary

Welcome to the group commentary! As I said in the winner’s post, there were a lot of white cards in the inbox, and that’s an obvious sign that white needs a small rework to keep up with its buffed up brothers.

@misterstingyjack​ White does lover its planeswalkers and tying card draw with a powerful card type could be reasonable since card draw is white’s main weakness. However I would like it more if this loyalty extension was offered by a creature, so at least you can keep the game rolling.

@askkrenko​ MaRo has mentioned the “elemental” supertype quite a few times in podcasts etc, but its really too late to add this element to the game. But we’re here to dream and create, and Strike Twice would be a sick card, if not a staple, in that parallel universe. Also this is the most badass a Pichu has ever been XD

@ignorantturtlegaming​ There were no additional notes other than this crazy card in the inbox, so I can only guess that the creator wants more group-hug effects in red. I want to say Fires of Renewal is on the expensive side, but the effects it offers unconditionally are all very impactful. The Melvin in me appreciates all the instances of “2″ in the card!

@wolkemesser​ gave life to an ancient mtg character from the Shattered Chains book and boy, she’s a truly solid card. Ordando has decent stats and gives some additional staying power to monowhite decks. I like the whole flavor that is so tough that she can protect others and come back again, but the execution feels a little off to me, as discard and mill decks can abuse her in non white ways. Since we’re going for the flavor win, I would like it more if in order to protect something she exiled herself with a promise counter (which in turn allows her to be cast from exile.)

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes​ A disgustingly evil win more card? Sign me up! The philosophy of the card plays very nicely in black, especially with low cost high stated creatures that ask for their tribute every upkeep! Counterspells in black are a big stretch in my opinion, but no one can’t deny this card is a big flavor win!

@col-seaker-of-the-memiest-legion Speaking of counterspells, here’s another suggestion for them being in white. Many protective cards can be treated as counterspells, so we could find a loophole and treat this as a very wide protective spell. I think we could have cards like this in the future, but it’s still treacherous terrain because they must be so efficient that might replace blue’s role in the game.

@naban-dean-of-irritation​ I have mixed feelings about Korair. Flavor text matches with the card’s name quite nicely but it doesn’t connect with the actual gameplay. Also venturing into the unexplored “emblems matter territory” is surely exciting, but I don’t like the fact that is creates emblems by itself, and with that ease to boot!

@mardu-lesbian​ Hindsight is pitched as the blue/red shared keyword ability. I view it in a positive light, meaning I think it’s both flavorful and makes sense for those two colors, but it’s a bit unexciting that it matters only once in the creature’s life on the battlefield, while other shared keywords are combat related and have a greater impact in the game.

@deafeningsandwichpeach​ Hexproof for player is a rare sight, usually preserved for white and green, but there’s also Leyline of Sanctity and Witchbane Orb and this changes things to the point I would even tell this card is overcosted. Cost aside, I really like Seal into Darkness!

@snugz​ I would really love blue getting a combat ability that’s not straight evasion, but going full throttle to lure all creatures is a bit much, given that existing cards are usually uncommon. It could be like old fashioned provoke ( forcing a one on one fight) or even a numbered mechanic, like lure 1 or 3 etc, forcing 1 or 3 creatures to block.

@hypexion​ ​  Lapse of Certainty is definitely  a card, but there’s a reason why it was not repeated. Here, Mean’s to Delay, like Unexpectedly Absent, is an X spell where usually the correct way to ply it is for X=0, turning it into a slightly better counterspell. Not against counterspells in white, but be cautious.

@deg99 With this Angrath design, deg wanted to build more on the Rakdos color combination, through caring about stolen creatures and you know accidentally sacrificing them before returning them to their rightful owners. The power level is quite high, but it’s so enticing that I would gladly playtest this card to enjoy the crazy ride!

@hiygamer​ Sooner or later, we will see this card printed, I’m sure! When that time comes, I hope it costs a little less, and also that it has an equally inspiring flavor text! Really nice design!

@thedirtside Our friendly snailbear wanted magic to be a little more weird, and what’s weirder than a procrastinating Eldrazi, looming over the battlefield, doing it’s own things. Given, its practically impossible to interact with it and this takes away a lot of points per say, but I love suspend and bizarre triggers that feel like a disturbance in the Force. But we must cling to simpler things to make it happen.

@stormtide-leviathan​ The proposal of this design is sponsored by “Horse United” inc and pushes WOTC to pass an errata to merge all Pegasi, Unicorn and Horses into one race XD On the actual design, Swifting Steed is a real treat for limited!

@teaxch​ here tacling on the big issues of mtg, the shared keyword for blue and black! Feint is surely flavorful and it would make combats really interesting, but the main requirement for a shared keyword is to be able to mix with the other established keywords of the color pair. Blue and black have a lot of evasive abilities so an ability that matters when you’re blocked might not get the green light. That said, I definitely want to see this ability here and there in sets. A little guile spices things up! Also, neat flavor text XD!

@dimestoretajic​ With a quick read I was quite thrilled, but then I realized that you had collective care about itself. That leads into being a bit clunky, and also it goes from 0 to 100 in 1 sec because it’s either you have not 3 collective so no draw for you, or you got 3 , which means 3 triggers and thus 3 cards!! With a small tweak, this brave insect could be holding the fair’s coveted trophy!

@corporalotherbear

​ It’s true that there are some dryads that care about multicolored shenanigans, and I really like Manatwist Dryad playing into this space and establishing this trend. Because if green can’t care about multicolors, who can?

@fractured-infinity​ Edit: I forgot the commentary for this entry last night. My sincere apologies! A new card type is always an exciting gift for our inbox! Strongholds can die from damage like planeswalker do. They make sense in white and I could see them secondary in blue as large structures are products of community and science.

Watcher’s tower has two passive abilities, the vigilance granting requires 0 effort, while the buff requires you to “man” the stronghold with the garrison activated ability. I wish phasing was still relevant so the creatures would phase out instead of exiling themselves, because things can quickly get out of hand with blink shenanigans.

The +2/+2 buff might be a bit much because it isn’t that hard to get it online on turn 3. But all in all, Watcher’s Tower is very interesting and I hope Wizards will explore this space in the future.

@partlycloudy-partlyfuckoff Sometimes you see a mechanic and it’s not in the color it deserves to be. Mentor in Green seems like a perfect fit, and the non human clause gives this Leonin a greater sense of camaraderie. All in all a good design and future proposal.

@gollumni​ I saw this card in a very positive light with the first read. I like investigate after all, and I had good memories of it pulling its weight in Shadows over Innistrad, giving White a taste of the forbidden fruit that is card draw. But with the second read, I feel the card is too efficient, taping two creatures and two lands for an instant speed draw is quite good, and adding the overrun option felt a bit too much. But other than power level concerns, I really dig this design.

@corillion​ This might seem like an everyday card without context, but the change suggested involves first strike and double strike being relevant in fights. I’m all for it, but I got a feeling that the closer we will get to this is like a first strike lord that allows only first strikers deal damage in fights.

@kytheon4-4 said let there be hatebears, but we got hatebirbs instead XD but instead of harassing your opponent, this feathered boi plainly protects your side of the board so you get to play uninterrupted, but only on your turn. Fair and square.

@reaperfromtheabyss​ Ending the same way we started, with planeswalker support, this time in Red, as it is proposed to be the secondary planeswalker matters color. I can get behind this idea, as red has a sense of wanderlust thematically, and in terms of game, it cares about noncreature spells so planeswalkers are game too. On the card itself, the etb trigger is quite nice, even dealing two damage is fine. About the alternative loyalty ability, a mere ping is something that you would encounter on a weaker planeswalker, so it could at least be a + 2 loyalty ability, to ensure the survival of your planeswalker, as red isn’t really good at defending.

[lucky-bucky-boy]

Something More

Paring: Bucky x Reader

Word Count: 3000

Warnings : 18+, alcohol, unprotected sex

Tags: @skishenanigans (not sure if you wanted to be tagged in this bb, but I wrote this with you in mind since you’ve had a bad week at work) @ready-for-my-dance

The gold and red accents glittered off the light of the chandelier of Stark Tower. Everyone and their mothers was here, for only god knows what this time. You scanned the floor from your seat at the bar at the edge of the ballroom, taking in your surroundings, sizing up the people there. Some were wealthy, people you would see on T.V. - most likely politicians and a few local actors, others were people who probably managed to get Stark’s attention, or knew someone who knew someone who knew someone.

You started noticing the gorgeous outfits, all the colors and and styles blurring together yet standing out at the same time. Even the Avengers knew how to clean up well. For people who were usually covered in blood, sweat, and dirt, they were all currently well groomed and dressed to impress the public eye.

Bucky was by far the most impressive. His usual shy, insecure demeanor was completely different now. Around the training facility, you could usually find him in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, glove covering his metal hand at all times, and his hair a mess. Or maybe just a long sleeve shirt if he wasn’t wearing his arm. But now, he was dressed in a silver suit with a navy button down shirt and a black tie. He wore a similar colored black glove on his hand and his hair was in a neat bun. He was still covered up, but his shoulders weren’t slacked anymore. He was standing with confidence.

And it was obvious. Girls kept stealing looks at him, some even getting bold enough to go up and talk to him. He would give them a friendly smile, maybe banter a little bit, but they would always leave him looking defeated. It was quite funny actually. They made talking to him, getting his attention seem like a challenge, a game where there could only be one winner. But he wasn’t interested in any of the dozen girls who had approached him.

Things between Bucky and you were nice and simple. For the most part, you both kept to yourself. But at least 3 nights a week, you would both find yourself in the kitchen around 2am, when everyone was sleeping. You'd get some food, sit down, making draw or color - something quiet - and you two would just talk. The first night he complained about people treating like a doll that was broken and taped back together again. He just wanted to be treated normal. He wanted to be bantered with, he wanted to be teased, he wanted random trips to the city. He wanted a best friend. And while you would never try to replace Steve, you did all that and more if you were able to.

You guys had grown extremely close. There were nights where Bucky would have a nightmare and you'd be asleep. Instead of waking you, he would just crawl into bed with you, your peace making him calm down until he was able to doze off again. He would be the one you would bring if you ever went on a date, which happened a few times. He'd linger behind, hidden and seemingly one of the crowd, and would jump in if needed. That only had to happen once when a guy wouldn't take no for an answer. Then there was team game night and while everyone avoided making jabs at Bucky when he was the Card Czar in Cards Against Humanity, you always threw down your worst (best) cards on him.

Knowing Bucky could be so easily pleased, so easily impressed, made this scene amusing. You turned your attention back to the bar, opting to let your focus turn to the intricate designs on the shelves. Just as you finished the last of your drink, you felt a strong arm wrap around you, “Get the lady another drink. And I’ll take an Asgardian beer.”

You looked up, seeing Bucky standing over you. You had just noticed the stubble that pricked his skin. “Hey Buck, nice 5 o’clock shadow.” The bartender handed you your new drink and took the empty glass from you. “Seems like you’re pretty popular tonight.”

He chuckled some and sat in the stool next to you. “Not quite sure why.” Bucky put his glass to his lips, chugging the amber liquor down. You watched as his adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

You couldn’t deny how attractive he was, especially tonight. He was ravishing, absolutely stunning. “I mean, you’re the best looking one here.” You shrugged.

Bucky’s eyes raked over your form, his gaze causing goosebumps to form on your skin. “Nah, I think you take the trophy on that one, doll. Pepper did a damn good job on picking that dress out.” He paused to take another swig of his beer. “If this was the 40’s, I’d ask you to dance.”

You looked over at him from under your lashes, obviously trying to tease him. “And why can’t you do it now?”

He chuckled, chest rumbling with the bass of his voice. “Because their dancing,” He motioned to men and women of all ages grinding on each other, “Is not how I dance.”

“And how do you dance?” You asked, deciding to indulge him as you finished your glass. At this point, you were buzzed enough to let loose, forget your nerves, but still sober enough to consent and remember the night.

“Swing, baby doll.” He offered you a charming wink and smile, igniting butterflies in your stomach. Bucky finished off his beer, pushing his glass away from him.

“Well, look at that charm Steve always talks about.” Letting your gaze fall back to the crowd which was quickly turning from a nice ball to practically a dance club, you decided you needed a change in scenery. “Why don’t we head up to my room and you can show me some of your moves there?”

Bucky stood, smoothing out his suit and offering you his arm. You gladly took it, quickly catching the jealous and angry stares off other women who wanted to get his attention, quickly fueling you with satisfaction. “Right after you, James.” You commented with a playful edge to your tone.

He rolled his eyes, leading you to the elevator. “What have I told you about calling me that? People can only say it if they’re mad and or in the bedroom.”

“Well, isn’t that where we’re headed?” Another eye roll and a huff left Bucky, “You know what I mean.”

Twenty minutes later, you had a playlist of swing music playing off of your speaker in your bedroom. You had kicked your shoes off, leaving you in a thigh length navy dress that hugged your body in all the right place. For a moment, you could have swore that Tony and Pepper planned your outfits to match, but you quickly wiped that thought from your mind and Bucky pulled off his suit jacket and threw it on the dresser, coming over to you and grabbing your waist.

“Okay, (Y/N), just follow my lead. I’m going to pretty much move you, just let loose and dance to the music. If it becomes too much, just tell me to stop, okay?” His eyes were mixed with happiness and care, letting you know just how much this and how much you meant to him.

You nodded, smiling up at him, “Got it.”

With that, Bucky had you two dancing around your room. It was a little hard with the small space and beings you had never done this before, the moves were offbeat and not perfect at all. But by the smile on Bucky’s face, you knew he wouldn’t forget this. You quickly got lost in your thoughts, tripping over your own feet and colliding with his chest. Bucky gripped you hips, quickly stabilizing you as his back his the wall.

It was silent for a moment before you both broke out into laughter. You moved yourself from Bucky’s chest, looking up at him. “I’ve got to say, Barnes, you know how to move. But I apparently don’t.”

He wriggled his eyebrows at you, “That’s not the only place I know how to move.”

You shook your head, not able to hide to smile on your face. “Come on, iceberg, I wanna cuddle.”

Bucky would usually shield his gaze from you when you would change, but something about you tonight, something about the mood in the air, the way he felt - he felt like his eyes were glued to you. You kept your backside to him, slipping a pair of shorts under the dress before pulling the dress off and throwing a sweatshirt you had stolen from him on. He watched as you crawled under the covers on your bed and looked at him expectantly.

He had to physically shake his head to get his mind to stop going to places he knew they shouldn’t. He pulled a pair of sweatpants out of the drawer he kept clothes in in your room for nights he didn’t wanna leave. He stripped, leaving his white tank top undershirt on and pulling his sweatpants on before following your lead and crawling in bed with you.

You two were like magnets, immediately attracted to each other. You weren’t fully cuddling but you were side by side. Bucky’s metal arms was tucked under your pillow because it was always warm there and your right leg had found it’s place laying on top of his left thigh and dangling in between his legs. This would be how you two would fall asleep most night, but end up spooning by morning.

“Thank you,” Bucky’s voice broke you out of your thoughts. “I haven’t done that in years… It’s like I almost forget how to be happy until you’re around and you just make me want to be happy. I wouldn’t have done that with anyone else.”

You pulled your gaze from the shadows that were dancing on your ceiling due to the moonlight outside and looked over at Bucky. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were in love with me, Buck.” You teased.

The playful edge to your attitude quickly disappeared when you noticed the dark blush quickly taking over his features. “Wait, Bucky, are you in love with me?” You moved so you were fully facing him now, using your elbow to prop yourself up.

He quickly turned his face away from you, staring at the wall opposite of your bed as embarrassment washed over him. “I don’t know - I just. You’re my best friend. You treat me like a human being, you’re kind, you’re patient with me. You indulge me on things that you know will make me feel a little safer. Like tweaking recipes until they tastes like my moms, or listening to music from the 30s and 40s, to sneaking out of Starks party to swing dance with me. I don’t ever want to lose you, but sometimes, I just wish there was more to us.”

You watched him, watched as the blush faded and you could already see the fear in his eyes even though he wasn’t looking at you. He licked his lips before continuing, “And if you don’t feel the same way, I’m more than willing to act like this conversation didn’t happen. Just know, that you make me feel things I haven’t my whole life, including back when I was a so called ladies man, and I don’t want to lose that or you.”

You gripped his chin and forced him to look at you. You searched his eyes for any hint of deceit, any sign that he was lying. But there was nothing there. This could very well be the liquor talking in both of you, but you would deal with that in the morning. You leaned down and pressed your lips to his, keeping it soft and sweet to see if he would react well.

And react well he did. You hadn’t even pulled back an inch before his flesh hand came to cradle your face and he chased your lips. The kiss stayed sweet and pure for a few more moments, before quickly transcending into something with more want, lust starting to brew under the surface of you two.

He quickly found himself on top of you, your previous cuddling position making it easy for him to gain control and take the lead. You hands moved to pull the ponytail out so you could tangle your hands in his hair as he continued to kiss you, practically stealing the breath from your lung with his lips.

Once you two pulled apart for air, lips swollen and red from his beautiful assault, he quickly found his way to your neck, kissing and nipping the sensitive skin that lied there. Bucky’s lips were more sinful and skilled than any person you had ever been with. He quickly found that spot that melted you into putty, pulling a moan from your throat.

“Fuck, James,” You breathed out, pulling on his hair. You felt him growl against your skin, quickly turning you on more.

“Keep that up and I will,” It was obvious he was sucking hickies into your skin, spending moments that felt like years sucking and nibbling one spot before he moved to another.

Pulling on his hair again to pull his lips from your neck, you kissed him again, this time all tongue and fighting for dominance. You kept a fight up for a few minutes, pleased to feel him grinding ever so slightly onto you. Ultimately, you let him win.

Bucky used his metal arm to hold himself up, his flesh arm sneaking under your shirt and teasing your. At first, he scratched his nails down your ribs, a gasp leaving your lips causing him to smirk. You felt him brush his hand against your breast, just faintly rubbing across your nipples. It was enough though. They were hard, begging for attention, and you were arching your back for more.

He pulled back from your lips again momentarily, pulling both yours and his shirt off. This times, when his lips were back on you they were on your tits, kissing, nibbling, and licking everything but your nipples. You already knew he was a tease, but this was more than you expected.

“Come on,” You whined, scratching your nails down his back to encourage him. It only caused him to purr and continue with the torture. “Please, James,” you begged softly, keening into his touch.

That’s all it really took. His attached his lips to your taught nipple, sucking, flicking, and nibbling, staring up at you from under his eyelashes. The beautiful blue orbs were now dark and stormy, filled with wanton and lust. You quickly found yourself rutting against him, trying to get some friction. Your core was throbbing.

Bucky finally pulled away, looking at you intently, “Are you sure you want this?” His voice was softer than you had anticipated, meaning he truly cared and that only turned you on even more.

“Of course I want this. Now, if you don’t get these damn clothes off of us and get in me, I’m doing to lose my mind.”

You watched as his lips twisted into a smirk. “Your wish is my command, kitten,” He purred out before smashing his lips against your again. He quickly got your shorts and his sweatpants off. He spent a few minutes teasing you, prodding your entrance, pushing a finger knuckle deep in the removing it, rubbing your clit.

When he had decided you were wet and teased enough, he finally repositioned you two, wrapping your legs around his waist as he lined himself up. Bucky pulled away from your lips, wanting to watch your face as he finally pushed in, sinking into your warm cunt.

The sight of you alone had him reeling. The way your eyebrows scrunched, face twisted with pleasure, thrown back against the pillow as you moaned out his name. It was all overwhelming in the most glorious way. “Fuck, James, you’re so fucking big. You feel so good.” You whimpered as he begin to move, pulling all the way before pushing back in. He kept up the long, slow thrust until he was sure you were fully adjusted to his size. Once you started begging for more, for him to go harder, he started picking up his pace.

Seeing you start rubbing your clit, taking your orgasm into your own hands spurred him on. He started moving faster, angling his hips to hit just the right spot to make you see starts. Bucky attached his lips to your neck again, sucking at the sweet spot he had found earlier.

He was already on edge, though he held back. He so desperately wanted to see you cum on his cock, see you come undone and your scream his name. So he kept going, holding on until his felt your velvety walls begin to flutter and clamp down around him.

You free hand scratched down Bucky’s back as you finally tipped over the edge, screaming his name for everyone on the floor to hear. He groaned against your neck, thrusting a few more times before pulling out and cumming over your lower abdomen and stomach, a final way of saying “you’re mine.”

Bucky didn’t let himself lay down. He grabbed a rag and wet it, coming over to clean you up then himself before crawling in bed, knowing he’d be out within moments of his head hitting the pillow. He quickly pulled you to him once he was in bed, his eyes fluttering shut.

“Hey, Buck,” you whispered, hoping he was still awake.

“Yeah?” You could tell he was halfway asleep at this point.

You smiled softly, content with where you were, who was holding you. You were happy, happier than you had been in months. “I love you, too.”

[fatal-blow]

Eyyy I drew Erdene and finally she’s wearing a shirt!  It took a while, boys, but we got there and I kinda wish we hadn’t

I tweaked her design a bit hair wise and cleaned up the tattoos I gave her in that last picture, and gave her heterochromia because it’s very common in pureblooded Avins!

For those of you who don’t know who Erdene is, she’s a general from the Land of Ava who has been sent beyond the Barrier to hunt down false gods--aka dragons that don’t align with Ava.  Her plans are to bring back the head of a dragon and reveal that she was a woman the entire time (as women are seen only as trophies and objects in Ava) to prove to her country that women can do anything men can, if not more.  To that end, the tattoos are 100% meant to make her appear more masculine.

Tag list: @bewarethemarbar  @goldandsapphire  @spacebrick3 @urbanteeth  @katywritesbooks  @forlornraven  @hpfitterly  @shrekseatingass  @furry-monster-trash @pyrrhicdreamer  @unpickingthetangles  @lady-redshield-writes  @knight-clover  @editedandwrittenbyhannah @mbscully  @thewriteblrchronicles  If you want to be added or removed, let me know!

[icedanceupstarts]

2019 Canadian Nationals Preview

The skating video takedown situation gets more desperate by the day, but we persevered! 

Laurence Fournier-Beaudry/ Nikolaj Sorensen

Age: 26/29

Started Skating Together: 2012

Coach: Marie-France Dubreuil, Patrice Lauzon, Romain Haguenauer

Season's Best: N/A

Rhythm Dance: Adios Nonino

Free Dance: Environmentally Conscious Flamenco

Our newest Canadians are back and more than ready to fight for that third spot, with a great new rhythm dance and a recycled and updated version of their free dance from last season. They're a really appealing team, with an elegance, maturity, and strong connection only highlighted by their programs this season. They're one of the teams trying for a tango that's less about flair and drama and more about the tension and connection between them, and for our money it's the most successful of that genre. Their flamenco free dance is still great when tweaked for this season's rules, and you can tell how comfortable they are with it. While they've been unable to compete internationally, they've been doing well at domestic comps and beat Soucisse/Firus in the rhythm dance by half a point at the Quebec Summer Championships. If they continue to deliver at Nationals, the Canadanes have every chance to win the bronze.

Piper Gilles/Paul Poirier

Age: 27/27

Started Skating Together: 2011

Coach: Carol Lane, Jon Lane, Juris Razgulajevs

Season's Best: 201.27

Rhythm Dance: It Takes Two to Twizzle

Free Dance: Lose An Ear, Not Your Levels

This team seems to always be on the cusp of a true breakthrough into the upper ranks. This isn't the first time they've had champion level programs, or the first time they've been in position to beat Weaver/Poje, which they did manage last year due to a disaster in the short dance from their teammates. Gilles/Poirier have all the goods to compete at the top, but they've always been a little hit and miss on their levels, and have been known to falter at big opportunities. They took out the tricky change-of-level twizzles in the rhythm dance after their struggles at IdF, and looked much steadier at Golden Spin.

If they can put it all together, nail their levels while also providing the elegant, stately performance of their rhythm dance as they proved capable of at Nebelhorn and Golden Spin, and the captivating performance of their Skate Canada free dance, they're not just looking at a national title for Piper's birthday, but a shot at a world medal at the end of the season.

Haley Sales/Nikolas Wamsteeker

Age: 22/22

Started Skating Together: 2014

Coach: Megan Wing, Aaron Lowe

Season's Best: 150.23

Rhythm Dance: Two Bun Tango(starts at 29:00)

Free Dance: Celine Dion Medley

Sales/Wamsteeker are a young team in their third senior season who should be proud of the progress they've made, especially as not many Canadian teams survived The Great Canadian Dance Splitenings of 2016 and 2018. 2018 was a solid year for them, making their first 4CC team and then making their senior GP debut with a host spot at Skate Canada, where they even placed #notlast. They were just off the podium at US Classic, and were third in the rhythm dance there. We keep being surprised at how much we like their tango-- they have a nice, quiet intensity to them and strong choreography well designed to show both the character of the tango and their long lines. They have a nice security to their skating and strong elements, and we're still a little tickled by their matching hair buns. They are solid lifters and we especially like their choreographic lift that perfectly plays off the build in their music to end their free dance on a high note. While they're not likely to challenge for a medal, they should make the National Team again and be able to prepare to continue to climb the ranks next season and hold off the baby seniors that will be swarming the ranks next season.

Carolane Soucisse/ Shane Firus

Age: 23/24

Started Skating Together: 2016

Coach: Marie-France Dubreuil, Patrice Lauzon, Romain Haguenauer

Season's Best: 172.27

Rhythm Dance: Electric Tango Rapping

Free Dance: I Won't Dance Deja Vu

The reigning Four Continents Championships silver medalists have had a bit of a rough season so far, suffering an injury over the summer and then struggling through their performances in the fall. They were on an upswing by the end, having finally found their footing at NHK Trophy, and hopefully they'll continue to build on that here at Nationals. They're a really great team, and fairly young too with a lot of time to develop. Unfortunately their development has hit a bit of a snag after their breakout last season. They're still great skaters, but their programs haven’t been a natural fit for them this season, which obscures both that their programs are some of the best choreography to come out of Gadbois this season, and their own natural talents and improvements made since last season. Every time out their performances get sharper and more engaged and highlight the musicality of their choreo better, but they're still having to focus to bring all that out. You can tell they're still not entirely comfortable with their packaging this season, and it's lead to them making a number of silly mistakes. All of this is probably why Soucisse/Firus elected to bring back their hit free dance from last year, a fun, light quickstep/foxtrot program that perfectly suits their strengths. It remains to be seen how quickly they have gotten the dust off and updated it for this season's rules, but it should at least give them a psychological boost if nothing else. Their biggest competitors Fournier-Beaudry/Sorensen are also using their free dance from last season, so they'll be even there. If they can perform their free dance with the lightness and charm of last season and avoid the silly mistakes they've been making, they have every shot at the podium this week.

Kaitlyn Weaver/ Andrew Poje

Age: 29/31

Started Skating Together: 2006

Coach: Nikolai Morozov, part time with Igor Shpilband and Pasquale Carmerlengo

Season's Best: 197.27

Rhythm Dance: Give Me Libertango or Give Me Death

Free Dance: Ugly Crying: The Free Dance

The reigning world bronze medalists are back from their hiatus, and ready to take back their national title. They've had a lot of ups and downs over the past four years, and needed time off of competition to recharge. Now they have a new, unconventional coaching setup and some of their best programs in awhile, with possibly our favorite free dance of theirs to date. Their rhythm dance is a little soft for our personal tastes, but that's a feature not a bug. They're evoking exactly the mood they're going for, a softer more romantic take on the tango than other teams generally go for, or what they themselves have done in the past. They're not the strongest twizzlers in the field, which speaks more to the shocking progress ice dancers have made on twizzles than any defects from Weaver/Poje themselves. As you likely know, their free dance is a tribute to Denis Ten, but is a powerful and emotional vehicle in its own right without that backstory.

7th highest score this season is not bad at all, especially when you consider that they peaced out in September. It took Gilles/Poirier four tries to surpass it, which bodes well for Weaver/Poje's attempts to reclaim their title. One big question will be technical. Their levels were decent for September, but they haven't competed since then and it's hard to gauge whether they've improved or regressed on that front, as show skating isn't the best measure of that. They have had a lot of time to refine and polish the performance aspect, which is no small thing, and could make the difference. The veterans of the field will bring all their power and maturity to the competition, and they're not going down without a fight.

[castellankurze]

fandemand friday: a warrior who cannot dance will be awkward both at war and in peace, regula and who-whatever if it please you?

The grand ballroom was large enough, he thought, that an entire city block of Garlemald’s poorer houses could have fit within, and full deserved its name.  It was three stories tall, lit by massive chandeliers of crystalline aetherochemical lamps.  An entire symphony and their choral accompaniment fit snugly within one corner, to say nothing of the tables upon tables upon tables at which the great and good of Garlemald sat themselves.  The men of the military were festooned with their medals and trophies, the civilians hardly less bedecked in gilding and pomp for their lack of service.

And of course, there was the throne.  Not the throne, of course, but a lesser seat the back of which nevertheless stretched near fifteen fulms high, artfully arrayed in gold, bronze, onyx, with diamonds and rubies forming the great Ivory Standard above the head of its occupant.

Despite his military mind, Emperor Solus zos Galvus was a great patron of the theater and the arts, and was no stranger to the dramatic gesture himself, a nature fully supported by the whole of the grand chamber and his seat.

The galleries above the main floor were dark, shadowed in comparison, a place for guards and functionaries…and spies.

Regula dus Hydrus had trouble taking in the full breadth of the gathering, despite the fact he was, perhaps, alone amidst the entirety of those present who was not blinded by the chandeliers, his third eye untroubled by luminosity.  Even amidst the shadows of the third-story gallery, his back to a pillar, Varis yae Galvus had to squint his wolf-gold eyes to get a good look.  He could have attended the floor personally, of course, for despite his youth he was yet a member of the royal family, as the yae attested, but he was ill-at-ease with the concept of so much, and the two youths had instead opted to observe the proceedings together.

Emperor Solus was speaking, and despite the distance between them, Regula could hear the man as clear as day - a facet of the room’s shape and the placement of the throne therein, he suspected.  Another testament to the wiles of the Emperor, enabling him to project a pure force of personality with seemingly no more effort than a raised glass of wine, a mere clearing of the throat.  The hawk-faced, black-bearded man was the very picture of Imperial might and sophistication alike.

The fall of Dalmasca was toasted and cheered, the capture of Rabanastre likewise as if the two had been separate achievements entirely, rather than a single stroke, and Regula saw the way Varis’ brow furrowed.  “Do you think he puts on airs for van Gabranth?” Regula questioned.

Varis grunted in reply and reached up to idly tuck a loose strand of silvery hair behind his ear.  “If anyone deserves airs, it is the Legatus of the IV,” Varis replied.  “Despite being outnumbered at every turn, with the passing of a season he has increased the size of the empire by nearly a third.”

“But?” Regula prompted, and his heart skipped a beat as Varis glowered at him, momentarily afraid he’d overstepped.

But his friend’s forehead smoothed after a moment, and he shrugged his broad shoulders.  “Perhaps it is…overmuch,” he finally said with a wan smile.  “The honors should go to the whole of the IV, I think.”

“A leader should never be celebrated?  Only the people?” Regula baited, well aware he was overstepping now but unable to resist tweaking the tail of the proverbial tiger.

“Quiet, I can’t hear him,” Varis shushed instead of rising to the bait, and Regula subsided as Solus called the Legatus to the floor.  A pale-haired man of middling height rose to answer the call, and there was a great round of applause as Solus pinned new medals to his breast.

“And now, if I may venture ‘pon more personal ground…” he trailed off, smiling, and Noah van Gabranth waved a hand as if embarrassed, prompting a wave of laughter.  “It has been brought to my attention that this evening marks not only the victory over Dalmasca, but also the wedding anniversary of our very honored guest.”

As a round of applause rose, Regula reflected that he would have bet every centime he possessed against the full Imperial treasury that Solus had known of the occasion before he’d even started planning the grand ball.

“My dear van Gabranth, as the saying holds, a warrior who cannot dance would be awkward at both war and at peace, and so, would you deign to lead us in our first dance of the night?” Solus entreated, smiling.  Van Gabranth made a show of patting down his coat and sleeves in nervous anticipation, to another round of laughter, before smoothly walking to the open center of the floor and holding out an arm.  From the tables rose a dark-haired woman, her dress plain and elegant in contrast to many of the elaborate designs worn by her peers, and she came to join van Gabranth as the applause rose and Solus zos Galvus signaled the music to begin.

As the symphony began its first piece and van Gabranth and his wife began to circle about, Regula’s attention wandered from the floor of the ballroom to his companion.  “What was that he said?” he asked, pitching his voice more quietly now.

“Hm?  About dancing?” Varis blinked.  “It’s an old saying.  I suppose…it means that if you can’t learn something as simple as…well, how to move and how to dance, you won’t master things like how to fight or how to look polished in society.”  The grandson of zos Galvus shrugged, looking momentarily younger than his eighteen years.

“That doesn’t make even the first onze of sense,” Regula said with a snort.

“?You’re just saying that because you can’t dance,” Varis shot back.  A moment later he blinked his eyes, catching the way his friend’s throat worked.  “Wait…you can’t dance?”

“I’ve never tried,” Regula protested.

Varis pushed off the pillar and stepped forward, spreading his feet.  “Here, it’s simple, especially when the music is slow,” he said, beckoning with the fingers of one hand.  Regula hesitated for a moment before likewise stepping forward.  Varis directed him to raise his left hand so that he might take it the way van Gabranth’s held had captured that of his wife, whilst Regula’s right was settled upon one broad shoulder, and Varis’ remaining hand was set to the small of his back.

Varis stepped to the side with his left foot, moving slowly so that Regula could pick up his right in a mirror image, and together the pair moved in a slow square, turning every time they stepped.

“You learn quickly,” Varis said with a smile.  “Maybe there’s hope for you.”

Regula smiled back and lifted his chin.  “I will be the premier swordsman of Garlemald, one day,” he promised.

Varis’ smile trembled, and his gaze flickered between Regula’s face and his arm, and Regula knew that the older boy was holding back a laugh - unsuccessfully, it proved.  “I’m sorry,” he apologized.

“My father doesn’t believe me, either,” Regula said with a shrug of shoulders considerably narrower than Varis’ own.

“Regula, if a little province like Garlemald can overcome so much to become the center of an empire, I cannot rightly disbelieve that you have the capability to make good on your promise as well,” Varis said gently, and Regula’s heart swelled.

Something must have shown on his face, because Varis lifted a hand to touch his cheek, opened his mouth to say something - and then froze, staring past Regula’s shoulder.  Regula turned, realizing that in their dancing his back had been turned from the gallery’s railing and the ballroom beyond.  Despite the distance between them, despite the shadows of the upper gallery, the striking golden gaze of Solus zos Galvus pierced Regula as surely as an arrow.

“Run, run,” he said in panic, and he shoved at Varis to get the older boy moving, and they sprinted from the scene as fast as their legs could carry them into the night.

As one musical piece moved into another and more and more of the attendees joined the dancing, Solus signaled for another glass of wine, and once it was filled beckoned to one of his attendants.  “It just crossed my mind that that grandson of mine is old enough to put his tutoring to practical ends,” he said.  “Remind me in the morning to find a place for him amongst, oh, perhaps that new Legion, the XII.”  He flipped a hand and the man bowed and backed away.

Solus zos Galvus sipped his wine and smiled, humming a bit to the music as the great dance proceeded along its steps.

[ashlynncoy-blog]

Misfire: Help and Reward

MORNING: THE DEATH STAR: ALDERAAN SYSTEM

“Commence primary ignition.”

No!

This couldn’t be happening!

There were beeps and tweeters, the sounds of buttons being depressed and of levers being pulled. A whirr and a buzzing as lights flashed on panels all around. The unmistakable whine of a laser being charged. And then…

Nothing.

Silence.

For a moment everything on the deck was still. Tarkin gaped at the viewport, at the blue and glowing orb of Alderaan as it slowly rotated—peaceful and unmarred by his instrument of ruin.

And then a sudden flurry. The helmeted ghouls, just moments ago tasked with a planet’s destruction, running around like madmen.

“What happened?” Tarkin barked.

“A misfire, sir.”

“How is that possible?”

“The power plant might not have had full recharge after the operation on Scarif. We may need more time. We’re working on the problem now.”

“Take the princess back to her cell!”

THREE DAYS LATER: ALLIANCE BASE: YAVIN 4

“Solo!” Bail Organa called out to Han across the crowded throne room.

The ceremony had only just finished. General Dodonna had dismissed the rebel troops from their ranks, but most of them remained in the large chamber, milling about and trying to get a moment with the honorees. Luke was eating it up, happily shaking hands and clapping shoulders with all manner of personnel.

Han, who had never been particularly comfortable with crowds of strangers, had hung close to the front. He’d been having a delightful conversation with Leia and her mother when he heard Bail’s voice behind him. He turned to see the Viceroy waving. Solo waved to acknowledge him and then turned back to the ladies.

“You’re popular,” Leia declared, picking up the medal from around his neck to look at it more closely. She hadn’t had a chance to see the awards up close before the ceremony, and she’d been surprised at the weight of the thing when she’d first picked it up to put it around his neck. Han grinned down at her.

If someone in that Cantina on Tatooine had told him that before the week was out, he’d be standing on a dais with a medal around his neck, getting teased by a princess, he’d have taken any odds they had to offer against it.

But here he was.

“Captain Solo,” Bail greeted him then, clapping Han on his shoulder from behind. “A moment, please?” Han shrugged.

“Ladies,” he said, “if you’ll excuse me?” The two women nodded as Leia let go of Han’s medal.

“You’ll save me a dance,” Breha insisted as the men turned to go. Bail shook his head as he led Han toward a quiet corner just off the dais.

“I see you’re making friends with my wife,” he said. Han felt his face flush. Even at twenty years his senior, Breha Organa was a beautiful woman. And Han Solo couldn’t help it if he’d noticed. And she’d been so kind and welcoming to him, he couldn’t help but to like her and enjoy spending time with her. It occurred to him now maybe that wasn’t the most prudent relationship for him to be cultivating. But between her magnanimous hospitality, and his budding friendship with Leia, he had been spending an awful lot of time with Her Majesty these last few days.

“Yes sir,” Han said, hoping to keep it at that.

“I’m glad,” Bail said then. Not what Han expected. “People can be intimidated by the title,” he said, “sometimes that’s hard for her—especially someplace like this where we’re part of the command structure. It’s nice for Breha, and for Leia might I add, that you don’t seem hung up on that.”

“Um… thanks?” Bail shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m glad my family’s happy,” he said. “And to that end,” he added, pulling a small velvet box from an inside pocket of his tabard, “I wasn’t sure this would be here in time. It only just arrived, but I wanted to get it to you as soon as possible. I know you’ve been planning to take off as soon as the ceremony was over, and I wanted to get this to you.”

Han reached out and took the box from Bail’s hand. It was beautiful—a nicer thing than he could ever remember being presented with. Han was thoroughly unaccustomed to receiving gifts, especially gifts in fancy packages. And he wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Please,” Bail encouraged, “open it.”

Solo nodded and did as he’d been invited, pulling open the box at the hinge to get a look at the contents.

Nestled into the box’s velvet and satin interior, sat a tiny holocron. This was intriguing. Han wondered whether it might be some royal marker—Bail had said he’d be welcome on Alderaan any time—or perhaps it was a trophy of sorts to go along with the medal Leia and her mother had just given him.

When he switched it on, he discovered it was neither. But he recognized the sigil that came into relief right away. A pit suddenly formed in Solo’s stomach.

“Wait… that’s… that’s Jabba’s chit,” he said. Bail nodded.

The sigil rotated for another moment, and then an image of the Hutt crimelord came to life in miniature before them. The sound on the thing was muted, but his words were subtitled in aurebesh. In Huttese and then again in Basic, Jabba declared Han Solo’s debt to be paid in full.

“I don’t understand,” Han said. “How did you…?”

“I have my ways,” the Viceroy answered. He smiled then and shrugged. “I asked your copilot,” he admitted.

“You understand Shriiwook?”

“Not well,” Bail replied with a shake of his head, “but my droid is fluent in over six million forms of communication.”

“So you and your droid got Chewie to tell you…?”

“Don’t be mad at him,” Bail implored, “I told him I was concerned, that I wanted to know just how bad it was for you, because I was trying to understand what was going on and what I could do to help. I managed to get him to tell me how much you owed, and to whom. Sending the money and an agent wasn’t too hard after that.”

Han was shaking his head. He’d said it would be all right if Bail helped him out with his debts—that had been what had gotten him to agree to stick around the base to receive today’s medal. But the subject hadn’t come up again and he figured he’d be headed out first thing tomorrow to start back in on working off what he owed to Jabba.

This changed everything.

“I… I ain’t mad,” Han assured Bail, staring still at the holocron as the image of the despicable Hutt once again resolved itself into his rotating sigil. “I’m sure as hell surprised.”

“I told you I wanted to handle this for you,” Bail reminded him. “Now, at the risk of sounding a little bit selfish: I’m hoping this means you can stay with us. We’re going to have a hell of a time evacuating this place; a man with your skills and a ship as fast as that freighter you’ve tricked out could be a real boon to us during this time.”

Han took a deep breath.

These three days with the Rebel Alliance had been pretty great. He’d spent time with younger pilots, Luke included, teaching them tips and tricks—everything from ways to tweak a fuel mixture to a more comfortable way to strap in to an A-wing cockpit. He liked these people, and he believed in their cause—maybe not enough to join up and die for it, but ending galactic tyranny was certainly a more noble use of his time than smuggling spice for a Hutt.

Then again,  Han Solo had never been particularly noble.

“Viceroy, I….”

“We’ll pay you fairly,” Organa said then. “If you won’t accept a commission and a salary, then we’ll keep you on as a contractor. Fuel, maintenance, medical, and rations are on us. You name a fair price and we’ll meet it.”

“Chewie, too?” Han asked. It had been his copilot’s better nature, not his own, that had brought them back in the midst of that battle. So far it seemed most Alliance personnel were fine with Chewbacca’s presence among them, but he wanted to be sure Organa knew that he and Chewie were a package deal. If they were offering to feed and house him, but not his co-pilot, then he might have a few choice words for these rebels on his way out.

“Of course,” Bail answered so quickly Han could tell the question had taken him by surprise. “Both Chewbacca and yourself will be paid and looked after. Please. Consider it?”

Han shrugged his shoulders. This was too good to pass up. All his, Chewie’s, and the Falcon’s needs met free of charge, plus he could name his price, plus he’d get that particular satisfaction that came from working for the good guys for once.

The sound of Leia’s laughter carried over the din of the crowd then; yet another reason to stick around. That girl was like no one else he’d ever met, and he certainly wouldn’t mind the chance to get to know her better. He knew Luke had designs on the princess, and because of that he wouldn’t be doing anything to overtly pursue her any time soon, but there was no harm in seeing what developed.

“All right,” he said to Bail, shutting the gift box and pocketing it before reaching out his hand for a handshake, “You rebels have got yourselves a pilot.”

[baronfulmen]

Story 215: Cultural Exchange

The human steps onto the station from her shuttle, and walks into the scanner.  It flashes - no weapons.  I pity her, though there’s nothing I can do for her.  By tomorrow she will be a slave the same as me; the Gaunvans collect ambassadors like trophies. “Hello there!  Amanda Thorn, ambassador for the Empire of Humanity.  You’re a Ixian, correct?” Mimicking human body language, I nod my head.  "That’s correct.  Ix Malasan.  It is an honor to meet you.“ She smiles, reminding me again that she has somehow modified herself to breathe atmosphere suited to the Gaunvans rather than wear a respirator like myself.  Other than that she appears to be a standard human, something I am led to believe is less and less common as they pursue the bizarre compulsion humans have to alter their bodies.  Changing hair color, adding pigments to their skins in patterns and pictures, growing long tails or ears that mimic other species from their planet.  No other known species tampers with their bodies like this. "Not to be undiplomatic, she says, "but the Gaunvans enslaved your people.  Why are you here?” “We… reached a mutually beneficial agreement.  We would have lost in combat and been eliminated, so we chose to preserve what we could of our culture.  The Gaunvans are not naturally skilled at diplomacy, so they bring me along to assist and to show that peace can be made.” She nods.  "Understood.  I can respect that choice.  How much freedom do you have, personally?“ Smart of her, to start planning for her future. "A fair amount.  I have free reign on the ship when we are in transit.  At the homeworld I have reasonably comfortable quarters.” “Have you ever met the Empress, or…?” “Oh, no.  No, while on the homeworld I am confined to my chambers - but they’re quite spacious.” “Shame.  Okay, plan ‘A’ then.  Let’s get this over with.”

Despite my attempt at encouraging diplomacy, the Gaunvan commander starts with threats.  I don’t know why I bother.  He looms over the human, chitinous plates almost black in the dim light.  His pod of six is posted around the room, for show more than for actual security since she followed orders and came alone and unarmed.  "Failure to surrender will bring the full wrath of our army upon you.  Humanity will be crushed, and wiped from the universe.“ To her credit, she looks very calm.  "We live in a post-scarcity society.  Bloody conquest just seems silly, doesn’t it?” “It is for the glory of Gaun!” “Well, I’m not prepared to get into a religious debate with you,” she says, “since I doubt there’s anything I can do to change your mind.  Since you’re committed to this course of action, what are you willing to offer if we surrender?” Now he goes back on script.  Maybe I am getting through to him a little?  He talks about the benefits of being enslaved, mainly the protections for up to twelve designated culturally historical sites.  They’ve been mostly good on their word on my homeworld, though they did use the area just outside of the Hahhn Memorial as a waste dump.

She nods as she listens.  There was a part of me that was worried she would argue, because the humans are somewhat childlike.  They don’t understand the horrors of war.  Certainly they fought in the past, but the last time they had to battle was more than two of their generations ago, so these ones have all grown up coddled and soft.  They play games with each other instead, silly competitions.  They make art, and play pretend, and alter their bodies for fun.  They don’t have weapons anymore, and wouldn’t know how to use them if they did. “Well then,” ambassador Thorn says, “this is about what I expected.  On behalf of humanity, I would like to formally reject this offer.” Oh no.  Foolish humans.  The galaxy will miss your innocence.  The commander makes an excited clicking noise, looking forward to combat.  He reaches a blade-tipped hand towards ambassador Thorn, but hesitates as every device in the room bleats out an alert - we’ve all lost communications with the outside.

Like one of the dances humans do, she gracefully pivots around while taking his hand.  She ends up close to him and places her other arm against his thorax, then… oh gods. Gods, what… she’s ripped his arm off.  It’s not possible.  The commander is clearly thinking the same thing, staring in mute shock at his dripping limb. “I’d like to extend a counter-offer,” she says, and flips the arm around before jamming the bladed end into his neck.  The warriors around the room are fidgeting, uncertain.  They haven’t been told to attack, and don’t want to dishonor their commander by intervening in a fight with such a small creature.  She’s still holding the commander’s severed arm in his neck, but she rotates and heaves, lifting him off the ground with it for a moment… and then his head pops off, landing squarely on the conference table.  She allows the corpse to slide to the ground, and straightens her clothes as if they aren’t covered in ichor.

I don’t understand.

The warriors, now with no orders at all, finally act.  She smiles as they come for her, I suppose because she has done her duty to send this powerful message of resistance.  She can die in peace.  Or… no… She’s killing them.  She’s smiling because this is fun for her.  Though they’re partly killing themselves; if there had been two of them, prepared, strategic, they might have prevailed.  Watching six panicked fighters get in each other’s way while trying to stop a smaller, faster, and somehow impossibly stronger foe is almost hypnotic.  At least one is killed by the stab of a friendly lance due to pure confusion.  It’s over faster than I would have thought possible, severed limbs strewn across the room.  I’ve got some fluids splashed across my clothing.  Only one yet lives, and he is retreating.  She seems to be allowing it.

She follows behind, holding a lance.  The wounded and scared warrior scurries down the hallway towards his ship, looking back behind him as he goes.  She’s just… walking.  Calm.  And for some reason I’m following.  The last Gaunvan reaches the airlock and the second he enters his code she throws the lance - throws it! - and spears him. “Come on, we’re stealing their ship.”  She says it like this is the most normal thing in the world. “There are thousands more on board!  Thousands!  Almost all warrior caste!” She smiles again, and keeps walking.  I see errors on the screens that we pass, messages indicating communications have been lost.  They can’t tell anyone what is happening here.  Even the communicators within the ship are on nodes rather than being wired, so the warriors at one end of the vessel won’t be able to coordinate with the other end.  Do they even know they’ve been boarded? “How?”

We enter the bridge after she kills a handful of other guards with ease.  They’re too shocked by her presence to act in time.  Once the door are sealed and she is working on the control systems she starts talking to me again. “Well, you know, we do like to be prepared.” “But you… you ripped his arm off.” “Yeah, that was super satisfying.”  She looks at me appraisingly.  "Oh, come on.  Is it really that surprising?  You knew we were into changing ourselves, right?  Being strong enough to pop an overgrown bug’s forelimb off isn’t rocket science.“ "Your people are so peaceful…” “Oh, sure, most of them.  But we did that, too.  Tweaked ourselves over the years to decrease aggression and some of our tribalistic tendencies, increase empathy… all stuff that can be undone if needed.  Though for a good cause even the nicest of us can squish a bug or two.” “You bond with Ry'ling devourers!” “Those are the big fuzzy guys that look like cats, yeah?  Those guys are adorable!  But… look, liking some things that could kill us doesn’t mean we’ll sit back and get enslaved.  We didn’t put up with it well when we enslaved each other, and we certainly aren’t going to go for it now that we’re… finally… on the same page about slavery being unacceptable.  It was, uh, a longer time than we like to admit before the last hold-outs were convinced of that one.”

I can feel the ship un-dock.  We’re moving.  "What about all the warriors on board?  They’ll break through the doors eventually!“ "Not according to this control panel here.  Take a look.” It says there’s no atmosphere in the rest of the ship.  Life signs are negative on all but two of the warriors, presumably the only ones that got to their suits in time.  She disabled all the safety measures, somehow.  She just killed… I check the life signs readout again to confirm the number… three thousand, six hundred, and fourteen soldiers.  Wait, how is it tracking that unless… “Are communications back up?” “Yeah, I’m calling some friends.  The military is right around the corner, so to speak.” “But Earth doesn’t have a standing military.” She laughs.  Not just a little bit.  She’s actually doubled over for a moment, unable to catch her breath.  "Sweet Jeebus, you guys actually fell for that?  No standing military.  Have you read about us at all?“

Three ships appear seemingly out of nowhere, and one docks with the Gaunvan vessel.  Once the atmosphere is restored we head to the airlock to meet them, and I’m surprised by an entire platoon of Gaunvan warriors.  Speaking English. "Okay boys, send your last goodbyes!  This is in all likelihood a one way mission.  Commander Thorn!  It is an honor to see you again, and might I say you look exquisite drenched in the blood of your enemies!” She bows to him, blushing, and then salutes the Gaunvans.  Or… humans?  Can they change themselves this drastically? “You’ve got two holed up in here somewhere.  Bridge is clear, have the techs bring the new brain on board.” “New brain?” She looks at me like she’s forgotten that I’m here, and then turns back to the others.  "Men, this is our new friend Ix Malasan who has just been liberated from his captivity.  He’s going to be helping with our intel.  Malasan, yeah, a new brain for the ship.  Once this vessel is cleaned up and back in service with a new crew we’ll be able to take it over whenever we want even if all of our boys get killed.  We cooked up a really sadistic AI for it.“ "But how do you know the protocols?  This was your first contact with the Gaunvans, they’ve never lost a ship anywhere near here!” “No?  There wasn’t a mining colony disaster two years ago?” “But that was just an accident… and you weren’t even involved in the war yet… and…”

The faux-Gaunvans have finished boarding.  The one that was talking to them before puts a bladed claw on ambassador - commander - Thorn’s shoulder.  "You coming with?“ "Naw.  Orders said I could only come if they allow ambassadors near extremely high value targets.  Malasan here says they don’t, so I need to wait for my next mission back on Earth.” “It would have been nice having you with us, Thorn.  Well, maybe we’ll see each other again.  Suicide mission or not, I think I’ve decided to live through it.” “Bold choice,” she says, and kisses him next to his lower mandibles. He nods at me, then turns back to his men. “Okay everyone, we are now officially on the job.  And what is that job?” In unison, they start chanting.

“FUCK! SHIT! UP!  FUCK! SHIT! UP!  FUCK! SHIT! UP!”

For a moment I nearly feel pity for the Gaunvans.  Nearly.  Commander Thorn leads me off of the ship, and I start thinking about what useful information I can provide the 'harmless’ humans.  Fuck shit up, indeed.