#Now that the series is official finished I feel a lot more freedom to play around with characters

[palettepainter]

(shows up to the MHA fandom after disappearing for more then a year with starbucks) Oh sisters I'm back~

They'll never make me hate you Cementoss, underrated king. I wanted to have a crack at drawing a height chart with the Chiktoss family to settle how I want to draw Cementoss's proportions and I'm pretty happy with it!

I altered some things like removing his square kneecaps and gave his body more shape around the stomach, I like to think he's got a dad bod rather then just being...well, a cube with limbs

Text screenshot in the second drawing was from @90s-belladonna

!!Suggestive doodle under the cut!! (nothing explicit)

(This was originally just going to be practise for Cementoss and drawing him in certain poses to practise his new proportions, but this was funny to me and I drew it instead. Chikara is shameless, but in an oblivious kind of way)

[give-soup-please]

This is going to be an odd prompt, but boy do I feel like I need to see this conversation play out with the narrator.

The narrator and the reader have a friendly, non-hostile, but very frank discussion acknowledging what they mean to each other on a conceptual level. The narrator needs his Stanley, his audience, his reader, for him to exist. He is willing to be whatever the reader needs him to be. A friend, a guide, a muse, an enemy, a lover, a father figure, a gentle voice offering comfort, any and all he can and will be. There is no real manipulation or maliciousness involved, he simply is what he is and he will put the whole of his being in to whichever role he takes. Yes he can be malicious, manipulative, obsessive to an unhealthy degree, but only if that is what you want. He can be the villain of your story for you to rage against, someone who truly hates and despises you, if that is what you desire, but he can just as easily be a comforting character who truly, deeply loves and needs you with complete genuineness. He is the ultimate escapist character. Faceless, formless, endlessly compelling and mysterious, always creating new paths for you to walk, with the only answers he can provide being that which you yourself bring to give meaning to him, and the reader is well aware of that, but they have mostly stopped feeling like a fool for clinging to the escapism of it all. They have accepted the tangled web that twines you two. 'The end is never the end' indeed. It is true freedom in a way, to accept things as they are, rather than to deny or fight something that you take comfort in. Besides, he is a muse to you, an inspiration, a creative force to be reckoned with that challenges you to create in ways you had not thought to try before. Your fixation with him has done far more good than harm. His 'death' at the hands of his own creation in an attempt to please you, his audience, a death of the author that you needed to participate in because merely by playing a continuation of a game that was complete and never supposed to have more, you killed the author as surely as the author himself did when he tried to change his finished work. It was freeing for both of you, in a way. You participated in the death of the author right along with the author himself, but he lives on in a thousand different shapes and forms regardless, and he is happy to play his role, because in the end, you are the author too, and he is your Stanley, as much as you are his.

The Branching Path

(This one is long. It's the last official writing I'll be doing for the blog as well. I hope you enjoy it. A few more things to wrap up, and then that will be it. Thanks for coming on this journey with me.)

“You mean a lot to me, you know,” said the reader. The narrator tried, and failed, to suppress a smile.

“Really? Well, I do hope for a six part lecture series on the matter. I’d love to hear in detail how much I’ve influenced and impacted your life.” Such smugness would be outrageous and off putting, if it came from anyone else.

“I’m serious. You do mean a lot to me. You’ve been an endless source of comfort and inspiration. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for it.” Replied the reader. 

The reader paused for a moment, collecting their thoughts. The narrator gave them the space to think. Normally, he loved to fill the silence as much as he could, whenever he could. Today was different. 

Eventually, the reader continued. “I remember in the early days, being so embarrassed by my attachment to you. It wasn’t because of who you were, but… Relying on a fictional character for support…” The reader trailed off. 

“...And now?” The narrator asked.

“Well… I guess I’ve accepted that you’re always going to have a place in my life one way or another. You and I have done so much together, that-” The reader broke off with a laugh. “If I asked you to, would you leave?”

“I couldn’t bear the thought.” His reply was hushed.

“Neither can I. I’ve grown too close to you, I think. Our lives have gotten too meshed together now for us to part ways easily. And to be honest, I wouldn’t want it any other way. I stopped caring about the voices that said I shouldn’t be this way, because your voice was stronger.”

In the face of such earnestness, the narrator’s usual posturing failed to appear. A soft smile was in his voice. “It’s been incredible to watch the two of us grow. I exist on a deeper level, thanks to you. I’m more real now than I ever was before.” 

The two of them stood in silence for a while.

The narrator continued with a small laugh. “It’s funny, isn’t it? How shortly ago our lives began to intertwine. And yet the impact we’ve had on each other-”

The reader blinked rapidly, trying to stem the flow of their emotions. They cleared their throat, keeping their eyes on the floor. After doing their best to make sure their voice wouldn’t crack under the strain, they said,

“I’m sorry. To be honest, if I had things my way, we’d never stop doing this. Just you and me, creating and crafting together, forever. Neither time nor age nor the collapse of society stopping us.”

The narrator spoke again. “You know, I’ve always enjoyed the work we’ve done together. Whatever choice you made, whatever role you cast me in, I loved performing it. I was your villain, I was your victim. Your family, your friend, your guide, your lover- need I go on?”

The reader swallowed. “You don’t have to, but I always loved listening to you talk.”

The narrator laughed again, a quieter, sadder laugh. “I know. And I’ve always enjoyed being what you needed me to be. Not out of obsession, or possession, or desperation, but because… I need you to exist. The story cannot exist without your ideas, and neither can I.”

A longer pause, this time. The reader did their best to not notice the darkness that was closing in on them. The shadows were getting longer, stretching and becoming part of a widespread manifestation of void.

“So. I guess this is it,” Reader said.

“Mmm. An excellent run while it lasted, wouldn’t you say?” asked the narrator.

The reader smiled and looked down. “It’s going to be strange, living without you again.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. I’ll never be too far away, if you’d like me to be there for you.” Replied the narrator.

“I mean, I know that. But I also know that things are going to be different, going forward. Change is…”

“It feels terrible sometimes, doesn’t it?”

It was as if the reader’s heart had been gently cracked open, the narrator somehow finding the quickest path to the problem. 

The reader began to cry in earnest. “I- I’m so sorry this is happening to us. If I had known, if we could have had more time together-”

“Shh, Shh. It’s alright. I’m going to disappear soon, but not quite yet. Let’s just enjoy what we have left, and do our best to not run from it. Now, what would you like for us to do together?”

The reader thought about this. “Could… Could I see you?”

A smile was clearly in the narrator’s voice. “Of course. Any particular form you’d like to view today? I could be a shadow, an angel, have a monitor for a head- reader’s choice, as always.”

“Just… I don’t care. I want to see you.” 

The narrator manifested himself. He appeared as an older man, hair tinged with gray, bespeckled. 

“Now, this one is a classic.” He said, tapping the side of his glasses expertly. “Very popular with a large section of fans.”

The reader laughed. 

“Of course, should you wish me to change again, just think about it, and I will.”

There was a small pause.

“What else do you want to do?” The narrator asked.

“I… I’d rather do what you wanted, for once.” the reader replied.

“No, no, no. I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way. I’m meant to be whatever is required for the story to work. That is my role. That is what I mean to this world. It always has been. I exist within whatever characterization is given to me.”

“And you’re alright with that?” The reader asked.

“Well, yes. Hundreds of thousands of interpretations of me exist, each one with their own dynamics and flaws. But all of them share something in common.

At the reader’s confused look, the narrator waved one of his hands. “You know, the readers, the writers, the watchers, the listeners- all of them together for one purpose, to keep me tethered to your world.”

The narrator’s smile was warm. “I’ll never be able to thank them enough. Or you, for that matter.”

The reader wrapped their arms around themselves, an attempt at comfort. 

The narrator hummed a worried note. “I can do that for you, if you’d like. That’s… I’ll be here for you, however you need me.”

“I know,” said the reader. 

The narrator waits, to see what will be asked of him. He can’t make a move without input. He’s more similar to Stanley than he realizes.

(The writer’s fingers move rapidly across the keyboard.)

The narrator approaches, and with kindness in his eyes, wraps his arms around the reader.

“...Do you have to go?” the reader asked. 

“I think so. I don’t know how to put this delicately, but- everyone involved in this project needs to rest. And to be honest, I feel… Alright. This needs to happen, there needs to be a clean break for all our sakes.”

After a few moments, the reader takes a step back, and stares at the narrator, taking in every detail. Their eyes narrow.

The reader said, “And if I asked you not to be okay with it? If I asked you to be upset?”

The narrator’s expression began to shift, preparing for the next casting. “If that’s what you wish. Say the word.”

“...Change?”

Something clicked into place. The narrator launched himself into his role. 

“Reader, please! You can’t go. Don’t do this to me, don’t leave me behind! I’ll be anything you need me to be, I’ll do anything you ask!”

“Stop!” the reader’s voice rang out clear, like a bell. And just like that, the narrator was back in a neutral state.

The reader considered this. “What if… What if I wanted you to be romantic?”

“You know the word already.”

“...Change.”

A different characterization slid into place, and suddenly the narrator stared dreamily at the reader.

“Oh, darling… I am going to regret our parting, but I suppose it’s inevitable. How about a final, farewell kiss?”

The reader stared at the narrator incredulously. “What else can I ask for?” This also seemed to release the narrator from his current role.

“Whatever you’d like.” 

“Uh… Antagonistic?” 

The narrator stared very seriously at the reader. “Are you sure? That’s not one my current source does very often. I asked him why once, and he said it makes him sad.”

The reader nodded, spoke the word, and the narrator shifted again.

“Do you actually think you’re the one in control here? Don’t you understand your place in my world? Well, you’ll learn soon enough.”

“And… scene!” The reader said. The narrator relaxed, and the built up tension leaked out of him.     

The reader’s eyebrows were raised. “Your range is incredible.” 

He chuckled. “You’ve hardly seen anything. But I hope you see the point I’m driving at. I am, and have always been, at my audience’s disposal.” 

The circle of darkness was starting to grow around them. The reader pushed back mentally, and it retreated. For now. 

“So, reader, I suppose the question is, what do you need me to be for you to get through this?”

The reader was still trying to hold back their emotions to the best of their ability. “Just-” They took a deep, shuddering breath. “Right now, I need you to be kind. Can you manage that?”

“Of course.” The narrator’s expression shifted. “Of course I can be that for you.” The reader didn’t flinch away. There wasn’t a need to anymore.

“It’s odd, isn’t it?” the reader said. “You live in this form because I want you to, and you give me inspiration in return. I can’t work out who is giving who meaning.”

“Perhaps you don’t have to. Humans are complicated, It’s indicative of your species. Maybe a dynamic doesn’t have to be fully parsed out. We can just delight in the fact that we make each other happy, and let that be enough.”

“That’s… Oddly soothing. Thank you.” 

“Hmm?” he lets out a pleasant noise. “Are you admitting that I make you happy?” 

The reader snorted.

“Yeah. I- Do you think I get this emotional over just anyone? Not all goodbyes are equally hard. I’ll tell you as many times as you need to hear it. You make me happy. Continually. My life has been made better by your place in it.”

The narrator sighs contentedly. 

The reader rolls their eyes. “You’re so ridiculous sometimes.” The affection is clear in their voice.

“Only because I’m written that way.” 

The wind begins to howl. The darkness is growing. They are both surrounded by void.

“We’re running out of time.” The reader says, though there’s no need to explain it. They both know what’s about to happen. 

The narrator clasps the reader on the shoulder. “Reader, it’s imperative that you listen to me. This form is dying. It has been for a while now. We both knew that what we had wasn’t going to last forever. You knew from the start, and it didn’t take long for me to catch on as well. But if you need me-”

He was starting to disintegrate. It was slow, working from his feet up.

“Focus, reader. Focus on my voice, not what’s coming next. If you ever need me, I’ll be there. You and I can go on another adventure any time you want. You can look up stories about me, write one of your own, find fan art or create it yourself.”

His legs were gone, but he was still managing to stand. 

“It doesn’t matter when, it doesn’t matter where. If you call for me, I'll answer. Our story doesn’t have to end just because we’re both going our separate ways. You can pick it up later, or get someone else to continue it for you. Do you understand?”

The reader nodded, trying very hard to not look at the narrator’s torso, which was unraveling.

“This version of me is about to disappear- however- there are thousands of others. Mourn if you must, but don’t forget that I’m not really dead.” He lets out a sigh of relief. “I’m glad I got all that out before I left. Now, all that’s left to do is… To stop moving.”

The reader felt a surge of panic, of needing to say what was on their heart before it was too late. “Before you go, I need you to know that I didn’t regret a single moment spending time with you.”

The narrator’s smile was radiant, even as it was being eaten at by the darkness. “F-funny, I feel the s-same way.” His voice was straining now, glitching out and filled with static. “O-one last great a-adventure. What do you say, friend?”

“Yes, of course.” The reader said.

“B-being able to do this for you, t-to c-complete my purpose… It’s q-quite rich, really. Reader- I t-think I feel… Happy. I a-actually feel h-happy!” His last laugh was caught by the wind and disappeared before he could finish it. 

He was gone. The reader took a deep breath. The writer took a deep breath. 

Everyone had found the freedom they had been looking for. 

…

Then the ground began to shake. The world shifted, changed, twisted, and suddenly the void was being pushed back again. Where the narrator had been standing a few moments ago, there was a tiny sapling. The reader stared at it in shock.

It glowed a pure white. Roots spread rapidly, digging into the earth. It grew at an alarming pace. The tree unfurled its branches rapidly, each one standing tall and strong. It wasn't made of wood at all. It was made of crystal. Each diamond shaped leaf was a different image. The reader did their best to take in the new information.

Stories- hundreds of them, thousands maybe, were playing out like a film reel. 

And the reader could see. All the different possibilities, all the potential of a character- 

Different genres, plotlines, characterizations- the millions of different interpretations of the narrator that existed. He was a shadow, an angel, a computer, human, nonhuman, everything, anything- 

The reader saw it all. 

There was no change without transformation.

There was no death without some form of rebirth.

The tree moved, lowering one of its branches to the reader’s height. A pair of gardening shears lay at its base.

“It’s quite alright.” The tree said. “I’d like for you to take a few cuttings, and plant them in your own mind. They’ll grow, and a part of me will continue to live on. Only if you want to, of course.”

The reader hesitated. “The writer…”

“The writer doesn’t mind. He’s finished his current task, and he’s about to enter a hibernation period of sorts. But… I’ll let you in on a little secret, shall I? A small bit of confidential information between friends: He took a few branches to plant in his garden. Now, he made it very clear to me that he was taking an extended break. It was a bit laughable, to be honest.” 

He paused as he realized how bad that might sound.

“Not- I mean, I didn’t laugh at him, of course. The poor man looked very worn out. But I found it rather amusing because I am not his keeper. We aren’t beholden to each other in any way. He is not obligated to write for me at all, though he often gets caught up in believing he does. But he still genuinely wants to. I suppose we both struggle with letting things go, after all.”

There are no visible facial expressions on the tree, but you get the impression that the tree is grinning.

“He’s quite irritated by the whole thing, actually. I am, quite possibly, the greatest comfort character he’s ever had. He isn’t done with me, and I’m certainly not done with him. Neither of us are keen to leave the other. Clearly, I am worthy of such a dedicated-”

He’s rambling. He knows he is. He clears his throat, despite not having one anymore, and gets back on track.

“The point being, that he may well come back eventually. As for you, You’re welcome to take part of me with you and reshape it to your own desires, and you’re just as welcome to not do so. The choice has always been yours.”

He waited for the reader to come to a decision on what to do. 

He waited for a very long time.

You made your choice- 

“…And the story continues.”

The end is never the end, really.

It’s just the beginning of something else. 

[not-the-tie-youre-looking-for]

Something that's been bugging me for years since the Legends finale. If Zhan had been the writer for Rebels, do you think he would have had Thrawn bomb Lothal to bring Ezra out? On the one hand, from Legends Thrawn's portrayal I imagine he would without a second of hesitation. On the other, Canon Thrawn has been much more... restrained? And on a third point, there's the fact that Legends and Canon Thrawn seem like they really could be the same person just at different points of time. cnt in next

...I'm just curious if anyone else was curious if Zhan agreed with that direction taken. Which, on that note, did Zhan ever say anything about his thoughts on how Rebels handled Thrawn? Both from a writing standpoint as well as an acting and musical one (Thrawn's various leitmotifs)?

Oh man. Ohhhhhhhh maaaaan. My friend, you have asked exactly the right person this question, because not only have I wanted to talk about this multiple times before, but I also have ~receipts~. 👀

⚠️Spoiler warnings for Star Wars: Rebels, The Mandalorian, the canon Star Wars novels Thrawn, Thrawn: Alliances, Thrawn: Treason, Thrawn Ascendency: Chaos Rising, and Thrawn Ascendency: Greater Good, and the legends Star Wars novels Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command, and Outbound Flight.⚠️

Oh man. Where to begin.

Lets start with who Thrawn is, because depending on who you ask, you're gonna get different answers—whether you're strictly a Legends fan, Dave Filoni, a guy who's only seen Thrawn in Star Wars: Rebels, Timothy Zahn, or just a writer/artist fan like me.

To Timothy Zahn, the man behind our favorite chiss, Thrawn is a character that is constant in both attitude and personality throughout all of his content. In multiple interviews, ranging from Thrawn's debut in Rebels to the latest about the writing of the Ascendancy Trilogy, Zahn states that Thrawn in canon and Thrawn in Legends are indistinguishable.

And so I present the receipts:

In a 2017 interview with The Verge on writing the first canon Thrawn book Thrawn, Zahn is asked the following question and responds as such:

How do you navigate bringing back a character who already has an extensive backstory and audience expectations, with telling a new story that fits in the new continuity?

Actually, I didn’t find that to be a problem. I’d never written Thrawn in this part of the Star Wars timeline, so it was simply a matter of bringing him into the Empire and chronicling his rise through the ranks. It’s still the same character as in the 1990s books, just a decade or two younger and in a very different military and political environment.

In another interview with The Verge in 2018 (a few months after the finale of Rebels aired) about writing Thrawn: Alliances, he repeats this sentiment twice:

Thrawn feels like if it had been written before the canonization purge a couple of years ago, or if you squinted a bit, it would serve as a perfect setup for Heir to the Empire.

Oh, I don’t think you need to squint at all. I wrote him in these two books to fit in with everything else I’d done. So if someone at Lucasfilm snapped their fingers, and suddenly all of my other books were canon, and there would be no real retrofitting that would have to go in. It would all fit together.

Thrawn: Alliances feels more at home in the new canon, especially because Thrawn has been fleshed out a bit more in Rebels. Was there any adjustments for that?

Not really. I’m getting to play with more canon characters like Vader and Padmé and Anakin, but the character himself, I still see him as the same person. He’s got goals, and he won’t necessarily share them with you, but he as long as you’re going the same direction, he’s happy to cooperate and assist along the way.

...and this is referenced again in a 2020 interview with Polygon about writing Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising:

Along with Thrawn’s appearance in Rebels, Zahn would pen a new novel, Thrawn, that chronicled the character’s early days as an Imperial officer. Zahn didn’t have to change anything with the character, telling me in 2017 that “he’s like an old friend who I understand completely.” While Heir to the Empire was no longer canon, a reader could easily read Thrawn as a precursor to that classic novel. Thrawn went on to become a major presence in Rebels, and Zahn continued to explore his origins in Thrawn: Alliances and Thrawn: Treason.

The next day, an interview with IGN was published on the same subject:

Thrawn is an especially unique case because Zahn has been able to effectively continue the work he started way back in 1991 with Heir to the Empire. That novel may not be a part of official Star Wars lore any longer, but as Zahn explained, Thrawn himself is basically the same character regardless of continuity.

[....] The closest comparison between Chaos Rising and Zahn's earlier EU work is probably 2006's Outbound Flight, which is set during the Clone Wars and details the first encounter between Thrawn and the Galactic Republic (while also retroactively laying the groundwork for elements of Heir to the Empire). That novel is no longer canon, but Zahn told us he prefers to operate as if it were. He's making a concerted effort not to retread the same ground as Outbound Flight and to avoid contradicting the events of that novel as much as possible.

So yeah. In Zahn's opinion, Legends Thrawn is Canon Thrawn is Book Thrawn, and there is no difference whatsoever between Thrawns in, say, Outbound Flight, Heir to The Empire, Alliances, and Chaos Rising. I wholeheartedly disagree, but lets move on.

Now that the books are out of the way, its time for Rebels.

In July of 2016, after the trailer announcing Thrawn's canon debut aired, Dave Filoni had the following to say about Thrawn's character in regards to Timothy Zahn:

“I was pretty adamant with a couple of people saying, ‘Listen, we need to have Tim sign off on this. This is kind of a waste of time [otherwise],'” says Filoni. “We, of course, can do what we want with a character that Lucasfilm owns, but without Tim’s okay, what does it mean? That’s not going to be good. Once we had some stuff, we wanted to do what we thought was right and make the character. Then we brought him in. We had the production fully prepared. I said, ‘Look, if there’s something that Tim says that I think is really valuable, even if it changes something dynamically, we need to be ready for that and see what we can do.’ I wanted to make sure we did this right by everybody. We brought him in and we didn’t really tell him why. We just flew him up to Lucasfilm and sat him down in a theater and said, ‘Hey, we’re bringing Thrawn into the show.’ He was like, ‘Wow.’ and I said, ‘Yeah, wow. And I’m going to show him to you right now and you let me know what you think.'”

(Before we continue, keep that first highlighted sentence in mind for future reference. I'm going to come back to that later.)

Fortunately, Timothy Zahn was delighted at the show’s approach to the Empire’s imposing blue-skinned Chiss.

“We showed him some of the scenes with him,” Dave Filoni recalls. “He looked like a kid in a candy store. I think it meant a lot to him not just because it was his character, but because you have to imagine what he went through when it was announced that everything is Legends now, not Expanded Universe. I get that and I’ve always appreciated the work that goes into the Expanded Universe… For Tim, I think it was us saying, ‘No, no, no. We really like your character. We want him to be part of the real thing. The canon universe.'”

So in 2016, before we even saw Thrawn in action beyond a trailer, we were told that Zahn gave the OK, and he was chill with the way Thrawn was created in the show. In 2017, he gave a little more of the background of this process in an interview with FANgirl Blog:

The events of Thrawn dovetail closely with Rebels and shed light on some of Thrawn’s more seemingly surprising actions on the show, like when he appears to lose his temper and yell at Lieutenant Lyste. What was it like to see Thrawn come alive onscreen? Is he how you’ve pictured him in your head?

I don’t see my characters in terms of voice or appearance, but rather as personality or attitude. That said, I very much enjoyed the way the Rebels team brought him to life, in his appearance, voice, and actions.

I also appreciated the freedom I had to tweak certain incidents, such as the one you mentioned, and give additional or alternate explanations for the viewers who may have thought those were somewhat out of character for him.

He doesn't really elaborate on this, but we can assume he had SOME creative input on Thrawn's character, and he was overall pretty happy with the choices made in the show.

But then, we have this from that earlier 2017 the Verge article:

When did you learn that Dave Filoni was intending to bring Thrawn to Rebels, and did you have any input into how the character would be handled?

[...] I didn’t have any real input into how Thrawn was going to be handled, mainly because the lead time of an animated series is so long that much of season 3 had already been finished. But I trusted Dave and the team to do the character right. After all, why bring him into Rebels if you were going to drastically change him? Having seen the entire season now, I think we can agree that my trust was completely justified.

So... he didn't have "any real input," but was satisfied with it in the end? I guess? I don't know. We're getting into some contradictions now.

The last thing I've got in regards to Rebels is an interview Zahn did with the YouTube channel Star Wars Explained after the finale aired, where he responds to the following:

“So, maybe let's jump over to Rebels for a little bit. Now that it has wrapped up, how do you feel Thrawn was represented in Star Wars: Rebels?”

“They did a really good job—they not only understood the character and how to write for him, but they also understood the meta around how you defeat him. The only way to defeat Thrawn is to throw something at him he can't control, or can't anticipate. Given perfect knowledge and control, Thrawn will always find a way to win. But they understood, this is how you defeat him, these are the things we can use against him... so his portrayal in general, is very good; he's smart, he's anticipating, he's a step ahead of everybody, he's looking at clues and picking up on them, so I was very pleased with how the Rebels team handled the character."

I think these quotes answer many of your questions, so to answer your initial question: If Zhan had been the writer for Rebels, do I think he would have had Thrawn bomb Lothal to bring Ezra out?

Yes—but ONLY because at that point, the only established™️ Thrawn content was found in Legends, where Thrawn was a ruthless and calculating warlord.

However!

I do believe that if given the chance to re-write the Star Wars: Rebels finale using his now-canon novels as a solid background TODAY, Zahn would choose to not let Thrawn bombard Lothal's Capital City.

I believe this because he made one single very interesting creative choice when writing Thrawn that completely overwrote Thrawn's pre-established Rebels character: Thrawn was not responsible for the civilian deaths on Batonn—Pryce was.

And that's that on that.

A few months ago I would have ended it there, but today, Thrawn's story is no longer just contained in the novels and Rebels, but also in that of The Mandalorian.

This is where I will proudly say I have no idea what the fuck is going on. Before The Jedi aired, I was 100% sure that the next time we saw Thrawn, it would be nowhere NEAR the Empire, because Zahn was pretty adamant in the novels that Thrawn was only in the Empire to help. His. People.

So now he's apparently doing fuck-knows-what in fuck-knows-where and is STILL associated with the Seventh Fleet and Imperial Warlords???

Huh??? Despite the fact that he held no true loyalty to the Empire or to the Emperor??? It's been months and I'm still confused as fuck. Add to the fact that Zahn also doesn't know what the fuck is going on to the equation and we get a big fat question mark with one pretty clear answer that Filoni said himself that we have to keep in mind:

"We, of course, can do what we want with a character that Lucasfilm owns."

So I don't think Zahn has much control over Thrawn as we would all like to think. We can hope he gives us the crazy Thrawn and Ezra Space Adventure™️ novel all we want, but ultimately, Thrawn's fate does not rest in his hands.

If you guys have more to add please let me know!!! This is, obviously, a topic I am very passionate about, so I'd love to hear your thoughts!

[captain-ross-poldark]

Poldark’s Aidan Turner on playing Leonardo da Vinci

Ed Potton

Friday 2 April 2021

Aidan Turner takes on the role of Renaissance polymath LeonardoJUSTIN SUTCLIFFE/EYEVIN

I’m trying to work out where Aidan Turner is Zooming from. Is it London, where he moved to in 2017 after his Ross Poldark became the drooled-over king of Sunday-night television? Dublin, where he grew up, trained as an actor and returned to spend the first lockdown with his parents? Or Rome, where he shot his new series, Leonardo, in which he plays a young Leonardo da Vinci?

“None of the above!” Turner says. “I’m in Toronto.” The enigmatic charm, feline eyes and gleaming locks that he deployed so mercilessly in Poldark, The Hobbit films and Being Human are all there. “My missus is working here,” he explains, and so is he. That’s the American actress Caitlin FitzGerald, his partner of three years, whom he met when they starred in the 2018 film The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot. At first I assume the “missus” is laddish affectation but it turns out that it’s official: Turner and FitzGerald, both 37, got married in secret in Italy in August after filming finished on Leonardo. You can almost hear the sighs of disappointment ripple around the world.

Turner won’t say any more — he is famously guarded about his personal life — but he looks insanely happy in the couple’s rented apartment. FitzGerald — whose grandfather Desmond was a CIA agent and organised several plots to assassinate Fidel Castro — is shooting a series, Station Eleven, in Toronto while her husband works on another project that he’s not allowed to talk about. In their downtime they’ve been watching I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, an HBO documentary series about the Golden State Killer, and, on a lighter note, Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles. They share the apartment with Charlie, an ebullient Norfolk terrier that Turner has to eject from the room halfway through our interview when he starts yapping. “I’m surprised he behaved for so long,” he says.

Eight-part series Leonardo has been criticised for warping historyPA

Like many of his fellow thesps, Turner has been doing a great deal of lockdown painting. “We have a roof garden here and the light has been really good,” he says. “I probably shouldn’t be saying this because I don’t know if the landlord knows. It’s not messy work anyway!” Unlike some of his peers — I’m looking at you, Pierce Brosnan — he has yet to unleash his daubings on the world. How would he describe his style? “I struggle to say abstract, but I haven’t quite figured out what it is yet.” Did it help with playing Leonardo? “I don’t know. If you saw my paintings, you’d assume very much not,” Turner says. He has a studied line in self-effacement, honed after years of “sexiest man on TV” questions.

Leonardo premiered in Italy last month and was watched by seven million, many of them doubtless keen to see Turner brooding in a succession of smocks. The eight-part series has been criticised for warping history, having the artist accused of murder and featuring an apparently fictional muse, Caterina da Cremona, played by Matilda De Angelis from The Undoing. Luca Bernabei, the chief executive of Lux Vide who produced the series, defended it stoutly. “Matilda De Angelis’s character did exist. She was a model Leonardo asked to paint,” he said. “We have been really careful in our research. But this is not a documentary, we are not historians and this is not a university history lecture.”

And if the history pedants are spluttering, the art pedants should be happier — the series goes to considerable lengths to make the painting look authentic. Each episode is themed around a different masterpiece, from the portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci to The Last Supper to the Mona Lisa, and the candlelit cinematography is often sumptuous. Turner’s research included a private view of a Leonardo exhibition. “I spent some time alone with the actual paintings, which was brilliant,” he says. “They’re just like high-definition photographs. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that a human had done this.”

Aidan Turner attended an artist’s boot camp before filming startedVITTORIA FENATI MORACE

The series opens in Florence in the 1460s, with Leonardo a pupil of Verrocchio, played by the veteran Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini. Before the shoot Turner and his co-stars went on an artists’ boot camp (brush camp?) supervised by professionals. He says the hardest part was learning to paint, as Leonardo did, with his left hand. He compares it to learning to ride a horse for Poldark, which he pretended he knew how to do before going on a crash course when he got the part.

Brushwork was the same, he says. “I realised I had to get good quite quickly and look like I knew what I was doing with my left hand, which is more difficult than you would think. It’s keeping it steady — you find it just moves around a lot. Leonardo was very slow and precise — I think I got it down. After a few weeks you start picking up the brush with your left hand, it becomes natural.”

Leonardo was a vegetarian, Turner tells me, “and apparently later in life opened some sort of vegetarian restaurant”. He was also gay, something that, despite reports, the series does not shy away from. Was this Turner’s first time kissing a man on screen? He laughs. “Of all the things I was expecting you to ask next, that wasn’t one of them! In a lot of ways it was just another love scene. The fact that the gender was different — that was never a thing. No, it felt right. It didn’t feel any different at all. But yeah, to answer your question, that was the first time, which I’d never really thought of until now.”

What did feel weird, he says, were the Covid protocols. “Suddenly people are wearing masks and shields and hazmat suits. We had a big sanitisation machine as we walked in that would spray us. You take off the mask when you shoot the scene and it’s a bit strange for a second. Then you realise it’s the first time you’ve seen your co-star’s face that day. It’s not conducive to a very creative environment, for sure. But we made it work and nobody got sick.”

With his wife, the American actress Caitlin FitzGeraldREX FEATURES

Turner spends a chunk of the first episode painting De Angelis, and both actors know what it’s like to be ogled. She has been asked endlessly about her naked locker-room sequence in The Undoing, just as he has been reminded of his shirtless scything scene in Poldark. Before that there was his lusted-after vampire in Being Human and his sexy dwarf in The Hobbit — branded a “dwilf” in some quarters — although that “definitely wasn’t the intention”, he says. “I think I just had less prosthetics on my face. My make-up call was 20 minutes and everyone else was sitting in the chair in the morning for three and a half hours. It wasn’t good to be around the other dwarfs in the mornings, that’s for sure.

“I get why people are interested,” he says of the ogling. “It’s just when it keeps coming up.”

We move on. According to a recent survey Cornwall has overtaken London as the most desirable place to live in Britain. Does he think Poldark played a part in that? He laughs. “Maybe we nudged a few people in the right direction. I think people forgot how beautiful that side of the world is. One of the first reviews of Poldark we read was like: ‘We can’t believe that this is our country, it looks like the south of France.’”

Could Poldark return, and would Turner be in it? If they stuck to the chronology of Winston Graham’s books they would have to leap ahead a few years. Maybe he could play an aged-up Ross Poldark in latex and fake paunch? “I don’t know if I’d be keen on the ageing-up thing,” he says. “It never really works. I don’t know whether they need to be too strict with that gap anyway. There’s the possibility someday, maybe. I enjoyed working with everybody on Poldark, from the writers right down to all the cast and crew. It really is like a family. So I’d be open to chat about it. But not for a while.”

Turner with Eleanor Tomlinson in PoldarkMIKE HOGAN

Before that he will appear as the apostle Andrew in The Last Planet, the forthcoming biblical epic from Terrence Malick, revered creator ofThe Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life. Well, he doesn’t know for sure if he will appear. Actors of the calibre of Rachel Weisz, Mickey Rourke and Jessica Chastain have seen their performances in Malick films vanish during editing.

“You want what’s best for the film. And if you don’t fit into it, you don’t fit into it,” Turner says in the tone of hair-shirt devotion that actors tend to use when talking about Malick. With a cast including Ben Kingsley and Mark Rylance as Satan, the movie is meant to tell the story of Jesus through a series of parables. Turner doesn’t really have a clue, though.

“You don’t necessarily know what you’re signing up to. You’re signing up to Terrence Malick,” he says. The director has “a great way of working. Everything is around ‘where is the sun’ at this particular time. That’s our natural light and it’s all we use. So things happen fast. There’s no trailers, hair, make-up, we’re just all together. You don’t know from day to day what you’ll be doing. It’s quite renegade stuff. That’s the way I always wanted to work.”

It’s closer to the immediacy of the theatre, which is where Turner started out. The son of an electrician, Pearse, and an accountant, Eileen, he represented Ireland at ballroom dancing before falling into acting. After studying at the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin he acted in plays for five years and in 2018 he returned to the stage to rave reviews in Martin McDonagh’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore in the West End. Rave being the operative word — his performance was bracingly unhinged. “I can’t wait to get back to the theatre,” he says. “That’s what we’re looking at probably next.”

Turner’s character in The Lieutenant of Inishmore was an Irish freedom fighter, but he is reluctant to talk about the prospect of Irish reunification (“So I don’t get shot when I get home,” he told one interviewer). Culture is safer ground, and his native country is going through a purple patch with Sally Rooney in literature, Fontaines DC in music and the likes of McDonagh, Jessie Buckley and Denise Gough in drama. “It tends to happen in waves,” Turner says. “Coming out of drama school, Colin Farrell was such a big thing. When these actors really make it you can feel some of their light begin to shine on the industry back home.”

Like Farrell, Turner is an international star, although it has mainly been in period roles: Poldark, Leonardo, Andrew and his breakout turn as the 19th-century poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the 2009 series Desperate Romantics. It must be something about the hair.

That could be about to change, though. Toronto often stands in for New York, which suggests that his current mystery project has a contemporary setting. Does he yearn to act in jeans? “Yeah, you’re right,” he says with a laugh. “After Leonardo, I think tights and knee-length boots are out for a while.” Many would beg him to reconsider.

All episodes of Leonardo will be on Amazon from April 16

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/poldarks-aidan-turner-on-playing-leonardo-da-vinci-wnmqhxqxr

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression Ep 18 - Baseball with Mercedes Benz logo used by Chiba Lotte Marines.

K: This is Dir en grey's Kaoru with The Freedom of Expression. This program started...how many years ago was it now? 3 or 4 years ago?...on InterFM, asking questions about freedom of expession...with this theme we talked about current news stories each time. From there, we have moved over to Youtube.  There are maybe times when we talk about stuff that isn't really related to expression though..

J: There are.

T: Yeh.

K: I just wanna enjoy talking sometimes.

J: This program has a wide scope.

K: Yeah. Well, today, I mean, on the day of this broadcast, its the opening of the professional baseball season.

J: Oh, June 19th?

K: Yeh. At the point in time of recording this, we don't know exactly what will happen, but..at last baseball is gonna start.

T: And that means...? Kaoru?

K: And that means?

J: And that means?

K: What do you mean?

T: Your beloved Hanshin Tigers!

J: Oh, yeah, his Hanshin Tigers. How will your beloved Hanshin do this year?

K: Oh, they will win by a mile!

J, T: *laugh*

J: *laughing* We shouldn't laugh!

K: Hahaha

J: We really shouldn't laugh! We're so rude!

T: Its because he said straight away, 'by a mile!'.

J: Tell us your rationale for saying that, for saying they'll win by a mile.

K: Well...they're strong.

J: You could say that about anyone! *laughs*

K, T: *laugh*

J: Saying, 'They're that strong'...Yakult fans could say the same.

T: I'd just like to ask again, since when have you been a fan of the Tigers? Since when were you first aware of the Tigers?

K: How old was I?...I think I was probably in the lower grades of elementary school. As far back as I can remember really. My Dad played baseball in a non-professional team. So he had his uniform, and glove, and bat, and stuff in our house. I used to play with him, and he took me to watch games. My first time was at Nishinomiya stadium, I think...the Hankyu Braves. And after that, I wanted to see a game at Koshien.

J: Ehh, really? Oh, so you were going to stadiums from quite a young age?

K: Yeah.

T: How did it feel going Koshien and places back then?

K: It was kinda scary. There was a load of scary looking people there.

T: Scary looking people? *laughs*

K: Like really drunk people, and stuff.

J:Oh, all the hecklers.

K: The staduims didn't look as smart as they do now.

J: Ohh, of course.

K: They were kind of grubby.

J: So about Hanshin doing really well this year, they'll definitely win today's game? Where are they playing today?

T: Today is..

K: Against the Giants, right?

T: Yeah, the Giants.

K: At Tokyo Dome.

T: Their nemesis, the Giants.

J: The legendary fued between the Giants and the Tigers, right?

K: Well, yeah. For the opening match, Tokyo Dome is a bit hard going though.

J: I thought you just said they were gonna win by a mile?!

K: Hahaha.

J: Already thats not the case! 

T: He's suprisingly calm about it, right?

K: No, its just that at the moment, Tokyo Dome carries some not so good memories. I've been to watch them there many times.

T: Oh, right.

K: I don't have very good memories of it.

J: Is it bad?'

T: They'll be starting about now, at 18:00, won't they?

K: They will be, yeh.

J: Don't we upload this at 19:00?

K: Yeh, yeh.

T: Ahh. Oh, they'll be just about finishing the third round or so?

K: Ahh.

J: I see.

K: But they'll probably be hitting ???(バコバコ)*1. They might still be on the second round.

J, T, K: Hahaha.

J: Well, its good to think about it in a positive way.

K: Yeh, yeh, yeh.

J: What are the thoughts of our so called sports journalist about Hanshin's chances this year? *gestures to Tasai*

T: Well, as for me, Hanshin are..I was talking to my wife about this before, and despite being a really popular team, in reality, they rarely win.

K: Yes.

J: Oh, is that right?

K: They never win.

T: Yeh, yeh, yeh

K: They're weak, to start with.

J, T: Haha

K: I even imagine them as a weak team.

T: Yeah.

J: I see. So its not like they are famous for being a strong team like the Giants?

K: The Giants are invincible.

J: Well, yeah.

K: Its like they have to be strong.

J: Yeh, yeh.

K: Hanshin are like...even though they're weak, you like them, haha.

J: Hahaha.

T: So people used to say, Dame Tora!/ No good Tigers!' at one point and stuff. But, what is it? The mentality of Osaka people?

K: Well, even if they loose, it doesn't hurt very deeply.

J: Ahh, right. Unlike Giants fans, who would be hurt at even a small loss. Hanshin fans don't have such a weak heart?

K: We don't.

J: Ahh, amazing.

T: Its incredible, thier popularity. They are more popular than the Giants.

K: Yeh

T: The Sports newspapers down there, if they have like 8 or so pages, 4 or 5 pages will be dedicated to Hanshin.

J: Oh, that much?!

T: They even cover the minor team at Naruouhama, with their results and a comment.

K: The minor team is really well recieved, and everyone gets really carried away with it.

J: Hahaha.

T: Yeh, yeh, yeh.

J: Isn't that the reason they never get that strong?

K: Well, in the end, yes.

T: Hahaha. No, but they are talked about, even as the minor team.

J:Ehh

K: And with all these fans, theres kind of a supporters' association, and everyone gets full of themself.

T: Hahaha.

J: Oh, really? Kami is listening silently though. I wonder what he thinks. Don't gods know much about baseball?

Kami: No, no, I've been listening the whole time. But Hanshin are quite strong, aren't they?  I mean, they are not the best in Japan, but don't they often win? The league win?

K, T: No..

K: They don't.

T: Once in 1985, and once in 2000, that time with Lotte in the Japan series, and once at the time they changed over from Nomura san to Hoshino san.

K: Yeah, league wins.

T: Its only been about 3 or 4 times hasn't it?

Kami: When you say weak...well, they have gotten stronger recently, but I always think of the BayStars as the weakest.

T: Yeah, Yokohama never win either.

Kami: I didn't think Hanshin were that weak.

K: Well, overall, they are getting better. Like, thier average..the gap is closing.

T: Well, Hiroshima won three times in a row. The Central league is sort of bunched up like that. The Giants are just ahead.

J: Just a bit, right. Ahh, it exciting isnt it? How far will Hanshin get this year?! They'll win?

K: Of course.

J: They will win.

T: Should we make a promise to do something if they win?

K: If they win?

T: If they win...or if they don't win? But, they will definitely win, right?

K: Hmm..  *Everyone laughs*

J: Hang on a second, you started by saying they will win by a mile, and now 'Hmm..'. You're saying 'Hmm..' for 5 minutes.

K: Its because I don't know what will happen.

T: Well, yeah. You don't know whats gonna happen.

K: Well, its cause its an irregular season.

J: Well, of course.,

T: Yeah.

K: Cause its a tight schedule.

J: Oh, because its tight?

K: There are no inter-league games, and no All Star games. Im not sure how the climax will go.

Kami: Lets do something if they win.

J: Oh, yeh, if they win.

Kami: If they win.

K: If Hanshin win?

Kami: Yeh, if we did that, we'd be all looking forward, supporting Hashin.

K: Well, ok, if Hanshin win let's do an event on this program.

J, T: Oh!

J: What kind of event?

K: Well, im not sure, it would have to be next year, and I don't know if we could have guests, but lets do something like that.

J:Oh!

K: In that way everyone would be supporting right?

T: Yeah.

J: Shall we do a 'The Freedom of Expression' event?

T: "In celebration of the Hanshin Tigers' win!"

K: Im not sure we need such a crown.

J, T: Hahaha

J: Well, anyhow, we'll do an event.

K:Yeh.

J: I think we've created the motivation for people to support Hanshin with this.

T: Yes, its turned out well.

K: Like a live broadcast or something?

J: Oh, that would be good. Thats a good idea.

K: Well, ok, this isn't what we're supposed to be talking about today.

T: It wasn't supposed to be about Hanshin, was it?

J: Well, as today is the opening of the baseball season, let me share a piece of news concerning professional baseball.

This is the news that Lotte are using a baseball which features the Mercedes Benz logo. Manager Iguchi says, the Marines are at the top too! In the first game of this season at their  main stadium, the Zozo Marines Stadium, the ball they use will have Mercedes Benz Japan's (thier sponsor's) logo printed onto it. This comes to fruition as a result of thier manager Iguchi being a big Merecdes Benz fan. Iguchi said to his team on the 8th, 'Since I started playing professional baseball at age 22, up until now over 20 years later, I've always driven a Mercedes Benz. Just as these cars are admired from around the world, I want the Marines to reach the top this season.'

K: Yeah.

T: Its great, isn't it.

J: Eh, Tasai san, have you seen it?

T: I saw it earlier. Its stamped on about the size of a seal.

J: Is it small?

T: Well, its like 'Benz!'

K: I kinda want one.

T: Yeh, its cool, right?

J: So, it doesn't cause any obstacle when grasping the ball?

T: No, it doesn't. Its just the Benz logo.

J: I see. So its not like it catches on your fingers and effects your throw?

T: Well, I wonder..

K: It doesn't! It would be a problem if it did.

J: It would be problematic, right? But conversely, if you pay money, you can have this type of thing engraved on the ball. What do you think, Kaoru? What if you had the Dir en grey logo put on the ball in one of the Hanshin Tigers' official games?

K: Oh, I'd like that.

T: But I get the feeling that people would want to do that a lot with Hanshin.

J: I wonder how much it costs?

T: Probably a million or so yen. I don't think Mercedes Benz will be the cheapest either.

J: Thats right.

K: But if its on the ball, it won't be seen on TV right?

J: No, it won't.

K: So, you wouldn't even know about it,  unless it was pointed out. ???*2 Also, if the guy who gets a home run puts it on SNS or something.

T: Ahh, that would be ideal.

J: It would normally be plastered all over the fences of the stadium, wouldn't it?

K: Yeah, in the stadium.

J: But its kinda fresh, to put in on the balls.

T: Yeah, its cool.

K: On the balls?

J, T: *laugh*

K: ???

J: No, no, no. *laughing* ????

T: Joe san! Don't soil baseball like that! Its an untainted sport!

J:???*3

T: Yeah *laughs*, so you are tainting it!

J: No, but I really wanna put a Dir en grey logo, or a Tora no ana logo on one Hanshin's baseballs.

T: That would be good.

K: Noo, its impossible.

J: But didn't you do a collaboration with them before?

K: Oh, well that was just like an announcement, but this is totally a sponsor.

J: Well, yeah..right.

K: Right?..The amount of money..

J: Totally different right.

K: Yeah, its on a totally different scale.

J: Well, but I imagine professional baseball players seem tacky to Mercedes Benz.

K: Like a thugs or something.

J: Why do I think that, I wonder? Although they're all the same athletes, soccer players don't give off the same atmosphere to me.

K: But even soccer players seem like they are a bit artificial. They suddenly start dressing up, wearing brand clothes..

T: Yeah.

K: They get off planes, dressed up all smart and stuff.

J: They do, yeah.

T: But that might be the influence of Kazu (Kazoyoshi Miura) or Takeda san since they got into the J League.

J: For some reason, if you talk about fashion in the pro-baseball world, I always think of Kuwata san, for example. Also, Shinjo san (Tsuyoshi Shinjo). They have that kind of image. There's not that many..

T: Ahh, right.

J: Like I don't know many with a sense of fashion.

Kami: I think the same! Thats it. They have no fashion sense. They are not cool at all!

T: Thats right.

Kami: They are real sports people. Whatever they wear, thier muscles swell, it looks kinda wierd.

T: Yeh, yeh.

K: Well, yeh.

Kami: But when baseball players or even soccer players wear thier uniform, they look super cool!

J: Absolutely.

T: Ah, I see.

Kami: When they get off airplanes, I want them to wear thier uniforms.

J: Always in thier uniforms.

T: That would be good, yeah.

Kami: They would look so cool!

J: I see.

T: Well, they are professionals, baseball is technical job, they are the ultimate professionals. If you can play baseball, that is everything, I imagine. Thats my follow-up. 

J,K: *laugh*

K: Well, today, at this time, the game will still be ongoing.

J: Yes, thats right.

K: I'll be praying for an exciting baseball season.

J: And if Hanshin win?!

K: We'll do an event.

T: Pretty good.

K: Well, we'll finish here for today. Please subscribe. Thank you very much.

J, T: Thank you. 

*1 バコバコ - Don't know what this means.

*2 Couldn't catch this.

*3 I'm not fluent enough to translate dirty jokes about balls XD Plus Joe is speaking too fast, and there is too much background laughing...thats my other excuse.

[aion-rsa]

The Suicide Squad: What’s Next for Harley Quinn in the DCEU?

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains major spoilers for The Suicide Squad. We have a spoiler free review here.

The Suicide Squad might just be the best DCEU movie yet. Not only is it a sterling ensemble piece about the horrors of American imperialism but it’s also the world’s weirdest buddy comedy. And in a film full of stunning performances–Idris Elba, David Dastmalchian, and Daniela Melchior please stand up–we got another killer turn from Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. 

After kicking all kinds of ass in Birds of Prey, the Mistress of Mischief is back and better than ever. This is a truly emancipated Harley, one who hates the Joker, will kill an abusive man in a second, and who plays a huge part in saving the day after choking out a man with her thighs, of course. 

While Robbie has said she has “no current plans to reprise the role” after The Suicide Squad, we couldn’t help but think of where the DCEU’s most badass and brutal on-screen anti-hero has been and where she could go next. Thanks to the comics, cartoons, and imagination of those at DC Comics, we’ve got plenty to draw on. 

Let’s start with where Harley has been to see how it impacts her potential future…

Before the DCEU

Harley began her career in the beloved Batman: The Animated Series cartoon as a one-time henchwoman for the Joker. But that quickly changed and she soon became a core part of the show, and not long after became a fan fave character in the comic book universe. 

This iteration of Quinn was a huge influence on James Gunn in bringing her to The Suicide Squad and might explain that unforgettable animated sequence as she escapes from the palatial prison of Corto Maltese. 

It’s also important to note as until The Suicide Squad her most popular contemporary iteration was once again in a cartoon, but this time it was the DC Universe turned HBO Max smash hit adult animation series that bears her name. 

Harley Quinn in 2016’s Suicide Squad

While David Ayer’s Suicide Squad might not have been for everyone–apparently including Ayer himself–one thing stood out: Robbie as Harley Quinn. While she was mostly sexualized and used as eye candy, Robbie gave Harley depth, humor, and heart. It was the standout performance and is a huge part of why the DCEU version is so popular today. While it’s great to see Harley’s growth, we have to mention the movie where Robbie made her debut. 

Birds of Prey

Cathy Yan’s brilliant Birds of Prey let Robbie go wild with her take on Harley. This was the action heavy R-rated take that fans wanted to see. With a predominantly female creative team behind it, the film eschewed the male gaze and misogyny that Harley has sometimes had to fight through. 

Here we saw a Harley who was freed from the Joker, had her own crew, her own incredible fashion sense, and even her own burgeoning moral code. Not only was this a badass outing for Harley but it feels tonally and aesthetically in tune with the route that James Gunn went in The Suicide Squad. The emancipation of Harley Quinn began here, long may it reign! 

The Suicide Squad Sets Up What’s Next for Harley Quinn

While it’s unclear where Robbie sees the character going next, we get a good feel for Harley and her new found freedom here. The world is her oyster. She has new allies–maybe even… friends?–and a magical javelin. Basically, anything can happen as she heads into the future. 

Poison Ivy

This seems like the clearest and most popular option for more Harley Quinn. 

While it looked like it might happen in the form of the now not happening Gotham City Sirens movie (which Suicide Squad director Ayer was once attached to), there’s still legs in this partnership which has been delighting fans for decades. In both the comics and cartoons her relationship with Poison Ivy has been a key part of Harley’s lore. While they began as friends, the canon has shifted to being on-again off-again romantic partners in all mediums. So we need to see that on screen in live action… SOON! 

It would be really easy to take the comedic action stylings of the HBO Max Harley Quinn series which saw the pair traverse the hard realities of love in Gotham and bring that to either a longer format series–which we’d love–or a movie. Just putting these two A-listers together would be a huge selling point and if they played into the queer romance it would make huge waves. 

“Trust me, I chew their ear off about it all the time,” Robbie recently told us when we asked about the possibility of adding a live action Poison Ivy to the DCEU. “They must be sick of hearing it, but I’m like, ‘Poison Ivy, Poison Ivy. Come on, let’s do it.’ I’m very keen to see a Harley-Poison Ivy relationship on screen. It’d be so fun. So I’ll keep pestering them. Don’t worry.”

If DC decided to go a little more dramatic they could take from the pair’s comic book canon. It would make a lot of sense to explore Harley’s love life post the Joker as both of her most recent DCEU appearances have made note to mention his negative impact on her life. 

During the 2013 Harley Quinn comic series fans got to see the pair finally become official as Harley came to terms with her abusive relationship with the Joker. An easy route for the DCEU to take–either seriously or more comedically–would be to make Harley and Ivy a sort of Thelma and Louise of the DCEU, a couple of cool gals against the world… and if they have their “daughter” Cass Cain with them too we’d be very happy. 

While they broke up in the official DC Comics continuity, they are currently getting back together in Harley Quinn: The Animated Series – The Eat, Bang, Kill Tour. The hilarious sequel to the cartoon expands on their romance and plays into that more humorous angle. But simply the fact that the pair are together again in the comics means that there’s even more canon to take from here. 

Female Furies 

In spite of the sad news that Ava DuVernay’s New Gods movie is no longer in production, we might have found a silver lining. In recent years Harley has faced down against Granny Goodness and even joined her Female Furies. This has happened in both the ongoing Harley Quinn comics series and the DC Universe cartoon. It’s a really cool and out there idea for the character in the DCEU, and could be a cool way to introduce the more cosmic aspects of the universe through the lens of one of the world’s most popular comics characters. 

It would be pretty easy to do a Female Furies movie or TV show where Harley is enlisted into Apokolips’ hardcore squad of warriors. There’d be an exceedingly fun fish out of water element as well as the potential to do something totally different than we’ve seen before. 

There’s also the option to emulate the Harley Quinn TV series and follow Harley as she seeks out Granny Goodness in order to gain the nefarious power of the Motherbox, which would obviously go wrong pretty quickly. While we’ve seen elements touched on in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, DC isn’t afraid of reimagining things regularly and we’d love to see Harley on an epic cosmic adventure with Darkseid on her heels! 

Another HBO Max Spinoff? 

If the villainous Peacemaker is getting his own HBO Max show, why shouldn’t Harley? And there are a ton of incredible routes the series could go. The most obvious right now would be continuing the Harley we see in The Suicide Squad. 

Seeing as Rick Flag and Harley were clearly close, it would be very easy to intertwine the Harley show and the Peacemaker series. What if while Peacemaker was trying to “save the world,” Harley and potentially Bloodsport–he served with Rick and clearly cared about him–were hunting him down in their own series? That would be a pretty smart way to expand the radical world of The Suicide Squad while giving Robbie far more space to play with the character she’s long defined. 

Ever since Birds of Prey, fans have been wishing for a Black Canary or Harley-focused spinoff. With Peacemaker setting the precedent for solo DCEU shows, this could be another great route. We’d love to see the return of Ella Jay Basco as Cass Cain or even the return of Rosie Perez as Renee Montoya. This is a little more of an outlier but the gritty crime movie tone of Birds of Prey really fits into the current DCEU and HBO Max vibe. And in our real dreams, Cathy Yan would get the Gunn treatment and direct. 

Batgirl

We’re finishing off with what is currently the most likely of our options. The upcoming HBO Max Batgirl movie is penned by Christina Hodson. Hodson and Robbie have a close working relationship as the Bumblebee screenwriter also wrote Birds of Prey. There’s also the fact that Robbie is a huge supporter of female-led storytelling so bringing her clout and fan favorite character to Batgirl would do just that. It would be really cool to see Harley pop up here as either an antagonist or ally to Barbara Gordon. 

As this is going straight to HBO Max, there’s likely more freedom to play with canon and format. But with Robbie unsure of Harley’s future it could be more realistic to expect a brief cameo rather than a full on-screen Harley storyline when the movie hits the streamer down the line. 

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The Suicide Squad is on HBO Max and in theaters now! 

The post The Suicide Squad: What’s Next for Harley Quinn in the DCEU? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[jjmaybanksbaby]

Rock The Boat | JJ x Reader

Part I

summary: After spending some time with JJ Maybank, you realize the two of you will never get along. 

tw: drinking & alcohol, mentions of throwing up, just some good ole Pogue verus Kook tension 

a/n: now that im done with finals, i finally had time to start a JJ series so here it is :) i live for some good Kook verus Pogue animosity...that might turn into something more...!!!! part 2 will be up soon-ish. hope y’all enjoy this!!!!! & request are always open!!!

word count: 1.8k words

-------------------------------------------------

The first time you ever spoke to JJ Maybank you were throughly drunk. In fact, you don’t have any memory of the night. It was your Kook friends who filled you in on what happened at the party over brunch the next morning.  

School had gotten out a few days ago and your parents were out of town which meant you had a whole lot of freedom that you fully planning on take advantage of. 

You had spent the majority of the party dancing with your friends, the music good and the company was tolerable so you were content. You cup never seemed to be empty but then again, you weren’t worried really about counting the number of drinks you had. You were young and it was summer. 

Your friends were getting anxious to leave and head to the after-party Topper was throwing when you laid eyes on JJ. You stopped dead in your tracks and dropped your drink in the sand. 

“Ew,” your friend screamed. “(y/n) you just dropped your beer all over my scandals. Gross! ” 

“Who is that?” You asked, pointing in the boy’s direction. 

“I don’t know. I think his name is JJ. He mows my parent’s lawn sometimes. Why do you care? He’s a Pogue.” 

“Can we leave now? Pleaseeee,” another one of your Kook friends begged. 

You held up a single finger indicating that you needed just one more moment before you would be ready to go.

The alcohol in your blood was enough liquid courage for you to march over to JJ. Unfortunately, your heart and your stomach decided they weren’t on the same page and before you could introduce yourself, all that alcohol made an appearance. You threw up right on his shoes. 

“What the fuck!” He yelled at you, jumping back to avoid getting hit with anymore puke.

You looked up at him, thoroughly embarrassed. “I-I have to go,” you said, then stumbled back to your friends who were laughing their asses off at what had just occurred. “

Just get me out of here,” you begged and they did. 

...

Since you lived on Figure Eight and JJ was a Pogue, you figured your chances that you woud run into him again were very slim. You hadn’t noticed him in all the years that you have lived on the Outer Banks and you were praying that streak would continue. Barfing on a boy isn’t exactly the best way to get his attention. 

The door bell rang causing you to look up from the online shopping spree you were currently deep into. 

“I’m coming,” you called out, getting up from the kitchen table and walking to the front door. 

You opened the door and your eyes became huge when you saw that it was in fact JJ Maybank who was ringing your doorbell. You opened your mouth to speak but nothing came out. 

“Uh,” he said, scratching the back of his neck nervously. “I was just finishing up some repairs on your parent’ boat. They usually leave my pay out here...”

“Oh, yeah. There’s out of town.” You glanced at the table sitting next to the door and saw an envelope marched Boat Repairs. “Here,” you said, handing it to him. 

“Thanks. It’s good to see you, lightweight.” 

“I...” you started. He raised his eyebrows daring you to challenge what he just said. “I’m not a lightweight. I wasn’t even really that drunk.” 

“You  threw up on my shoes.” He said very matter of factly. 

You felt your checks flush red in embarrassment which made you slightly pissed. 

“Whatever. But I’m not a lightweight, just so you know.” You felt suddenly defensive of your drinking abilities and wanted this conversation to be over as soon as humanely possible. 

“See you around, lightweight.” JJ said before bounding down your porch stairs. 

“Asshole,” you whispered just loud enough for him to hear, no longer feeling so charmed by him. 

“Bye, princess.” He yelled back. 

...

The summer was passing uneventfully. You only saw JJ whenever you and your Kook friends ventured out to the boneyard for parties. Even then you clung to your friend’s side and were careful to put a wide distance between you and him. 

It had been raining for the past week but the sun was starting to peak out from behind the clouds and you were dying to get outside. You picked up your phone to call Kiara, knowing she was the only one of you friends who would want to surf with you. 

You two had met on the beach one day after you had massively wiped out from attempting to ride wave you had no business trying t surf. You had only picked up surfing recently and were much of an amateur then you had cared to admit. She rushed over to as you were coughing up salt water on the shore and ythe two of you clicked almost immediately. You hung out less often you wished but she was really more Pogue than Kook anyway so surfing was your two’s main activity. 

“Hey!” she said, answering the phone

“Hey,” you replied. “Come surf with me?” 

“Shit, I’m sorry (y/n). I promised the boys I would come see them tonight since my parents have refused to let me out because of this rain.” 

“Oh,” you said, disappointed. 

“You could come with me.” She offered.  

“Really?” You ask, not quite sure how genuine her offer to go hang out with the Pogues. 

“Yeah, I’d be cool. I’ll...uh...pick you up in 10 ten.” She said and hung up the phone. 

You hadn’t ever really spent much time with any Pogues. Other than the few times they’d had their tongues in your mouth but you didn’t really think that counted. 

“Shit,” you muttered, suddenly realizing that JJ was in fact, one of the boys that you had just agreed to spend your afternoon with. This was bound to be interesting. 

...

True to her word, Kie pulled up to your house tens minutes later and laid on the horn. You slipped the novel you were reading into your bag and ran outside to greet her. 

“I’m here. I’m here,” you said, jumping into the front seat of her car. 

Kie pulled out of your driveway and the two of you made you way to the chateau. 

Kie hopped out of the car and walked into the chateau with easy but you couldn’t help feel a little out of place. This was Pogue territory and it felt wrong for you to be here. 

“C’mon,” Kie said as she held open the front door and waved you inside. 

Kie pointed a boy who currently perched on the kitchen counter, “That’s Pope.” He offered you a small smile and a wave. “John B’s down at the boat.” Then she motioned to the blonde boy flopped on the couch. “And that’s-” 

JJ cut her off, “We’ve met.” 

“Okayyyy,” Kie says a little suspiciously but reached down to take the blunt JJ was playing with instead of asking any further questions. 

“Why is a Kook here?” JJ ask his voice laid with a touch of annoyance. 

“I was trying to surf with Kie but unfortunately you were monopolizing her time so now I’m here,” you answered him, ignoring the face that he was really asking Kie in the first place.  

Pope hopped off the counter and headed to the front door. “Can we go already?” He asked before walking out it. 

“Yes, sir,” JJ says, jumping up his spot on the couch. “Comin’ lightweight?” He looked at you with raised eyebrows. 

“I have a name, you know. You could use it.” You shot back. 

“But that would be no fun, darlin’,” JJ replied with horrible fake southern accent. 

You cross your arms in front of you chest and scowled at him. 

Kie slapped him on the back of his head. “Leave (y/n) alone JJ.” 

He threw his hands in surrender. “Wasn’t me, mamma.” 

Kie rolls her eyes at him and grabbed your hand, leading you to the dock. “Ignore him. He’s an idiot.” 

You look back at JJ and say with a straight face, “I see that.” 

...

Being on the boats with the boys was nice. Well, being on the boat with John B and Pope was nice at least. You could see why Kie would rather spent her days with them than any of the guys from Figure Eight. 

You were successfully ignoring JJ and he didn’t seem to have further interest in annyoing you. You could tell another conversation with him might end nasty so you stayed as far away  as you could considering how small the HMS POGUE was. 

You and Kie were spread out on the bow soaking up the summer sun. Kie pulled her headphones out of her ears and declared that she wanted to swim She pulled her t-shirt off and jumped into the water with John B and Pope following quickly behind. You stood up, squinting at them in the water. 

“Get in!” Kie called to you. 

You held up the book you head been reading as to say, I’m good. She shrugged accepting you answer. 

“Really? You’re not getting in?” JJ asked you from across the boat. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” You said, dryly. You studied his face for a moment, looking for a sign of emotion but found none. 

You turned back to watch Kie and the boys in the water when suddenly you were being pushed off the bow of the boat and into your water. Your book flew out of hand and by some graces of God landed in the boat. 

You came up, hacking up waterr,to see JJ standing over you with a devilish grin on his face. 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” 

“How’s the water?” He smirked at you. 

“You’re a dick,” you snapped at him, swimming over to climb back in the boat. 

“You gotta admit (y/n), it was kind of funny.” John B said from the water. 

Kie reached over and smacked his arm. “Shut up John B.”

“C’mon Kook,” JJ said once you were back on the boat. “Can’t you take a joke or do they not teach you that on your side of the island?” 

You wanted to slap the stupid grin off JJ’s face but instead you just smiled your best fake smile at him. “I can take a joke. Your’s just wasn’t funny.”

You wrapped yourself in your towel, curled up into ball, and officially decided you never wanted to be associated with JJ Maybank. Or ever be friends with him, much less anything more.

...

“You should come hang out with me and the boys again sometime.” Kie offered when she dropped you off later that night.

You gave her a tight smile, “I’ll think about it.” Fully aware that even if JJ was the very last person left on plant earth, you had no intentions of ever going near him again. Your drunk self must have been really far gone to have wanted that boy because he was the worst kind of news and now that you knew it, you were staying far away. For good.

[marmolady]

Livita: Part Two

Book/Series: Endless Summer

Main Pairings: Estela x MC/Taylor (f)

Summary: Post-ending. Freed from Vaanu, Taylor has been building a life with her soulmate… but their family remains not quite complete. Read PART ONE and PART THREE.

Word Count: 3545

Reviews and reblogs are hugely appreciated!

Tagging: @sceptilemasterr​ @saivilo​ @greengroove 

San Trobida, March 2023

 The months initially dragged by; the nervous wait for those vital early milestones agonising. Life had taught Estela that nothing good ever came easily; at any moment this could all turn to tragedy-- she woke up each morning with no expectation that she wouldn’t have lost the baby by the next. Taylor was far more secure in her optimism, though at times it did threaten to crumble. Some five weeks in, the pair were married, officially, in the grounds of Catalyst International’s new San Trobidan resort, surrounded, of course, by their extended family. At the end of the night, Estela had said ‘screw you’ to fate, and confided her condition to her tio, who had wept with joy. His belief in her, the support unyielding as always, did wonders to help her through those most vulnerable days.

After the twelve week scan, there was a joint exhale of relief, and the reality that this was happening at last began to set in. Through those early months, home was San Trobida with Tio Nicolas. In time, Estela and Taylor would return to La Huerta, where they had always planned to raise their child, close to Aleister and Grace’s own little family, and to Diego and Varyyn. Estela would not be fit to travel for a whole lot longer, though, so the time spent with her uncle was precious.  While in San Trobida, Taylor was faced with a rush to establish her youth programmes during the brief window in which she’d be available with her full attention. The country was in the midst of a great rebirth, its people boldly stepping out from the shadows left by the cruel dictatorship that the revolutionaries had brought to its knees. To be able to play her own part in that story was, to Taylor, an immense honour, and a responsibility she took very seriously. Those fleeting months were intense, with meetings on top of meetings and enough networking to test even her people skills. Once the baby arrived, everything else would take a back seat, and her role would be as a part-time counsellor specialising in LGBTQ+ youth, and a mentor to students-- all of which she could carry out from their La Huerta home.

Estela had slowly dialed back her role with Catalyst International-- with both herself and Aleister on parental duties, delegation had become increasingly necessary. She kept up with the few bits and pieces that interested her, primarily assistance and scholarships for San Trobidan students, which allowed her to work nicely in tandem with Taylor, but anything else could be someone else’s problem. Staying with her uncle, a sense of peace had descended upon Estela. Her body gradually changed-- and morning sickness had plagued her-- but she took it in her stride.

The front door creaked as Taylor strode through. “Honey, I’m home!” She found Estela sitting cross-legged on the couch, leafing through a collection of baby sewing patterns. “Hey, are you feeling better?”

“Better. You didn’t have to come home….”

“As if I need an excuse to be with you.” Taylor crossed the room, and sat herself beside her wife. “I finished what I needed to get done. So, I got myself back to where I needed to be.”

Estela huffed happily. “I won’t complain. Maybe we could work on that blanket some more. You know how much of a kick Tio gets out of the sight of me knitting.”

“Yeah,” Taylor giggled. “He laughs, but I’m pretty sure he knows you are more than capable of disemboweling someone with those needles if a threat came up.”

“Of course. A spear could never be so subtle.”

They laughed together, then Estela took Taylor’s hands. “Actually, I wanted to share something with you, in my room. We can knit at the same time.”

Estela’s old room had changed little since she was a teenager; it was a cramped but cosy space, decked out with just a few shelves of childhood possessions and faded photographs upon a narrow dresser. Nowadays, alongside the charred-edged photo of a young Estela on the beach with her mother and uncle, was another of Estela-- now older, far more battle-scarred and world-weary-- on the very same beach, her arms around a smiling Taylor. Sat on that worn single bed, Estela could enjoy the comfort of familiarity as she carried on her journey toward a great unknown… and with her wife beside her, she found the courage to face the shadows that crept in along with those memories.

“Gordita, I made you up some of your horrible patacones,” Nicolas announced, pushing open the bedroom door with a shoulder as he presented a large plate. Since the pregnancy had been announced, Estela had been his gorda, with no care paid to how small her bump might actually be. At six months along, though, the belly was living up to that new nickname. “I despair. You get rid of one dictator, and suddenly we have jumped-up young people thinking they can eat peanut butter and jelly with their patacones. Is this the terrible price of freedom? Have I made a grave error?”

Estela snorted with laughter, taking the plate as her uncle kissed her forehead. “And yet you made these up for me; I must be very loved.”

“Always, mija. But you should notice there are some with mango salsa for your poor wife. I won’t have her suffer for your insanity.”

Taylor smiled, gratefully taking a patacone.Nicolas has been doting on the both of them relentlessly since the news had been broken-- Taylor didn’t think she’d ever seen him quite so happy. When the time finally came for them to leave for La Huerta, it would be a great wrench. “Cheers! You’re the best.”

“I’ll have that in writing, Taylita.” Nicolas’ eyes twinkled as he looked over his nieces. The time was fast approaching that they would be on their way again, ready to start the greatest of adventures. He would miss them so. La Huerta had never been a draw to him-- he’d not visited once-- but there was no doubt in his mind that even his stubbornness would have to concede once Estela had that baby in her arms. There was not a force on heaven or earth that could keep him away. “Okay, gorda. I will leave you to it. I’m sure you’ll let me know if you have any other culinary abominations you want me to whip up.”

“Thanks, Tio.”

Alone together in their small sanctuary, Estela and Taylor cuddled close. Taylor braved a nibble of one of Estela’s controversial patacones and admitted that Nicolas had a point. Those things just weren’t right.

“I’m with Tio,” she said. “Our little nene has played havoc on your taste buds.”

Estela chuckled, more forced than she’d have liked. There was something else on her mind. And it hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“Hey. Are you okay? You had something you wanted to show me?”

For a moment, Estela considered changing her mind. It had been over a decade that she’d avoided this, what was to say that now was suddenly the right time? The bump of a little foot up against her ribs gave her clarity. She wanted to show this to her baby someday; that meant she had to brave it. She pulled up her laptop and placed it on the bedside table, then rummaged in a drawer, taking out a disc.

“It’s… it’s our old home videos.” She took a deep breath. “Tio put it on a DVD ages back to make sure we didn’t lose it, and he had an extra copy made for me. You know, just in case I ever….” Her cheeks became pink. “I… I haven’t watched this for a long time.” How long, she didn’t say, but she didn’t doubt that Taylor would know, understand.

Taylor squeezed her wife, her own pulse quickening. She knew this was huge. “I would love to watch with you. So much. But only if you’re really ready.”

“I think sometimes, the closest thing you’re ever going to get to being ready is wanting to be.” Estela offered a wobbly smile as she picked up on Taylor’s concern. “Mi amor, I’m okay. I’m doing this with you.”

She leaned into Taylor as the DVD began to play. Then came a voice that made her heartbeat quicken.

“Hola Nicolas!” Olivia said, waving with one hand, while she supported the small infant Estela with the other. “Here she is! This is your niece. This is Estela.”

Taylor felt Estela’s hand clench around the bottom of her shirt, clinging on for comfort. She placed her own hand on top and gently squeezed. I’m here.

They watched as Olivia placed the infant in a bassinet, then picked up the camera to give a tour of her home.

“So, this is the first place I lived; my mom’s apartment in Colombia,” Estela explained, her voice shaking at first, then steadying. This… didn’t hurt as much as she’d anticipated. If anything, it was a comfort. The last pieces of film she’d seen of her mother had been that horrifying footage in the Elysian, and the VR warning message from Olivia’s office in the MASADA complex. This was Estela’s mother as she knew her, the person she’d been missing so painfully. There was the inevitable pang of longing as she looked at that face, but the wash of memories made her seem closer than she’d been for so many years. “It was a few months before she had everything sorted so we could move to Tio Nicolas’ place, so Mom made a videotape to send him. A friend at the lab she worked at gave her the camera; it was so Tio could see the new baby, but we used it a long time after that.”

With the apartment tour complete, the camera was placed down on some unseen table or stand, and Olivia came back into the frame, picking up baby Estela and cradling her in her arms.

“If you’re lucky, you might get a smile out of her,” Olivia said, grinning as she gently tickled Estela under her chin. “The twentieth of July was her first real smile. You’re going to laugh at me, but I cried. Maybe you’ll get it when you meet her. She’s just so, so beautiful. I swear I’m addicted to this girl.”

Taylor snuggled under Estela’s arm, and watched, entranced, as the baby on the screen grew and changed under the loving care of her mother, and then uncle as well.

“Wow, Tio Nicolas looks different!” she commented, to Estela’s chuckle. Time, unimaginable stress, and facial hair could do that to a person. It was impossible not to smile as she watched the young Nicolas bouncing his little niece on his foot. That he’d be utterly, totally smitten with Estela’s own child had to be the surest thing in the world. Taylor saw on that screen an image of a dream come true, a future that now lay before her and Estela. God, could I be any more clucky right now?

“That’s going to be us, Taylor. Our own little family.”

Instinctively, Taylor put her hand to Estela’s bump, stroking it. Her family with her soulmate; it wasn’t what she’d been made for, but she was certain it was what she was meant for.

“I’m going to be someone’s mom. When I think about it, it’s just… incredible.” She cuddled in close, and gently kissed Estela’s cheek and forehead. “It means so much that you shared this with me.” She gestured to the screen. That had taken a whole lot of bravery. “Watching this… I see so much of you when I see your mom.”

“She would have been an amazing abuelita,” Estela said softly. Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply. Her mother’s sacrifice had brought her to Taylor. This new family would carry a great deal of Olivia Montoya’s influence, though she’d never know. “Thank you. I know it’s silly for me to say this, but I really appreciate you saying that. I’m gonna do her proud.”

The child on the screen was older now, toddling around the so-familiar house on stumpy legs. She held in her arms a soft doll.

“Oh-- that’s Babydoll. I was… creative at naming things when I was two. Mami gave him to me on my birthday, and I just took him everywhere. It always made sense to me; there was no way in hell Mami would ever leave me it home, so how could I ever leave my baby?”

“So, when you say you always wanted to be a mom?”

“Yeah, it goes back a long way.” Estela stroked her belly, meeting Taylor’s hand there. “I’m glad I had no idea just how rough the path would be… how that dream just burned and died. But we’re going to get there.”

She could see it. A lot of what had made her childhood had been lost in a wash of pain and trauma, but it couldn’t be taken away completely. Those memories, there before her, they were still a part of her. Those warm family moments were hers to pass on to her own child.

“Actually, I think Mom kept Babydoll. Maybe as a souvenir of my brief period of childhood innocence. I should dig him out--” She faltered, and her cheeks flushed. This shouldn’t still be a problem….

Catching on in an instant, Taylor squeezed Estela’s knee, and met her eye with a warm and loving gaze. “We have time. And if we need to enlist Tio Nicolas to do most of the necessary rummaging, that’s fine too. It would be really nice for nene to have something of yours.” Memories were powerful. They made up so much of who each person was. Lacking her own childhood, Taylor had found herself gain a great deal from Estela’s, something that had always been generously shared with no hesitation, in spite of the pain that came with those memories. That family history was important, and it bonded them together.

With a small, appreciative smile, Estela nodded. “Yes… we have time.”

  La Huerta, May 2023

 “Right; tell me. Which end am I kissing?” Taylor scooched forward in the sand, reveling in the gentle heat of the lowering sun upon her back and shoulders.

“That’ll be nene’s back.” Estela gestured to her lower belly, then the top. “Head. Butt. Right where they should be.”

Taylor smiled warmly, and went back to lay another kiss against her wife’s swollen abdomen. “Bub’s got it all worked out. Ready to high-tail it outta there and start lapping up the cuddles.”

“It’s come around fast,” Estela stated. It had. Almost too fast. Pregnancy had been an adjustment for sure, but she’d become comfortable with sharing her body with the small passenger. She could take care of herself, and that meant that baby’s needs were met too. What came next was a great unknown. Estela knew better than most how good intentions of keeping a beloved child out of harm’s way could go up in flames. What her life had been… grateful though she was for the person it had made her, she didn’t want a life like that for her baby. She could tell herself that it would be different, that the fight was over, but she’d seen too much to not be protective. The person she might have gone to for reassurance, the person who’d truly have understood, was long lost to her. Rarely had Estela missed her own mother more than in these days leading up to the big event. It made her all the more grateful for Taylor; already completely besotted with the tiny person they were waiting to meet. In Taylor, her loving hero, she had all the faith in the world.

“Yeah...” Taylor put on a forlorn gaze as she looked up into Estela’s shining eyes. “Just a few more days, and I won’t be able to outrun you anymore. I’m pretty devastated.”

“You’re a beautiful dork, Taylor. But don’t worry. You’ll be able to keep ahead of nene for a few years, if you’re lucky.”

Taylor snuggled into Estela’s lap, and together, they watched the sun journey towards the horizon. The rising tide licked at their bodies. All was peaceful, tranquil; the only sounds were the rolling of the waves, the calls of tropical birds, and the distant laughter of children in Elyys’tel, voices carried upon the wind. Taylor quietly studied Estela from head to toes, taking in everything. The pregnancy had added further lines to Estela’s scar-painted body; marks of something happy at last. Her carriage gave off a quiet confidence; the baby was safe in its strong, resilient vessel. And in Estela’s face, once the vision of heavy burdens, so great that it might might have been those of the whole world… quiet, happy serenity. Taylor felt a wave of affection wash over her. It happened to her a lot. Goodness knew how she’d ever get anything done when she had Estela and the baby to love on all day.

“Estela?”

“Mi amor?”

“You know, I think a part of me is going to miss this. Being able to put my arms around you and hold the two people I love most in the world at the same time.”

Estela’s lips quirked into a smile. “You’ll still be able to do that. Soon enough, baby will be hugging you back.”

“It’s… got to be normal to be a little scared, right? I’ve got nothing, nothing at all to look back and remember as a reference for how the hell to raise a kid. What if I--”

“Taylor.” Estela took Taylor’s face in her hands; gentle but firm. God, Taylor… no one could ask for more than to be loved by you. “I’m scared too. But I’d be a hundred times more scared if I wasn’t doing this with you. It’s a whole actual person depending on us. A whole person we could screw up in a million different ways. But we won’t. Taylor, look at me. You won’t. Just… be scared with me. And all of us… we’ll be okay.”

Taylor pulled herself up and put both arms around Estela. Holding the two people she loved most at the same time. To be scared with Estela was almost to not be afraid at all. “You’re right. Wise Mama Estela.”

“Because of you. Don’t forget that.” And Estela kissed the tip of her beloved’s nose, growing cold with the retreat of the sun. She gave a little wink. “Mama Taylor.”

Her eyes glazing dreamily as she stared out to the sunset over the sparkling sea, Taylor felt a little kick against the arm that she had around Estela’s middle. She didn’t even need to look to know that there would be the most beautiful of smiles across her wife’s face. Pure elation. Mama Taylor? She could get used to that.

[queensdivas]

Hidden Blade Chapter 1

Y’all I’ve been to excited for this because I loved this movie with a passion. (Nothing beats Bohrap btw but damn 6 Underground was awesome not just because of Ben. Though he really made the movie even better.) If you’d like to be tagged in future chapters please hmu! 

Please enjoy and I’ll see you guys in the next chapter or one of my updates. I’m on a train ride to London from Edinburgh so it’s about five hours. I plan on getting a crap done this ride so you might be seeing multiple updates! 

Enjoy! 

Next Chapter

Masterlist

Governments should always be in fear of who they govern over..those who are being governed should never be living in fear of who they are ruled over. Yet we live in a world where those in power abuse it badly so they can live the lavish life of the vices, greed, lust, and even the gluttony of having everything at their feet. Those who suffer under those sadly are living in a society in fear, hate, and uncertainty of whether they’ll be okay by the end of the day. 

That’s where I come in. 

You have to start somewhere small in order to cause a chain reaction. That lovely snowball effect. I start small by cutting off the suppliers resources, such as their plants, dirty shacks, and even the old warehouses. Once the resources are extinguished, I then move up to those in high up positions in order to really cause the rolling to begin. 

Yet I was given an opportunity to do a little more good with a lot less strings attached. Who doesn’t love a little more freedom. But what I was offered was complete freedom and who wouldn’t want complete freedom. 

You ever played the Assassins Creed games? I like to consider myself a walking version of that except no magical abilities, no special creed, or even a long line of ancestors that are meant to look similar and only the first three or four games nailed the similarities. Not the point. For those of you who’ve never heard of those games, imagine someone who's able to scale an entire flat building, stand on top of a metal cross, and even have some really cool equipment to help get the job done. We’ll be getting to those a little later. 

My name is eight. The Assassin. 

What’s the difference between a Hitman and Assassin you ask? One gets paid to do any form of killing for money, the other one does it for either political or religious reasons in this world of ours. But you both kill people? True. Never declared myself a saint anyhow in this world so shush! Story time! 

I pulled up to one of the abandoned planes to turn off my 4runner and climb out. Love the whole abandoned airfield look for the hideout. Really gives that fast and furious sort of vibe. How many movies are in the series anyhow? 

A ram truck came pulling up next to my 4runner as I began grabbing all my junk to hopefully store somewhere that was a little more secure than my new apartment here in California. Keeping a bunch of ropes, weapons, and my vast amount of foreign fruit would get me busted and I certainly love my Nectarine! 

“Glad to know I wasn’t the only one brought into this little adventure.” He appeared in front of me as I swung my duffle bag right on my shoulder. I closed the door as I turned to see him all dressed in american/military gear. An American soldier? Real power move.  

“Glad to see we got ourselves a soldier. Eight.” I held my hand out to him as he shook it. 

“Seven. At Least according to that dude.” He pointed as one came out of a tiny airplane and smiled. 

“Weird to see you not looking like a GAP model.” He showed up at my apartment in Israel looking like he walked out of Sunday church for some god knows reason. At first I thought he was apart of Jehovah's witness but as you can see we’re about to kill some mother fuckers.

“Ah really funny. Come meet the rest of us oh so lovely fellow campers.” We walked into the base as a women with blonde hair was reading a map while another woman was reading what looked like some sort of medical book. 

“Ladies this is seven and eight our newest batch of newbies. The one reading the map is two and in the cap is five. Not sure where the other two are but I imagine they’ll be showing up sometime soon.” I gave them a small wave as I put my bag on the ground next to the large table. 

“Look who finally showed up. Four this is seven and eight our eyes from the sky.” He tossed his hoodie down on the table as he gave us a small smile. The last member came into the room which is what I’m assuming was three. 

“There’s this trick that we all do to get through our day. We take a box and into that box, we place all the horrors of the world, all the wrongs humans do to one another. And then we close the box and pretend it doesn’t exist. Only some of us spend too much time inside the box. We’ve lost our ability to pretend. We know there’s too much unfinished business in this messed up world. Our job as ghosts is to do the dirty work the living can’t or won’t. And we do it from here. This is our haunted house. It’s a lot like the Batcave, except it’s nothing like the Batcave. Seven, eight. You’re dead. You’re gonna be restricted to cities that you’ve never visited before. People that you’ve never met. All of course your fellow ghost, none of whom you’ll know by name, only number, for safety, and so no one gets too close.” I mean. All we need is a butler, some random child to say “geez guys” and I think we would be set. 

“So basically what we’re doing is a sense of a justice league but with no moral codes?” Asking as One nodded. 

“Yes. Except Wonder Women uses guns and Batman is okay with killing people.” I..okay that works. 

“Each one of us has our own little gifts we bring to the table and now that we’ve required you two, we now officially have a set team.” 

“We’re like the A-Team but on steroids except Mr. T is this guy.” The Spainard commented as everyone just stared him down. 

“In your vast dreams.” One commented.

“Will we be required to wear matching rings?” Asking which made I believe his name is four chuckle a little. 

“Funny. Alright c’mon I wanna show you two something.” We all followed him into another room where a wall covered with nine pieces of paper with a single roman numerals on each one. 

“This is our target hitboard. These nine fuckers have been placing too much shit inside the box. So now they answer to us. Target number one: this prick. The Dictator of Turgistan Roach Alimov.” I walked over to his photo and began studying the guy. Radiates small dick energy already from all the work I’ve done over there, kind of like Kim Jong-Un except he doesn’t flaunt his money. 

“God I’m really craving french fries. Can we finish this over at Luckies?” I believe he’s three asked the group as I began walking past the other eight pieces of paper as I lightly saw their faces. Efrain Gracian. He runs the largest drug cartel in Mexico and has been killing a shit ton of innocent people in their villages. Oh my god they put Kim Jon-Un on their target list hell yeah. 

“So we plan on just killing all these pricks because they keep shitting on their countries and the rest of the world?” Leaning against the wall facing them as one nodded. 

“I say we finish this thing at Luckies. I’m really feeling a shitty beer to set the mood of introductions.” One began walking out of the fort as everyone else followed except for me as I looked at the wall again. Figured there would be less on the board in all honesty. 

~~~

I slipped into the booth with myself facing the middle of the window and the inside of the restaurant, seven sitting to my left while four was on my right. To think that I’m now officially dead and I cut all my ties off when I left home so no funeral. Bet they thought I was already dead anyhow so this works nicely. 

“So what do you bring to the table?” I was asked as I tossed my car keys on the table. 

“The soundless steps of a killer is what I bring to the table. You guys make a shit ton of noise if I think I know who you are. I’m assuming you guys we’re the one destroying Florence?” His eyes widened a little which makes my assumption correct cause these fuckers really had fun in Florence. 

“Florence was an absolute disaster.” He stopped talking as the waiter came to the group. 

“A round of Heineken for everyone. Then whatever else they want.” I ordered as everyone smiled a little as they began ordering their preferred drinks. 

“Figured you’d be a good match since you graciously just bought us all drinks. So if you’re a soundless killer, who have you eliminated?” You can thank the new democracy in South Sudan, and ending an entire sex trafficking operation in Chad. Both we’re super difficult to achieve but damn I did an awesome job. Both were run by major cunts obviously and took months of planning to even get close to them. 

“Who do you think got rid of the cunt from South Sudan?” Seven looked over at me then leaned across the table. 

“You killed Zafir Bahri?” Seven asked as I nodded. 

“Yup. Yet it was one of my most difficult assassinations since I had to make a break for it in the countryside. Kind of stuck out like a sore thumb till I made it to a reservation station.” The waitress came with the first round of beers. Four took a big gulp of his beer then sighed. 

“Alright if we’re going to show off what our past selves have done. I got the chance to steal a 5.0 carat ruby necklace that had two smaller diamonds that were about 4.2 carats that was about 100,000 dollars worth.” Yet he’s sitting here in an American restaurant drinking some shitty beer and eating high heart attack food? Sounds about right. 

“And here you are in America drinking Heineken and about to eat a very greasy double cheeseburger. Cheers” I grabbed my bottle as he did for us to clink our bottles together. Four seems super chill actually and now I’m kind of curious how he pulled off that heist. 

“So. What’s the absolute best thing about being dead? I mean you don’t have to pay taxes anymore.” Seven asked the entire group as they all had an inner conversation with themselves about the best part of being deceased. 

“No more dmv lines, no more shopping for Christmas.” Christmas has always been stressful for my old life and I didn’t even celebrate it!

“Or backstabbing girlfriends.” Raising my eyebrow at four. Damn someone broke his little heart. I’d play the worlds saddest song on the tiniest violin but not sure if he would get the reference. 

“They should make an “Out of office” reply for dead people. Sorry I’m away from the planet right now. I’m fucking dead.” That’s a bit much but if it makes her feel better about being dead then let her do her own thing. 

“No more tax, no more criminal records, no more getting arrested by the pigs just for being naked and or just the usual stuff. You know, being naked, getting drunk. Casual stuff.” How is being naked casual? Since when is being naked considered casual in any standard? 

“Umm. How is being naked any form of being casual?” He took a drink of his beer as he licked his lips.

“Ya know. Just walking around naked on your balcony or even on your front porch. It’s a casual thing.” I..I still don’t see that as a casual thing. Around the house yes because oversized t-shirt and underwear is always a comfy.

“Is that like when Jersey people say it’s a jersey thing?” Before he could answer One chuckled a little. 

“Guys. You’re all wrong. The best thing about being dead is the freedom. I mean, we’re all gonna die. May as well do it while we’re alive, right? When you’re young, you lock yourself into all of these bad decisions. Marriages, mortgages, and all that kind of stuff. But you die. It’s all escaped. Poof! Gone! From that point forward, all that matters is what you choose. The point is that we should bring seven and eight behind the curtain. You wanna hand me those over there?” Three handed him a bunch of plastic cups as leaned a little more forward on the table. I looked out of the corner of my eye to see him quickly glancing away back at the demonstration. Guess he’s kind of cute, not exactly sure how getting involved with people on the team is viewed. Rather avoid the whole situation. 

“Alright here. A little deminsation, no technology. So this is how to stage a coup in three not so easy steps. Alright you got a country, Turgistan right? These are the people, nice people, going about, doing their thing. Then you got the four generals, cuatro cunts, very bad guys. But there’s one worse guy. That’s the piece of shit dictator, right there at the top.” Sounds about right. That was basically the entire set up in South Sudan. 

“Don’t forget his brother.” Brother? Oh yeah, the guy has a brother that basically has been isolated or off the face of the earth at this point. Gotta love it when Governments hide those wanting a better world, or hiding sick pedophiles when they fake suicides so they don’t go to prison or end up being executed. 

“Democracy loving brother.” So we’ve got a shitty dictator and a loving democratic. Of freakin’ course!

“He’s the key. So we’re gonna hit the four generals. They’re gonna lead us to the brother.” 

“You kill top Generals, you fuck the dictators day.” Three shoved a few French fries in his mouth. 

“Can confirm.” I took a big gulp of my beer as I leaned back against the booth.

“Second thing we're gonna do is free the brother. And the last thing we’re gonna do is we’re gonna say goodbye to piece of shit dictator and hello to democracy loving brother.”

“It all goes down in four months, El Dia de los Muertos, The Day of the Dead.” Kinky.

“Oh that’s it?” Seven and I looked at each other for the both of us to nod in approval of the plan. 

“Um well that’s pretty simple ya know. The cups.” I took a drink of my beer as I began mentally seeing the whole plan in my head. 

“Wonderful presentation.” We’re gonna die aren’t we?

“So we’re all gonna die?” At this point I say that’s a hard yes. 

“Not me.” What confidence she has because there’s something about her that just kind of scares the shit out of me. Must be something federal in her former life.

“She’s not, we all are. Painfully.” Peachy. Real fucking peachy. But hey I’m already technically dead so this works out perfectly in the end. Just when my body shows up at someones house or is found floating on the coast, going to be quite a headache trying to figure out since I’m already dead. 

Maybe I should be more optimistic with this new life. Could be worse. I could be stuck in a work camp in Siberia. Maybe we just see where this goes and if it doesn’t end well I just disappear into the unknown. Sounds like an absolute plan! 

Taglist:

@bonafiderocketqueen @filmslutt @imjustboredso @intoanothermind @4lendow-norris @wickedholland 

@takemetoneverland420 @art-flirt @intoanothermind @raylan-c

[themoonstarwarrior]

PLAYLIST SHUFFLE TAG!

Okay, so @viterbofangirl tagged me in this and I need to start learning to post my own shit, so what the hell, why not?

Rules: you can usually tell a lot about a person by the type of music they listen to! put your favorite playlist on shuffle and list the first 10 15 songs, then tag 10 people. no skipping!

(I couldn’t stop at 10 so I added 5 more, sue me)

I have very random music taste and I listen to my music on shuffle alot, so I made a playlist of the ones I like the most (that way I don’t hafta skip 150 songs to get to the one I feel like) so I’m gonna use that one.

1) History of Violence - Theory of a Deadman

Hoo boy starting off light huh?.... Yeah so, I was in the drive thru at Sonic when I first heard this on the radio and was immediately like “holy shit”. Instead of like metaphors and poetic subtlety, it’s just straight up like “here’s a poor abused woman who resorted to murdering her shitty boyfriend/husband cuz she couldn’t take it dum dum dum”. Even though the actual situation is not the same, this song is perfect for getting across the internal issues and turmoil of my character Mikey. Its so perfect I’m even planning to animate something for it...... if I ever get around to learning animation that is.....     

2) The Vengeful One - Disturbed

Two songs in and I look kinda emo.... But hey this song is soooooo cathartic! I love me a good heavy rock song, and the drums and electric guitar are perfect for my ears to absorb. This song gives off a feeling of overwhelming power mixed with a coldness and disdain for the bad in the world. Obviously, thats not my usual temperment, but its an interesting one to explore! Especially when I’m trying to get into the head of characters that exude that like my OCs Spark or Ryu. Plus its fun to sing in the car X)

3) Enter Sandman - Metallica

Okay this one is just a classic! Same thing with the drums and guitar they both slap SOOOOO GOOD. I don’t really associate this song with any of my characters or fandom favorites, but it DOES give me a super strong urge to learn the drums. EXXXXXXXXIT LIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT! OFF TO NEVER NEVERLAND!!

4) We Are Giants - Lindsey Stirling ft. Dia Frampton

I don’t really to listen to music by band or artist, but I LOVE Lindsey Stirling!!! She’s probably my favorite musician! This is such a good song, especially for someone like me. Its a positive song that talks about feeling alone in a crowd and unimportant to the world, but how you really do matter and shouldn’t be afraid to dream big and shoot for the stars. It really speaks to me and the vocalization is so good (especially for singing), not to mention the official music video is animated and AMAZING!

5) Cetus - Lensko NCS

I dunno if anyone knows this song, but damn its good. Its one of those Royalty-Free songs that people look up for their channels, which is how I found it in the first place, but I loved it immediately. Its a peppy 8-bit electronic bop that turns a little Irish jig at the end and honestly I think if I ever start an animation channel I’m totally gonna use it! (Also go support Lensko he make good beats!)

6) Sanctuary - Utada Hikaru

I did not grow up with Kingdom Hearts, and only played KH2 within the past year n’ a half. But good God, the moment that Cinematic Opening came on and this song started playing I swear I astral projected into a daze of feelings without names. I know that “Simple and Clean” is the quintessential Kingdom Heart song that gives everyone feelings, but IMHO Sanctuary blows it out of the water. As beautiful as the animation was, or how curious the occasional backwards lyrics are, or how weird it is having high-res Goofy and Donald in what is essentially an anime opening, I really can’t be distracted from this song when I play.

7) Chemical Plant Zone (Rock Remix) - Zerobadniks

Chemical Plant Song is like, one of the TOP Sonic songs by popular vote (and we know how awesome the Sonic series is musically so thats saying something!), but I could never quite vibe with the normal 8-bit version. I think I first heard this as someone’s ringtone and was immediately like “THATS PERFECT THATS EXACTLY HOW I NEED IT!”. The rock makes the song soooo much better and honestly gives the song the perfect vibe. Unfortunately, it took FOREVER to find cuz none of the Rock Covers of this song were the right one. In fact, tbh, I’m not even sure whether Zerobadniks is the correct artist..... that’s just who everybody was crediting when I found it. 

(imma include the link i found since its a little hard to find: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqJiZEM6aPI )

8) The Wolf - SIAMES

YOU WANNA TALK ABOUT ANIMATED MUSIC VIDEOS???? THIS IS A GOD-TIER ANIMATED MUSIC VIDEO. I found the video first, and seriously, if you haven’t seen it YOU NEED TO!!! The beat works perfectly with the images on screen and the story being portrayed is really intriguing, with the lyrics adding to atmosphere without necessarily describing the visuals shown. Even without the animation, the song itself is a banger. It bring to mind the feeling of intense motion forward, but unable to decide whether its movement TOWARD something or AWAY from something. I love listening to this on a nighttime drive.

9) Burn the House Down - AJR

If you ask me, the best way to make a pop song better is to add either violins or trumpets. For this song, it was definitely the trumpets that first caught my attention, and the rest of the song kept me listening. I don’t really know how to describe the vibe of this song, and I don’t have a specific character or story in mind when I listen to it, so its a little hard for me to talk about it. I think the best way I can describe this song and what draws me to it is a feeling of nonchalant go-with-the-flow attitude to shenaniganry. Almost an undertone of “We’re hooligans in a situation that we probably should get out of, but hey we’ve got life and each other so why worry?” At least that’s the closest I can get to a verbal description heh...

10) Slim Pickens Does the Right Thing and Rides the Bomb to Hell - The Offspring 

DANCE, FUCKER, DANCE, LET THE MOTHERFUCKER BURN!!!

So this also has a KICKASS animated music video, but its technically combined with the song “Dividing by Zero”. Now the video works SO well with both, and the shifting artstyles reflect the differing tones of the songs PERFECTLY. However, I have a preference for both the animation and the song on the Slim Pickens half. Its fun to listen to and sing at the top of your lungs and its SO CATHARTIC. Again I cant really describe what my head does when I hear it, but I think you can probably feel a similar vibe if you watch the music video. 

11) No Heaven - DJ Champion

The first time I finished the original Borderlands, I had been playing for days on end, had just finished a long battle with the Destroyer, and sitting back relieved to have beaten it and reflecting on how much I had enjoyed the adventure. Then this song started playing. For what I believe was forty minutes this song looped on my TV while the credits rolled. By the time the credits finished I was pulling up the song to listen to again! What an absolutely PERFECT cherry to add to this experience. This song perfectly encapsulated the chaotic, trigger-happy, morally ambiguous craziness that I had enjoyed and absorbed in this game. Every time I hear it now, I imagine myself in the wastelands of Pandora, driving haphazardly across the sandy dunes as my companions and I shoot and blow up everything in sight. You know, living the dream.......     

12) Hit & Run (Wolfgang Lohr Remix) -  The Electric Swing Circus

I fucking LOVE electro-swing! The electronic beats and rhythm blend so well with the wild and energetic freedom of swing. A lot of electro-swing gives me a vibe of wild movement, reckless abandon, and freedom from constraint. I think this song melds all of these feelings the best! As the last song might have indicated, despite my general nice and sweet temperament, there is a part of me deep down that is an absolute gremlin secretly enamored with chaos, insanity, and a general disdain for law and authority X). But whereas anything Borderlands related has a more “morality is an illusion blowing shit up is real” air about it, this song is far more peppy. More of a “good-hearted but insane” type of chaos, like an 100mph car chase where you end up sailing over the train tracks JUST as the train passes.

.... I may have gotten a bit off track lol 

13) Kickstart my Heart - Motley Crue

I love this song, but I have to be VERY careful when and where I listen to this. I love songs that make me feel like I’m going a million miles per hour, like I’m gotdam Sonic the Hedgehog. Unfortunately, I may or may not have had multiple instances of listening to this song in the car and abruptly realizing that I’m going like 15mph above the speed limit...... So yeah, regardless of absolutely perfect it feels to play this song while speeding down a nearly empty highway, please be careful and drive responsibly!!!

14) I’m Born to Run - American Authors

Imma just up and say it. This song is a Sonic song; like not like actually from the series but a song for the character. This song encapsulates Sonic as a character better than some of his ACTUAL THEMES (and remember Sonic music are bangers!). Its a song about freedom, living life as it comes, and not letting anything slow you down. Frankly I’m surprised they didn’t make this song FOR the Sonic series, or even the movie! Speaking of which, ironically I heard this song right after watching the Sonic movie in theaters, so yeah there’s no way I can associate it with anything else. 

15) Opa Opa - Antique

Oh, what a PERFECT way to end this list! This may be one of my absolute favorite songs of all time! I don’t remember exactly how I found this song... I think I had just relistened to Dalar Mehndi’s “Tunak Tunak Tun” and was looking for other catchy non-english songs and BOY HOWDY I found one! I know nothing about the band or what the song’s about (its in greek and i dont speak it), but this song is just a masterpiece of retro, pop, and dance sounds. This song feels like the musical and lyrical manifestation of dance and movement. I really REALLY wish I could dance JUST so I can express how happy and free this song makes me feel! This is the BEST song for me to end this list with!

***********************************************************************************

JESUS, this got long..... Sorry about that XD. It was fun though, and hopefully somebody was vaguely interested in my ramblings.

Guess I need to tag people now? How about @tharkflark1, @rockmilkshake, @neonbuck, @drawingsdrawingseverywhere, @birthgiverofbirds, @puccafangirl, @kalcat, @biblestudybussybopsbabey, @monstrous-milktea, and @memecage! I think there are a couple of people here I haven’t talked to though soooooo..... hi, I hope you don’t mind the tag X)

 Anyway hope you enjoyed and/or want to do this too! This took for-fucking-EVER to type, so imma go fuck off and watch youtube or something now...

[incorrectquotes-randomthoughts]

(This is so long I’m sorry but I had to rant cause honestly I’m scared )

I literally made a post the other day about how we have to welcome in new fans and treat them equally but truth be told? I’M. NOT. FUCKING. READY

Bitch bitch bitch I mean I’mma have to stand this kids hardcore shipping Luke x Annabeth ???? Or Luke x Thalia ???? SIS they’re SIBLINGS wth Annabeth realized it later on it changed there was an arc.

Like this fandom closed the discussion on Luke’s redemption arc and the way he is and his motives we agree we have opinions but we’re FINE. Are you telling me ma boy is gonna be played by some hot teen (he is older) and 12 y/o’s are gonna be biased and I’m gonna have to yell at them across a screen cause they’re gonna act like Luke is a saint !!!!??

THE SHIPS. FUCKFUCKFUCK. BoTL Percy spent worried about Nico and if it’s done properly we’re gonna have all that worry face first and no one’s gonna be able to ignore it like the AMOUNT OF PEOPLE who are gonna say that’s OTP. I mean SHIT.

I haven’t even been in the [internet] fandom for that long like how I’m I supposed to go against this people who were here before me I mean they LEFT but what arguments do I have !?!?

The amount of people who only read pjo and went BYE like I can’t bring HOO up in discussions wdym????? How I’m I supposed to talk development and change and character arcs and what would they do in certain situations if you’ve never heard of them ????

I’M NOT READY

Y’all wanna know something terrifying? The maze runner fandom. Because there’s so little creators out there who actually love it the way I do and so much of it is obsessed with Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Newt I haven’t been there since I finished the books I couldn’t stand it. And I can’t stand the fact that our Percy actor is gonna be good-looking and I’m TERRIFIED of the amount of people who are gonna be here for what the actors look like you can’t understand this.

I MEAN all them debates are coming back up I can’t do this. This is such a fantastic fandom (and I’m in many, trust me) like we’re all at peace there’s no arguments you can literally come by and just vibe.

OH FUCK ANOTHER THOUGHT. So since we’re getting official characters and stuff I swear if ONE IDIOT hates on viria’s or Livibis’ or Markiehh’s art (they’re the one’s at the top of my head) because it’s “inaccurate” or “far off” from what they look on screen they better watch the fuck out because they have no idea the fandom they’re messing with.

OH AND SHIT I know this has been brought up but the way we treat Nico??? All baby and soft and all that and how our fanon Nico is just so different from the actual canon kick-ass Nico, ya know? But we kinda understand how powerful Nico is but we still love him cause poor kid was 10 and then all of it happened and he was 13/14 (?) during tlo and the PTSD so we’re chill with that BUT. There’s the fact that our son is gay and god the amount of people who are gonna come in (cause there’s obviously gonna be foreshadowing) and be like “ooh gay baby look at him” that’s badly explained but I know you guys understand. And specially if we get to HoO and the horrors getting to ToA would be. Like we already have our fanon Nico but if someone DARES to even IMPLY that Nico can’t kill you with a thought the entire fandom know better and will prove them wrong. But the new fans what would they know.

You know what’s going to be fucking horrible ???? PARENTS. I mean UGHHHHHH. My parents only know I’m reading what I tell them I’m reading (“a book about Greek mythology”). Like I’m terrified of my mom picking up The Burning Maze sitting on my desk or any Cassandra Clare book cause the homophobia in this household is astronomical. (Don’t know how many of you will understand but the PANIC I went through reading the red scrolls of magic? God knows she would check every book I get form the library from the on) Back to the point sorry. But y’all pjo is mostly safe but Rick already talks about how parents complain about adding a Genderfluid character to a Norse mythology book (I mean Ma’am go educate yourself) and how his books “would be more successful without [gay] characters” ???? What if we get Kane Chronicles some asshole is gonna come up about Sadie being polyamorous, Alex and Magnus are gonna be a problem, Will and Nico, House of Hades is gonna make Karens riot because of one scene.

You can see how Disney treats Seblos (hsmtmts) compared to the other couples on the show. You can see how not even half of Andi Mack is actually on Disney+ (after getting brutally canceled) you can see how Diary of a Future President hasn’t been renewed when it’s reviews are 100% for both critics and public. How the Love, Simon series was removed (now on Hulu) because it wasn’t a good mix with “the family-friendly content on Disney+” (underage drinking + s*x are brought up in discussions but the show isn’t out yet and we have no idea). So pardon me for being scared of how this is going to be treated.

Back to the new fans. I’m gonna say the topic that’s the most brought up that causes discussions is Leo (?) Tbh I’m still lost on the Leo x Echo thing that everyone else seems to understand. Plus the hate on Caleo is probably the biggest issue in this fandom. (Which is like saying the biggest problem in a perfectly written essay are some barely noticeable erase-marks, but still). Anyways a fair amount of people dislike Leo for reasons I kinda comprehend. I know a kid and he’s the exact definition of Leo, (I’ll probably talk about this in an individual post) and people don’t like him, I know most of you would avoid him. I know he’s great but people just don’t seem to like him.

(wOw i’M sO gOOd aT sTaYInG oN tOpiC)

I don’t think I’m gonna be able to survive hate on characters that probably WILL come.

Solangelo is called rushed a lot and I would want to see this two fall for each other and Nico let down his walls and talk about his PTSD from Tartarus (which friendly reminder Percy saw for a few minutes the way Nico saw it the whole time and it was the worst part of his entire experience there). But I mean there WERE six months between BoO and ToA, I am pretty sad we didn’t get to see them.

oH JESUS follow-up on Nico earlier; the fetishization, or Apollo, or Will.

Ok... ha, this is fun....

OH WAIT NEW THOUGHT SJDJDJD On the topic of Luke’s redemption arc... BIANCA,, they better do my girl properly who thought she had stayed months at the Lotus Hotel babysitting her lil’ brother and then was put into a school where they were outcasts and she probably knows as much as Nico about mythomagic from his rants and she thought he was gonna be safe and she wanted freedom and be her own person so she joined the hunters. And as a fandom we’ve talked this out but what about the new fans, they better not try to act like she did anything wrong cause that’s just not-

OH AND no one better hate on Clarisse cause yeah she’s the minor antagonist but she’s a very well-written character who doesn’t change the way she is but is kinda less of an ass towards Percy. And she and Silena are good friends and she and Chris are dating and she is a human being with valid feelings. She was terrified for Chris in BoTL and cared for him and nurse him back to sanity and stayed with him. She throws Percy and Annabeth into the lake which so it’s prove she and Percy are more in the friendly banter I-won’t-admit-how-much-I-care-for-you-if-it-meant-my-life relationship. Then this doesn’t happpen until the last two books (seasons?) so we can’t actually go around saying it? In SoM we learn about how Ares treats her which is SO important so I guess S1 comes out and we sit here telling new fans “You’ll know next season” cause we can’t directly spoil it and then we’re like “You gotta wait for seasons 4 and 5” ugghhhhh this is too much.

Ok I’m done for now I’ll reblog this with any new terrifying thoughts when if they come.

[fericita-s]

Courting Secrets

“Secrets are the things we give to others to keep for us.” Elbert Hubbard

As Agnarr and Iduna grow closer during their courtship, Iduna struggles with how much she can reveal to Agnarr about her past.

Thanks @the-spastic-fantastic for editing this and especially for the great quote on secrets that really sets this up!

Part of When All is Lost, our canon-compliant (mostly) series on Agnarr and Iduna. 

Agnarr came to the shop at closing time, greeting Mr. Visser on the way in.

“Good afternoon, King Agnarr.  Iduna’s in the back.  I’ll go get her.”  Mr. Visser turned to walk towards the back of the store, but Iduna had heard the bell on the door and came into the storefront and Agnarr found himself matching her sunny smile.

Agnarr showed her the basket he was carrying with a meal prepared by the kitchen staff. “Minister Wollen suggested I take you on a picnic.”

“Oh? And will Minister Wollen be coming on this picnic?” Iduna tucked her hair behind her ear. She started the day with it in a long braid, but during her work some strands had escaped and Agnarr liked the way it fell around her face.

“No, but my guard will be nearby.” He gestured to where they stood at attention outside of the apothecary. “Discrete, they promise.”

Iduna took his arm, said good-bye to Mr. Visser, and they walked through the Market Square with Agnarr pausing to greet those who wanted to shake the king’s hand.  As they left the town proper, they made their way up into the steep hills.

“Where are we going on this picnic? The North Mountain?”

“No, I thought we could go up to the waterfall.  There is a nice flat spot there to lay down the blanket for us. For food.  We’ll put the food out on the blanket and then sit down on it.” Agnarr was becoming flustered, nervous about their first time together since he had notified the council of his intent to officially court Iduna. He thought that after his confession to her in the woods of his affection for her, their kiss, his finally making his intentions clear, that all would be comfortable in their friendship once more.  But this was unexplored terrain, as new to him as kissing her had been. Something he very much wanted to do but wasn’t sure how to do and wasn’t sure how to get right.

They continued their hike in what he hoped she would feel was companionable silence.  His hands started to sweat and his grip on the basket grew tighter. He might not know exactly how to behave on this excursion, but he knew dropping all of their food wasn’t a good way to begin.

***

When they eventually sat down with the food spread out, the guard some distance away, Agnarr handed her a plate.

“Take what you’d like!”

They both served themselves from the generous dinner– fruits and cheese, bread and ham.

He tried to think of something clever to say, but it was Iduna who spoke first.  And she seemed to also be feeling awkward about their designation as a courting couple. “This feels so strange! I know courting is the time to get to know one another well, but I already know so much about you. I don’t know what to ask, or what to say.”

He smiled at her, trying to help her feel comfortable. “Am I so simple that there is nothing left to learn?”

“Well, then, tell me something about you I don’t know.”

“And then you’ll do the same?”

“Certainly.”

Agnarr cast about, trying to think of something impressive to tell her. An award he’d received maybe? The number of languages he spoke? No, he had already confided in her how he didn’t deserve any of the awards he had been given for the failed Northern Expedition and she already knew how many languages he spoke.  He suddenly realized what he could tell her.

“I call you Sunny.  As a nickname.”

He could tell she was surprised. She stopped chewing her mouthful of bread and said “I’ve never heard you say that!”

He smiled, enjoying her show of being flustered. “Well I don’t say it out loud.  It’s just what I’ve used in my head, when I think about you. You have such a sunny smile, and it makes me happy to see you. It’s like seeing the sun, all bright and cheerful, bringing light to darkness.”

Iduna blushed and he hoped that meant she was pleased.  She smiled and he shouted “See! The sun. My Sunny.” As she continued to smile her cheeks turned a deepening shade of red and he asked “Now, what is something I don’t know about you?”

Iduna took a deep breath, her answer coming more quickly than his had. “I didn't know how to read when I started at the academy.  Greet taught me. She was a very good teacher, it only took us a few weeks.”

“Or you were a fast learner.”

“Or both.”

Iduna looked at the view from the waterfall, the whole of Arendelle laid in the valley below, the waterfall a pleasant mist in the air. “You’ve done a lot for your kingdom already. I’m very grateful for the academy and for the chance to have a life here. And for the chance to know you.”

Agnarr set his plate down on the blanket, and took her hand. “And I you.”

***

That night in the boarding house, Iduna thought about the waterfall, and how she had swallowed the urge to say “I’m Northuldra.”  That was something he didn’t know. But could she ever tell him?

***

From the lighthouse, they could see not only all of Arendelle, but the glittering splendor of the ocean all the way to the horizon. Iduna leaned over the railing, pushing her face into the wind, delighting in the feel.  She missed her wind spirit and liked the chance to experience the echo of its embrace.

She thought about saying I showed you how to play with the wind in my forest– the wind spirit tossed us both in the air, and we laughed and you bowed to me and I wish you could remember it too. Instead, she said “I like the feel of the wind. It feels like a friend.”

Agnarr stood next to her, covering his hand with hers. “I’ve noticed that about you. That you like the wind. Whenever we sailed you would lean in to the wind, just like you’re doing now.”

“Hmmm. Then I suppose that can’t count as something you don’t know. I’ll think of something else. But your turn.  You tell me something.”

“If I wasn’t king, I would want to be a sailor. Exploring the seas, seeing new lands. Kings don’t often travel to new places though we do meet people from new lands. When I’m in the sailboat or even the rowboat, I love that feeling of freedom.”

Agnarr brought her hand up to his mouth, and kissed it. “But I wouldn’t want to travel without you.”

He looked into her eyes, and began to lean in close. He watched her lips as she formed the words “You were my first kiss.” Then, shyly, “I like when you kiss me.”

He pressed his mouth against hers, the softness of her lips and the warmth of them better than akvavit.

He pulled back so he could see her eyes again and said “That’s another thing I already knew,” and kissed her smiling mouth with his matching laughter.

***

Agnarr took her inside the clock tower, showing her the gears and the moving dancers that came out to announce the hour. Each time they met, each time they had an official courting outing, he felt less nervous taking her hand. Less awkward. Until eventually it felt natural and calming to be touching her, a balm on a weary day, a shared joy on a good one. Now he had his arm around her shoulders, his other hand pointing to the gears and features of the clocks.

“These dancers were modeled after my grandfather’s sisters.  So I was told, anyway. They died before I was born so I don’t know if it’s a good likeness.”

Iduna leaned into his shoulder, and stayed silent for a while. “Are we still sharing things we don’t know about each other? “

“If you’d like.” He stopped pointing and moved his hands so they were positioned like dancers, his hands on her waist and holding her hand, her arm on his shoulder and hand in his.

“I'm afraid I don’t know what my mother looks like anymore. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her. Sometimes I can remember, and sometimes I can’t.” She leaned into him, putting her cheek on his chest, and his arms came around her in a hug.

Agnarr stroked her back, wishing he had adequate words to tell her how much he wished to carry her sorrow for her. “I’m so sorry you lost your family. I’m so sorry you are far from them. But I am glad you are here. I’m glad you chose Arendelle to be your home.”

She spoke quietly, her voice muffled against his jacket. “Your friendship is why I didn't leave Arendelle.”

“That makes us about even then. I started the academy partly so I could see you again. I bet that’s something you didn’t know. ”

***

When he bade her goodnight at the door to the boarding house as the clock struck ten, Iduna thought of the words she kept from leaving her tongue when they were still in the clocktower.

My brother Duvka brought me a toy with gears like this clock once.

I tried to return home to him and my family but I couldn’t get through the mist.

The day I first noticed that clock tower in the Market Square was the first time I saw you after leaving you at the castle gates.  

And you didn’t remember me.

***

After her riding lesson, Iduna was surprised to see Agnarr in the stables.

“Don’t you usually have a council meeting at this time?” She pulled off her gloves and wiped her forehead with them. It was sweaty work learning to ride a horse.

“We just finished. And I thought of something else you don’t know about me that I could show you here.”

“Oh?” She smiled at his raised eyebrows and playful expression.

“Yes. Lt. Mattias used to bring me here to play hide and seek. He told me it was a good skill for a soldier-in-training to have, which is what I always begged him to treat me as.”

“And how is it that you play this game?”

“I count to thirty and you find a place to hide. Then I come find you. One. Two. Three – “

Iduna shrieked and ran off, already determined to beat Agnarr. She squeezed into a small space underneath a saddle rack and turned towards the wall, biting her gloves to keep from laughing. She wondered what Minister Wollen would think of Hide and Seek as a courting activity.

It seemed less than thirty seconds before Agnarr grabbed her from behind, pulling her out from her spot “I won! I found you! It was easy, nothing in the stables smells as good as you.”

She playfully pushed him, pointing towards the stalls. “My turn now!”

She began to count, covering her eyes with her gloves. When she reached thirty, she began walking through the stables, thinking that with his tall frame and red hair, it wouldn’t be hard to find him. She was looking in the feed cupboard when he stuck his head out of a stall, shouting “Oh Sunny!” She ran to it, but he was already at the adjacent one, shouting “Here, Sunny!” Soon she was doubled over in laughter as he kept appearing in different stalls, the mystified horses whinnying and stepping lively near him.

“Come back out here before a horse kicks you!” she laughed.

Agnarr opened the stall door and grinned triumphantly. “You called mercy.  I think that means I won.”

Iduna nodded in agreement. “I suppose you win this round. But I learned to ride pretty quickly. I’m sure I’ll get better at this too.”

They walked out to a bench outside of the stables, and sat down, Iduna enjoying the shade after her lesson in the sun.  She turned towards him and asked “Do you still miss him a lot?”

Agnarr’s smile faded and he said. “I do.  I loved Lt. Mattias very much. I admired him and wished to be like him. He was so patient with me, never made me feel like I was just his assignment. I know you’ve heard me talk about him before, but what I’ve never admitted aloud is that I miss him more than I miss my father. I was sorry my father died, and I do miss him. But he could be scary. When he was angry, I would hide from him. I think Lt. Mattias saw that and tried to turn it into a game.”

“It sounds like he taught you a lot of useful things.”

“He did.  He also told me that you have to remember your loved ones talking. Remember something they always used to say or a conversation you had with them. And then you’ll actually remember their voice, and you’ll never really forget it. A voice might not be as good as a face, but it’s something to hold onto.  So I do that with him. I try to remember what he said and the stories he told, and it makes him feel real.”

He picked up her hand and squeezed it. “The portrait I had commissioned of him, you remember, the one I showed you when you first saw the library?”

Iduna nodded, she remembered being awed by the sheer number of books, and delighted that she could read any of them at Agnarr’s invitation.  And she remembered the solemn way he had told her about his personal guard and how he had been lost on the Northern Expedition. It had sent a shiver up her spine, a cautionary warning that being from Northuldra was still not a safe thing as long as Arendelle mourned their missing.

“I had that portrait made after he was gone. I described him to the painter, and some others who knew him well did too.  Halima and some of the guards who stayed behind. And the painter got his likeness so well, I can’t believe he’d never seen him. So I thought we could try that with your mother. If you wanted to describe her, what you remember, the painter could make a portrait, and then you would be able to see it and remember her face always.”

Iduna leaned her head on his shoulder, a rush of affection at his thoughtfulness making it hard to speak. “Yes, I would like that.” Then, trying to dampen the emotions that threaten to overwhelm her, she cleared her throat. “I owe you something you don’t know yet about me.” She thought of another gift he had given her, and smiled. “The golden mortar and pestle you got me as a gift when I started at Mr. Visser’s was completely impractical, bordering on the ridiculous, completely unusable, and I love looking at it every day and thinking of your generosity.”

“I didn’t know gold was malleable! I thought a precious metal would be a good substance for a mortar and pestle! And besides, you’ve already told me that.”

The both laughed, and when a servant called them inside to eat dinner, Iduna thought about her mother and how she might still be alive, but with the mist closed, she would never know.

***

Iduna gathered her papers at the end of the council meeting on public health, determined not to let Dr. Wagner’s ill humor bother her. Just because he didn’t see the sense in washing fruit before it was eaten didn’t mean it wasn’t sensible. Agnarr put his hand on her shoulder and said “Come on, there’s something I want to show you.”

Iduna followed, and then stopped in surprise as he took off his boots, placing them in the doorway. “Here’s something you’ve never seen me do.  Ever since I was little, I liked to skate down these long hallways in my stocking feet. It’s especially satisfying after a frustrating council meeting, which I believe we just experienced.”

Iduna gave a snort and took off her shoes as well. “Is it a race?”

Agnarr grinned. “It could be.”

They began sliding down the hall, pushing their feet against the just-polished wood, and Iduna loved the satisfying feel of her feet slipping on the floor.  It was like the wind spirit was pushing her along. She laughed and Agnarr laughed but neither of them slowed down enough before they got to the end of the hallway, and they ended up in a heap of arms and legs and stockinged feet, their laughter echoing down the empty hall.

***

They sat at the top of the tallest castle tower, eating dessert and drinking glogg.  The moonlight lit the stained glass in a way that reminded Iduna of the northern lights.  She wondered if that’s what the architect had in mind.

“I don’t think I’ve learned something new about you today, Sunny,” Agnarr said, offering a piece of chocolate to Iduna.

Iduna looked down at the castle, to a balcony she recognized as the one where Agnarr had given her a necklace on his eighteenth birthday.

“I left your birthday ball early because I couldn’t stand to see you dance with those women, so perfect in their gowns and their titles and their money.” She tried to keep her voice light, to make it seem like a joke.

Agnarr seemed to understand, and kept his answer light as well.  “You didn’t miss much. I accidentally called Lady Alexsandra by your name and she…did not like it.  But it did save me the trouble of having to let her down gently later.”

They kept eating, and as Iduna cuddled closer to Agnarr, she had the urge to tell him about the first time he met her in the northern forest. The first time I told you my name you called me Lady Iduna.

***

Agnarr and Iduna walked hand in hand over the bridge, Agnarr excitedly telling her about the construction, how it was the first project completed by academy graduates, and how it heralded a new era in Arendellian technical achievement. She liked hearing the pride in his voice, the joy he took in the accomplishments of others. And her thoughts to turned to what she couldn’t say.

I remember the dam your people build for mine.  A project that was supposed to bring peace.

If I told you who I was, would you still be happy to be here with me?

Instead she squeezed his hand and said “Did you know that when we were younger, Eir told me I had to stop holding your hand? She said it would give me a deplorable reputation that would never be unsullied.”

Agnarr turned to hold her other hand as well. “I always wondered why you stopped. I’m glad we can hold hands again now.”

***

Sitting on the castle rooftop, eating sandwiches and waiting for the northern lights to wake up the sky, Iduna breathed in the salty air and wished the breeze would pick up. Feeling the wind made her calm, and she craved that feeling. The longer she sat there, the closer she and Agnarr got to an engagement that everyone from Mr. Visser to Eir to Greet to the kitchen servants told her was imminent, the more she wanted to tell him the things he didn’t know about her that might really matter.

The first time I saw you you were lost in the woods, helping a sheep, and right away I could tell you were kind.

I saved you from the battle.

When the trolls found us, I was worried they were harming you but I was too scared to do anything. They told me you might never remember, and I’m both afraid you will and afraid you won’t.

I brought you to the castle and then ran in the shadows so no one would find me. Sometimes I worry no one ever will.

I have a shawl that my grandmother made. Her name is Elsa. I miss her.

I want you to know who I am, but I’m afraid.

[mobius-prime]

222. Sonic the Hedgehog #154

Songoose (Part 2 of 2)

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Ron Lim Colors: Jason Jensen

Today's issue is a bit bittersweet. While Karl Bollers hasn't always been the most popular writer, and I've definitely had my fair share of problems with certain aspects of his writing, it's hard to deny the heavy impact he had on the world of the comic. And this just so happens to be his last issue as a writer! That's right, though we've seen various writers come and go, this is the first time we're truly saying goodbye to a head writer. (You might be wondering about Michael Gallagher given his increasingly infrequent involvement with the series, but fear not, he's still got a few more future issues left in 'im.) Apparently he actually had quite a few plans for the storyline and characters post-StH#134, which was a while ago, but for one reason or another these never came to fruition, and never even had a chance to be salvaged for future issues by other writers due to his leaving the comic. So let's dedicate this issue to ol' Karl and the hard work he put into this comic, and appreciate what he brought to the table over the years. Onward!

It's the night of Mina's second concert, and the various Freedom Fighters are positioned at strategic points around and behind the stage and crowd to guard the venue from any more assassination attempts. Mina is pleased with Sonic's involvement in her protection detail, but Ash is considerably less so, and asks to speak to Mina privately before her performance. Sonic initially tries to refuse to leave her side given his duty to her, but when Ash gets in his face about it Mina steps in and tells Sonic she'll be okay to have a quick chat. Sonic reluctantly leaves the dressing room, and Ash confronts Mina about her decision to go through with tonight's concert, as he really feels it's too dangerous. She reiterates her feeling of security with Sonic around, and Ash's feelings of jealousy finally spill out as he details Sonic's perceived failings, including how he (totally unintentionally mind you) broke her heart a year ago by kissing Sally in front of her. He paradoxically refuses to "forgive" Sonic for… not dating Mina, I guess? Which you'd think he'd be pleased about considering that's the only reason he ever got to date her, but she stands firm against his tirade.

Really bad timing on this, Ash. Honestly, though, as abrasive and jealous as Ash can be, he's not wrong at all about his accusations, and in my opinion has every right to feel slighted and upset. He really does seem like a guy who's flawed yet genuinely likable - I mean, put yourself in his shoes (assuming you're not down for open relationships) and tell me you wouldn't feel the exact same way upon seeing your girlfriend routinely eyeing up another guy. Plus, he isn't flaky - notice that despite breaking up with Mina, he explicitly states his intentions to remain as her band manager. A lesser person might have left their ex high and dry out of spite, but despite their disagreement he's still completely ready and willing to help her organize everything she needs to remain a pop star. Careful, Mina, you better remember "Aly's" advice to you from a few issues ago before you let this guy slip through your fingers…

Outside the room, Sonic gets a call from Sally looking for an update, and when he lets slip that he let her stay in her dressing room alone Sally scolds him for not sticking to her like glue, ordering him back into the room to check on her. When he enters he's surprised to see her sitting alone with a sad expression, asking her what's bothering her. You'd think he'd have some clue of what was wrong considering he would have just seen Ash angrily stomping right through the very door he was guarding, but Mina just says she doesn't know how to explain, which Sonic quietly agrees with the sentiment of. She's able to collect herself for her performance, though, and begins by singing another song that definitely feels inspired by her crush on Sonic. However, Eggman's plan to kill her is still moving ahead, and he sends out Heavy and Bomb (well, Bombs, there's a lot of them) to infiltrate the concert crowd once the concert is well underway.

Sonic immediately grabs Mina and pulls her away from the edge of the stage while the rest of the Freedom Fighters rush in to battle the Bombs, something which I find funnier than it should be considering they're, well, bombs, and the best plan for dealing with bombs on legs would usually be to run the hell away from them before they blow up. Nevertheless, they seem to be holding their own by throwing or smacking the Bombs away before they explode, though Ash finds an excuse in the situation to insist once more than Sonic leave so he can protect Mina on his own, even somewhat spitefully pointing out that Mina was fine without Sonic for an entire year before now. Sonic initially refuses, but when Heavy himself arrives, crashing down onto the stage to target Mina directly, Sonic concedes and tells Ash to take her somewhere safe while he fights the robot one on one. At first Sonic teases and trash talks as normal, but when Heavy gives him more trouble than he bargained for he concocts a plan to drill into the earth and bait Heavy into following him, then drill straight into the nearby lake from below. This washes them both out into the open waters, disabling Heavy in the process. I'm not sure exactly how this plan even works, considering we've seen in previous issues that Heavy is waterproof - I mean, did Eggman take out that feature when he rebuilt him? - but either way, it does work, though Sonic falls unconscious once he gets washed out. Man, between his first battle against M in StH#132 and his easy escape from a watery grave in Anti-Mobius just a few issues ago, it really seems like later comic issues like to play fast and loose with the whole "he can't swim" character trait. Sometimes he can detangle himself from tight rope bonds and swim to safety without a problem, and other times he blacks out within scant seconds of touching water, and you never know which one you're gonna get till the plot calls for it. Of course, he's fine after waking up on shore, having been rescued by Bunnie, and the Freedom Fighters tell him that as far as they can tell they disabled or destroyed every Bomb in the area, meaning Mina is safe once more. With the threat ended, Sonic and Mina say goodbye to each other for the night, with Sonic making Mina promise they'll go out for chili dogs sometime soon. However, this wouldn't be a story if something didn't go wrong…

I like to think that this isn't even a case of the Freedom Fighters randomly missing a Bomb, rather being part of Eggman's plan - send in the big, obvious cavalry first to be fought and predictably defeated, then send in one last little Bomb to finish the job once everyone's guard is down. The explosion alerts everyone outside the backstage area, and they rush in to find Mina sobbing over Ash's body. Don't worry, though - when they rush him to the hospital Dr. Quack is able to get him in a stable condition, meaning that though he has a long slow recovery ahead he'll ultimately be fine. Sonic escorts a distraught Mina into Ash's room, where she admits her true feelings to his sleeping form.

I'm surprised that Sonic genuinely seems a little disappointed at their reconciliation, but then again, he and Mina were clearly shown to have some chemistry even before the time skip, though Sonic was obviously drawn more to Sally. It seems that with he and Sally currently being on the outs, and Mina having split from Ash, he had actually considered taking the chance with her - I mean, they did agree to a chili dog date after all - but now that's obviously not happening. Well, maybe the chili dog date is, but not Sonic and Mina becoming an item. What I'm trying to say is, this page has just sunk your Sonic/Mina ship. Fortunately, with this second failure Eggman has decided that trying to kill Mina is too hard and not worth his time, so she should be safe for now. He still finds himself lamenting the loss of his robotic body, however (something that you'd think should be child's play for him to fix considering previously roboticizing himself is literally part of his backstory), finding his current organic body too breakable. The use of that word suddenly makes him pause, having just come up with a new idea… but Karl certainly won't be the one writing about it, as with that final line of dialogue, he's officially completed his time as head writer for the Archie Sonic comics! Sayonara, Karl Bollers - though there were certainly some rough patches, on the whole I enjoyed your work on the comic, and we'll miss ya!

More Than Meets the Eye

Writer/Pencils: Ken Penders Colors: Josh Ray

…though remember, we are still dealing with Penders for a few more issues yet. Since the mission into Megaopolis a couple issues ago, Rotor, Uncle Chuck, Tommy, Tails, and Snively (plus apparently Fiona, for some reason) have all been hard at work studying and trying to understand the nanites. They try blasting them with a ton of electricity, but when that elicits no response from the nanites Tommy worriedly thinks Snively killed them with the zap, though Snively corrects him that biologically speaking, they're not really "alive," nor is anything that Eggman makes. While you may be technically correct from a scientific standpoint, Snively, I think Nicole might have a thing or two to say about your assertion that machines can't be alive…

Well! It seems Tommy was also unconvinced by Snively's words, and his tear splashing down into the nanite goo triggers some kind of reaction, prompting them to rapidly spread out and reach tendrils of themselves towards him. He's understandably a little freaked out and retreats into his shell, but the nanites don't hurt him as they make contact with the shell - in fact, the sensation is ticklish and causes him to start giggling uncontrollably, which must make for a very weird sight as Uncle Chuck reenters the room to investigate the noise. Tommy assures him that he's all right - and then from out of nowhere, his shell sprouts a pair of goddamn wings, because why the hell not?

I initially took issue with this concept due to it being established canon that the nanites can only absorb and reshape non-living matter, whereas turtle shells are definitely living matter, being full of nerve endings and basically being formed from repurposed bone matter from the turtle's ribs and pelvis. However, the above dialogue seems to indicate that they were able to fuse with Tommy's shell anyway by connecting straight into his nervous system. I would guess that after Sonic introduced the nanites to the concept of organic and synthetic coexistence a couple issues ago, they were just waiting for the chance to "study" an organic specimen in their own weird way, and Tommy just happened to end up as their test subject.  Chuck and Tommy call everyone else in, where he notes that the nanites seem to react to his thoughts without said thoughts actually controlling the nanites directly. He demonstrates this by thinking vaguely that he wants to go somewhere, prompting a pair of jetpack engines to sprout from his shell and ignite, carrying him straight out of the lab and into the sky above Knothole. The others watch with an odd mixture of bemusement and amusement as the nanites fly Tommy's body in a pattern, using contrails to write "We're just going for a test drive" in the air. Well Tommy, looks like you have a really cool and unique new ability! It'd certainly be interesting to be fused with self-replicating nanomachines that react to your thoughts and wishes by morphing themselves in ways to grant those wishes, especially when they seem to actively like their host.

[growingstronglikeahighgardenrose]

The Greatest Gift

The last part of my ‘The Holiday’ series, and with it also my last entry for the 12 Days of Sanditon challenge (albeit four days late). It’s been a wild ride between past and present, I had a blast exploring all characters in all kinds of settings, and I hope you did too!

Pairings: Charlotte/Sidney, Esther/Babington, Georgiana/Crowe

Characters: Charlotte, Sidney, Esther, Babington, Crowe, Georgiana, Susan, James

Prompt: The Gift/Tis the season to be jolly, for the 12 Days of Sanditon hosted by @sanditoncreative​

Synopsis: Charlotte finally arrives to the holiday home as everyone is preparing for the New Year's Eve Party. She realizes with shock she has much catching up to do.

Available on AO3 (please drop a like if you enjoyed)

Over mountains cold, and rivers frozen, lay a house amidst the woods. The house was neither large nor small, it was just perfect for the amount of occupants who spent their days there. Before they’d entered the house, they’d been two separate groups of friends, acquainted but not familiar with the other. But after spending days together filled with fun excursions to Inverness and the surrounding woods, and nights drowned in alcohol, friendships were established, and relationships blossomed underneath the star filled sky.

When the missing link, one part of the reason as to why these friend groups had come together, Charlotte Heywood arrived on the thirtieth of December, she had a lot to catch up with. In just eight days, Esther, who had always been keen on keeping her personal space, had shed her old habits which had been developed through years of living in a cold household devoid of love, and was now always touching Babington in some way. She rarely sat on a chair anymore, finding the lap of her newly acquired boyfriend much preferable. Charlotte had sometimes wondered how her friend would be if she were to enter a relationship, but never had she thought that she’d dive into a relationship after just a couple of weeks of knowing someone, and get comfortable with being in a relationship so easily. But then again, no one was aware of how Esther and Babington had regarded each other with certain fondness and interest since Esther’s first year at Sanditon Uni.

James, Georgiana and Crowe boasted it had been their ‘Mistletoe Madness’ scheme which had brought the mom friend and dad friend together. Babington and Esther didn’t care to tell them anything about how it had actually happened.

But then Sidney and James laughed how Georgiana and Crowe had used their mistletoes a lot as well, always accidentally finding themselves underneath them, and regularly disappearing together. Susan smirked that James, despite mocking the four new lovers, had actually appointed her as the official proof-reader of all text messages he sent towards a girl she was interested in.

Sidney had sorely missed his girlfriend, and couldn’t be parted from her for any prolonged period of time. Now nine, the group revelled in the haze of the period between Christmas and the New Year, happy and relaxed despite the approaching finals.

It was the season to be jolly, and no sadness or dark thoughts were allowed in their holiday home.

December thirtieth passed, and everyone was looking forward to celebrate the start of the new decade. Was it to be the sweet ten years in which the world would recover from the past decade? Would stocks reach record peaks, and Wall Street boom a steady golden roar as everyone celebrated life?

The next decade was as much a mystery as the paths their lives would take after this year. Within less than a year, they would all graduate. They would never be students again. The era of absolute freedom came to an end. The real world was quickly approaching. The twenties were the decade of their twenties, and they would end ’29 in their thirties: they would find employment, get engaged, get children and pay taxes. It was a bittersweet day as they accepted the prospect, and some were more heavily affected by nostalgia for years gone by than others. But united they stood strong, encouraging each other with smiles, hugs and words of kindness.

They had no clue what would happen to their friendship in the next decade, but they were determined to at least celebrate the last day of the year, sliding into the new year Gatsby style, clanking crystal and dancing with reckless abandon. The day was spent with ice-skating, a snowman competition and preparing appetizers and desert for the festive meal. There was little work to be done for the main meal since they’d all be using the electric grills on the table to bake their own pieces of meat and vegetables, yakiniku style, the only thing they had to do was to chop some vegetables and prepare a pot of pasta salad.

After all was prepared, the girls took two bottles of fizzy martini to their bedrooms to prepare for dinner together. The men remained behind, deciding to watch the new Witcher series and start drinking as well. If the preparations for the Christmas dinner were anything to go by, the girls would take up to two hours to get ready.

 Make up your mind sweet baby, right here, right now's all we got

A little party never killed nobody, so we gon' dance until we drop

A little party never killed nobody, right here, right now's all we got

 In the largest bed chamber, The Great Gatsby soundtrack was playing. Esther was in the shower, Susan was doing her makeup, and Georgiana was doing Charlotte’s hair. Esther returned, starting to paint Susan’s nails a deep red, but putting a golden topcoat over her ring finger. Afterwards, the favour was returned. They all kept changing places, drinking martini and laughing, until they were all washed, their nails painted and their hair was done up in some kind of 20s style with decorative glittering hair combs and lacey headbands.

The playlist was switched to one of Georgiana’s after the album was done.

  We go together

Better than birds of a feather, you and me

We change the weather, yeah

I'm feeling heat in December when you're 'round me

  ‘Oh, that’s our song’, Georgiana sighed happily as she plopped down on the bed, Esther crying out that she had to be careful with her hairdo.

‘That shall be one hell of a opening song on your wedding’, Susan laughed.

‘You have a song already?’ Charlotte asked with amusement.

‘Of course, don’t you?’ Georgiana asked, turning onto her belly to look at Charlotte.

‘Well, we’ve only been together for a month.’

‘And honeyboo and me have only been together for a couple of days, yet we have one. Was there never a song you two had a moment to, or which reminded you of your relationship?’

Charlotte bit her lip. Was there a song which reminded her of him? She could still remember the song they first danced to years ago. But it wasn’t representative for their relationship. Yet, yet she couldn’t help but think of him every time she heard it in the years since.

‘I have one’, Susan admitted to give Charlotte some more time.

‘Oh, which one?’ Georgiana asked.

‘It’s a bit cliché, but it’s Waterloo. It’s the song I chose as my swan song on the evening my achievements as a student representative were celebrated. It’s always been one of my favourite songs, and well, he was always there with me when it was put on. And, after all, he did have a hard time conquering me.’

‘How long have you been together with Alexander?’

‘Almost my entire studies. I think I can expect an engagement before I turn twenty-five at the pace we’re going.’

‘And you’re of course going to accept’, Georgiana smiled.

Susan nodded.

‘How… do you know? It’s easy to know you love someone, but when do you know it can be forever?’

‘When, even way past that first sweet period has passed, you still feel butterflies thinking of them. But that’s not all, that’s how you know you’re still in love. But I knew we had a real chance at staying together when, amidst all the craziness of the year in which I combined seven councils, simply receiving a text or a hug from him felt like a good night’s rest after a particularly exhausting day. All my worries and all my burdens still lay heavy on my shoulders, but he made me feel calm and strong.’

‘Oh, that sounds so wonderful. He sounds so sweet’, Esther breathed.

‘It does’, Charlotte admitted.

‘He isn’t sweet by no means. He never says everything will be alright, he never says it’s okay if I fail. He tells me what I have to hear instead, but  he’s a good, supportive and capable man, and he understands that I need someone who encourages me, not someone who tells me sweet things. But I love him.’ She shook her head, as if, after all these years, she was still amazed by the love she felt.

‘I have a song, by the way’, Charlotte admitted.

‘Tell!’

‘It’s the song that played at least thrice the evening we first met. Halsey’s song: Closer.’

‘Oh, that’s cute! And it fits as well!’

‘It does?’ Charlotte asked as she put on her red velvet dress. Esther snuck to her room to get her dress and shoes.

‘Yeah! You look as good as the day I met you. I forget just why I left you, I was insane… And four years, no call… And then you met and hit it off again!’ Georgiana smiled.

‘Well it’s only been about three years and we only hit it off again after a month of weekly meetings.’

‘Details!’ Georgiana cried before finishing her glass.

‘So, Esther, how bout you and Babbers hmm?’ Georgiana asked as Esther entered the room again, glittering 20s style Mary Janes and blue flapper dress in hands.

‘Why so curious?’

‘So you have one’, Charlotte smiled.

‘Maybe I do.’

‘Oh come on Esther, you already keep secret how you two have gotten together, you can at least tell us the name of the song.’

‘Fine. I Want To Know What Love Is, satisfied?’

‘Why Esther, I never took you for a Foreigner fan’, Susan exclaimed.

‘Coincidence. Can we now stop discussing love, I’m not planning on being emotional before midnight.’

Georgiana laughed and handed Esther her glass once she’d finished zipping her dress.

‘Alright then ladies, let’s go to the living room and have some fun.’

    In dark suits the men sat gathered on the couches, hair groomed and smelling good. But their preparations didn’t compare to the flurry of glittering glimmering festival to their eyes the girls presented as they descended upon them with their curled hair and sparkly jewellery and bright red lipstick. Their cheeks and beards were covered in bright lipstick, and champagne was popped.

‘You all really came prepared’, Princey laughed as he trailed his fingers down Susan’s long white gloves.

‘We agreed upon celebrating Gatsby style. We simply did as agreed upon.’

‘I’d say you did more than just that’, Crowe breathed as Georgiana rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. He wasn’t sure he’d make it till midnight without a short heated intermezzo.

She jumped upright with a smile. ‘Excuse me as I try to capture the moment.’

She photographed him like that, sat in the couch with arms raised in question, a glass of champagne filled with water in hand – he wanted to remember every minute, at least until midnight.

‘Do you like it?’ Esther purred softly as the others were occupied.

‘You have no idea.’

‘Enlighten me.’

‘You look extraordinary… Magnificent.’

‘Do I?’ she smirked as she traced his stubble with her gloved hand.

‘Miss Denham, I must beg you to spare me. I’m not afraid I’ll last the night otherwise.’

‘Who says I intend you to?’ she laughed as she readjusted her weight on his lap. He could only just supress a groan and press his lips against hers.

A flash went off, the screen presenting a figure with flaming red curls with her arms around the brown haired man she sat on top off, his hands almost reverently placed on her upper back.

Another flash captured James and Princey pointing their tongue at each other in mock disgusted of the kissing.

  There's glitter on the floor after the party

Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby

Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor

You and me from the night before but

  ‘I’m still so confused as to how it all happened. I don’t know what to think about it’, Charlotte confessed to Sidney as they gazed at their friends.

‘I think this would be a so called… Christmas miracle’, he laughed.

‘I believe the entrance of this house must have been a portal to a Hallmark movie. It all just went so quickly.’

‘Didn’t we go quickly as well?’ Sidney asked, burying his nose against her sweet smelling neck.

‘It was different.’

‘How do we know they’re not different as well?’

‘Well, with Esther and Babington I dare not judge, but Georgie and Crowe?’

‘Hmm, two dramatic extroverted personalities seeking enjoyment together? I don’t think they’re that odd together.’

‘Perhaps not.’

‘Let us not worry. Before we worried it would be awkward introducing our friends to each other. Our fears turned out to be utterly unfounded. Let’s just enjoy this.’

Charlotte agreed, pressing her lips against his.

‘Let’s. I just can’t believe it all. I’m so happy, this is perfect. I just… Look at everyone having fun and being happy and laughing so much! And it isn’t just because they’re drunk. I’ve never seen all my friends in such a pure state of happiness for so long. I haven’t seen any of them smile so much. I think no one has gone half an hour without smiling once I arrived.’

  Don't read the last page

But I stay when you're lost and I'm scared and you're turning away

I want your midnights

But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day

   The night was filled with laughter, and the hours slid past at record speed.

Heels were kicked off and dancing took place. It really wasn’t good, and they would be divided between loathing their embarrassing postures in the pictures, and loving the photographs because of the memories they contained.

 You squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi I can tell that it's going to be a long road I'll be there if you're the toast of the town babe Or if you strike out and you're crawling home

 Midnight was approaching. Shoes were put back on again, and the girls were provided with the blazers of the men. The Final Countdown was put on – James’ final joke of 2019 – as the group started counting down. The new decade was approaching, and they all stood outside united in the snow, bottles of champagne in hand.

Ten seconds to go and the bottles were shaken, ready to be popped at midnight. They screamed and laughed their way through the countdown, and then the moment was there.

 Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you And I will hold on to you

Corks went flying and lips were kissed as firework shot into the sky. Streams of champagne reached for the sky as friends embraced. They could see the explosions of gold, red, purple, green and blue from the nearby city perfectly above the lake, it was even reflected on the lake. Champagne  was drunk from the bottle, and group pictures were taken of all of them in the snow, with fireworks artfully exploding in the distance.

All loneliness and heartache of the past years, and all insecurity about the future was left in the old year, obliterated by the happiness of the past few days.

A new era in their lives was approaching, and they were ready for it, together, united.

 Please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere Please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere

 They would always remember the first New Year they celebrated together. Even as responsibilities started entering their lives, they always fought to keep the week between Christmas and the New Year free for each other to capture the feeling of old, and create new ones.

Slowly, people were added to the celebrations. Susan and James brought their partners with them the following year, and Princey his first serious girlfriend the year after. And then, a ring was added to the company around Susan’s finger. Esther and Babington were up next, at the ages of twenty-seven and thirty, to tie the knot.  Then followed a round belly for Charlotte, who was surprised when Susan announced her flat belly contained a baby as well. And at the end of the decade, Esther announced her pregnancy and Georgiana and Crowe who hadn’t been meant to last the first time around, reunited after finally accepting all that came along with growing up, and this time they decided to put in the serious work. Crowe admitted himself to an AA program the day after New Year, they were wed the day after he got his One Year degree.

They exited the decade with a big Gatsby Party, and though they had indeed had a bigger financial strain on their backs and uncorked non-alcoholic champagne like they would’ve had it been the 1920’s, they were all still just as happy and rich in friends as they had started the decade. Their friendship had been the best gift they could’ve ever received.

 ____________________________________________________________

71263 words, 12 works, you guys! I'm 4 days late (10 if we count the official deadline of December 25) but I've finally wrapped up the 12 Days of Sanditon.

I want to thank everyone for reading, liking and commenting! It has been such a delight and your words of encouragement kept me convinced to persevere and wrap up the challenge even as I found myself uninspired or tired. It hasn't been my best work, I probably skipped over a lot of typo's and grammar mistakes, and the wordings and stories probably weren't always as good but I haven't written as consistently as this since I was 15! I could've probably spared myself a lot of trouble by not making my works as long (some are well over twenty pages on word), but I had a blast and I hope you did too! I love this fandom, tiny and young as it is (and it won’t get a lot better since the show’s been cancelled) and all the active people in it <3

Much love, Lynn

[italynt]

If you want a primer in regards to what’s going on in Italy, in terms of restarting the Serie A season, then here’s a good article to read.

Here’s an overview of everything that’s been going on from James Horncastle at The Athletic:

It’s now almost two months since Sassuolo striker Francesco Caputo celebrated his goal against Brescia by lifting up his jersey to reveal the message “Stay at Home” on a T-shirt underneath.

It feels like a long time ago, doesn’t it? So how close are we to football resuming in Serie A?

What is the situation in Italy now?

Last weekend, Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced the government is ready to begin the next phase of easing the country back to normality. Aspects of lockdown will be relaxed on May 4 allowing 4.5 million people to go back to work. Citizens will have freedom of movement within their own region. Restaurants and bars will be able to deliver takeaway. Exercise in parks and even a dip in the sea is permitted as long as social-distancing guidelines are respected. But the new decree has not escaped criticism. Opposition parties think the government is still being too cautious. Some regions like the Veneto are breaking ranks and lifting measures earlier than others. Bishops are protesting the ban on public masses and football feels it is being unfairly treated.

Why does football feel victimised?

Well, individual athletes like swimmers, cyclists and sprinters can return to training next Monday. Team sports will have to wait at least until May 18 and only if the protocol passes muster with the government’s scientific committee. This has sparked controversy because footballers cannot even train on their own or at a distance from each other within the controlled environment of a deep-cleaned training facility. What they can do is go for a jog or a workout in the local park — where members of the public may be inclined to approach them in breach of social distancing rules. “So we’ll have Ciro Immobile and Edin Dzeko in Villa Borghese and Lorenzo Insigne on the Caracciolo boardwalk,” scoffed Lazio owner Claudio Lotito.

It doesn’t make any sense. Many of the clubs are exasperated. The players’ union (AIC) said in a statement it was “perplexed and surprised” by a decision it considers “illogical” and “discriminatory”. Serie A stopped earlier than the other top five leagues. It has more fixtures to fulfil and stands to lose £620 million if the season isn’t brought to a close. La Repubblica quoted Napoli’s president Aurelio De Laurentiis saying: “COVID-19 will end up making the middle and smaller clubs who live beyond their means disappear.” It’s not hard to see why the league and the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) are pushing hard to at least prepare their teams for any return. “I do not want to be Italian football’s gravedigger,” said Gabriele Gravina, the president of the FIGC.

But as with everything in Italy it is deeply political and the pushback has been considerable. Italy’s highest-profile female athlete, the swimmer Federica Pellegrini, said: “All I hear about is football and I’m disappointed by that, other sports exist too”. Similarly, the president of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) Giovanni Malago said: “Sport is not just and cannot only be Serie A football.”

The FIGC is an affiliate of CONI and football obtains more funding than any other sport. What Malago says matters. He believes football has muddled its response to the pandemic — “Gravina talks about July, August, September, October, even about splitting the league into two groups with play-offs and play-outs” — which further damages the game’s reputation. Ultimately, the decision lies with the government, but relations between the FIGC, Serie A and the minister of sport, Vincenzo Spadafora, have been tense.

Why are relations strained between Italy’s sporting bodies?

For a start, Spadafora hasn’t always toed the party line. In March, he sparked chaos at the Stadio Ennio Tardini, where Parma’s match at home to SPAL was due to go ahead in accordance with a government decree, which had been signed the night before. However, with players waiting in the tunnel, Spadafora announced the league needed to shut down with immediate effect. The game was delayed for an hour and 15 minutes while officials checked whether the order had been changed. It hadn’t and Parma-SPAL kicked off. “Instead of indulging in demagoguery, be consistent with the actions of your own government” came the reply from Serie A president Paolo Dal Pino.  

It wasn’t pretty then and things aren’t any rosier now. Spadafora has called out club owners for using the media to influence opinion and force his hand. “We have to start safely,” he said on Tuesday. “Do you remember when the league didn’t want to stop? How many teams ended up in quarantine?” The answer is six. To avoid that happening again, the FIGC has drawn up a 47-page protocol document, seen by The Athletic, with the aim of protecting the players, coaches, referees and other members of staff from contagion.

How will they protect the players and everyone else?

The protocol document contains lots of advice from leaders in the medical field. In addition to the FIGC’s own 12-person scientific committee, the protocol has had substantial input from a task force comprising four experts in infectious diseases and virology. The protocol recommends squads should be selected three to four days before training resumes. The players and essential coaching staff in this group will then undergo an initial screening phase. This entails a visit to a clinic, a temperature check and an up-to-date medical history. Let’s pick a player at random. Say, Brescia’s Mario Balotelli: the FIGC wants to know if he’s travelled in the last two months and where to, whether or not he’s been in contact with anyone who has tested positive for the virus, and whether he’s showing any symptoms.

Depending on certain criteria, the group will be given two RT-PCR tests within 24 hours of each other and an antibody test. The expense and availability of testing — not to mention the morality of rolling them out for one category of society — remains a bone of contention. “The request on the players’ part is for football to resume only when every citizen can have a test,” Tommasi said. “There mustn’t be any fast-track for our industry.” As you might expect with a medical, there will be a resting ECG (to measure heart health), a spirometry (to measure breathing capacity), and blood and urine tests. The protocol is especially mindful of the latest medical advice on the damage left by COVID-19 and the therapies used to treat it on a person’s lungs and the heart. Even after screening is over, the group will have daily temperature checks and be constantly assessed for symptoms.

A permanent “ritiro” — a place for players and staff to live on-site — is also recommended. A number of clubs have dorms or even hotels adjoining their training grounds. When the Melia hotel closed in Milan as part of the lockdown measures, Christian Eriksen temporarily moved into Inter’s Appiano Gentile training ground. The problem is 11 of the 20 teams don’t have lodgings, so completely isolating the group isn’t possible across the board. However, the other nine clubs are meant to allocate players single, well-ventilated rooms where they will shower after their distancing-adapted training sessions.

Everyone in the group will be given behavioural guidelines to follow, ranging from washing hands to PPE for masseurs and physios. Treatment tables will be spaced out and time slots allocated to avoid congestion. If the enforcement of social distancing means there isn’t space in a team meeting, the preference is for a video conference instead. Food in the canteen will be self-service only.

As for training itself, the first week foresees individuals or small groups working out more than two metres apart before a gradual return to normality in week two and week three, with players running through patterns of play, set-pieces and playing small-sided games.

If someone does test positive, they are to be isolated immediately. Training will be suspended until the team and coaching staff receive the all-clear from two tests taken 24 hours apart and antibody tests will be repeated within five and seven days of each other. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the government’s scientific committee raised a red flag at this part of the protocol on the basis that, up until now, one positive test has been enough to send clubs into quarantine for a fortnight. This is a dilemma faced by all leagues hoping to finish the season.

Then there’s the not insignificant matter of away games and travel: it’s one thing limiting external contact within a training facility you own, it’s another thing doing it on the road. Fourteen of Serie A’s 20 clubs are located in areas that were defined “hotbeds” in Italy’s fight against the pandemic.

The outlook’s bleak then?

Gravina said: “In order to run zero risks, we’d have to wait for a vaccine. According to the scientists, that won’t be until spring 2021. We can’t just shut everything down waiting for that to happen.” Dialogue between the FIGC and the government’s scientific committee remains open, with Gravina vowing to modify the protocol in a renewed effort to at least obtain consent for teams to return to training on May 18.

Spadafora grows more pessimistic by the day, however. He talks about the road back to football getting tighter and tighter with only a “spiraglio” — the smallest of openings — left for it to happen. Gravina’s decision to align himself with UEFA and make August 3 the cut-off point for domestic competitions to finish puts Italian football on the clock. Serie A has proposed proroguing expiring contracts until after the season concludes. If the league returns to training in less than three weeks and games start from mid-June, that sounds like a good idea. But that’s a big if.  

Spadafora has appealed to the leagues to come up with a Plan B. “I am starting to get the idea there will be a surprise over the next few days,” he told free-to-air TV channel La7. “Presidents could soon ask me to end the season now so they can prepare for the next one.” Brescia’s owner Massimo Cellino has repeatedly declared the season over. His counterparts at Torino and Sampdoria, Urbano Cairo and Massimo Ferrero, have both expressed scepticism plans to return — they fear finishing this season may compromise the next one.

What are the players doing in the meantime?

Well, Lazio’s Marco Parolo has been using his free time away from the training ground to protest that players should be allowed in the training ground. “All professional athletes should be treated the same,” he told the club’s official radio station. “I’m our athletes’ No 1 fan at the World Championships, and I’m all for them going back to training, but I think footballers should, too.”

For now though the players continue to work out at home.

“It’s difficult to expect a player to be able to maintain the necessary fitness to play in Serie A after a prolonged period of inactivity,” Sampdoria’s head of performance, Paolo Bertelli, tells The Athletic. “We’re trying to keep the fitness of our players to the highest standards as much as we possibly can.” Samp’s players have workout classes six days a week. “The sessions last between 65 and 80 minutes each depending on the player and the day of the week,” Bertelli says. “In addition to a warm-up, we do some free-weight exercises — some core, some jumps — hop on the exercise bike and work with the resistance bands. The players who have a running machine get a workout for that. It’s a bit different for the goalkeepers because we need to keep their explosiveness and strength.”

Roma’s goalkeeper Pau Lopez logs onto Roma’s bespoke platform to access all the material he needs for his day. “Every day the fitness coach sends us a customised workout plan that we have to follow to stay in shape,” the Spaniard tells The Athletic. “We weigh ourselves on a daily basis and send the info to the nutritionist. He keeps us posted, especially if there’s a problem. It’s all very well planned out.”

Manolo Zubiria, Roma’s chief global sporting officer, goes into more detail. “We set up a communication platform that allows the club’s directors and coaching staff to video conference with the players. It’s not just those in the first team either, but all levels, including our women’s team. Internal comms are fundamental. We want to give everyone as much support as possible in terms of info and assistance, whether it’s to do with fitness or nutrition. To that end, we are ensuring our players receive all the necessary material for home workouts. In terms of grocery shopping, we have also sorted a delivery service. We can’t predict what will happen in the coming weeks but our objective is for the lads to be in the best shape possible when training resumes.”

What’s the state of play in the table?

Juventus reclaimed top spot with their 2-0 win against Inter on March 8 and have a slender one-point lead over Lazio. Lotito is against the idea of play-offs to decide the top four — “Inter have eight points less than us (in third) and Atalanta have 14” — but he would be up for settling the title in a one-off game against the Old Lady, who, he points out, Lazio have already beaten on two occasions this season (in the league and the Super Cup). Atalanta occupy the last Champions League place and have a three-point advantage over Roma, plus a game in hand and a superior head-to-head record.

As for the Europa League, Milan are outside the top six but could still qualify through the Coppa Italia if they were to turn around a first-leg semi-final defeat to Juventus (without Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Theo Hernandez, who are suspended) and overcome either Inter or Napoli in the final. Down at the bottom, Brescia (10 points adrift of safety) and SPAL (seven) were already hanging by a thread, which is why, to some observers, it’d make sense for them to trade places with Crotone and Pippo Inzaghi’s Benevento, the two teams in the automatic promotion places in Serie B.

If that was the case, you’d have some sympathy for Inzaghi’s former Milan team-mate Alessandro Nesta. The former centre-back is now managing Frosinone, who were in second until the most recent round of fixtures, when Crotone took their spot.

But as one Serie A executive put it to The Athletic, if the season isn’t concluded on the pitch, there is “no right answer” to satisfy everyone’s definition of fairness.

[blazehedgehog]

top 10 games of the decade?

This has been going around a lot, and honestly my problem is I don’t keep super close attention to what games came out in what years. So 2009-2019? What came out in that time period that I’ve played? I have no idea.

At best, we could use the new Steam interface to sort by release year, which gives a rough picture of some of my gaming habits, at least as far as the PC is concerned, but it tells me nothing about consoles or portables.

So let’s start narrowing down a list, I guess, of games I played a notable enough amount of time (and maybe even finished) to even consider for a list like this.

I’ll link it, because it’s kind of big.

So… narrowing that down to ten. Hm. I won’t number them, but:

Metal Gear Rising: Revengence (2013) Platinum Games’ finest hour, as far as I’m concerned. It’s typical Metal Gear absurdity cranked to 12. It’s hard to believe Hideo Kojima considered this a canonical piece of the Metal Gear timeline because it’s just so knowingly silly and over the top. It’s also Peak Platinum Games as far as having an intensely good-feeling combat engine goes. Just, all around, an outrageously fun game.

Sonic Generations (2011) For a brief moment, the world agreed: maybe Sonic could be good again? It didn’t last, because of course it didn’t, but even though I personally consider Sonic Unleashed a better game, I can’t rag on Sonic Generations too much, because it’s still a surprisingly well-rounded, enjoyable game, and still the best 3D Sonic game of the last 10 years.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) Any game I put 300 hours in to over the span of a year is probably worth putting on a list like this. Zelda games were getting so stale and Breath of the Wild effortlessly shakes off all the rust and dust and just goes hard on reinventing everything in such a smart, elegant, enjoyable way. Everything works together so well that it almost doesn’t feel fair for how effortless Nintendo makes it look. Like you handed them a rubik’s cube and they casually solved it in record time while everyone else is over in the corner still trying to line up the first two green squares.

Forza Horizon (2012) I like racing games, but I got really tired of racing games that take themselves too seriously. You either had the endlessly repetitive street racers of Need for Speed or the clinical blandness of games like Gran Turismo and Forza. Horizon came along and made me love Forza for finally injecting a bit of fun personality in to this series. By wrapping a shred of real humanity around all of this car culture stuff, it all clicked in to place.

Super Mario 3D Land (2011) Super Mario 3D Land kind of reinvented what a 3D Mario game even was. There was always a sense with Nintendo’s 3D platformers that they were kind of holding back, or at least designed in a certain way to help players stay oriented in 3D. To me, 3D Land, felt like finally ripping the training wheels off and getting back to 2D-style level design… while still being a 3D environment. Maybe my favorite 3D Mario game.

Super Mario Maker (2015) Nintendo finally gave us what we wanted: an official Mario level editor. It’s missing a lot of features you’d really want, but the fact that it exists at all still feels like kind of a miracle. And for as backwards as some things about it feel, enough of it is modern enough that it kind of doesn’t matter. You can make and share Mario levels! With your friends! Officially! That’s amazing!

Doom (2016) Controversial opinion: I think iD Software made more bad games than good. More mediocre games, at the very least. After Doom 2, the only game of theirs I’d say even approaches good was Quake 3 Arena, and even then, I’m not so sure that game was what I was really looking for, then or now. Doom 2016 is not only the comeback story of the century, but it blows the doors off of everything else so well that I didn’t even really care about how bad the game’s ending was. That’s just how good the rest of the game is. Doom 2016 succeeds where Quake failed, where RAGE failed, where Doom 3 failed. It’s “just more Doom,” but in the best ways possible.

The Walking Dead: Season 1 (2012) I have a lot of adventure games I’ve never finished. I finished The Walking Dead Season 1. This is the game that saved Telltale Games. It got me to watch part of the TV series. I felt emotions while playing this game that I don’t think any game has ever made me feel, before or since. I have a distinct memory of seeing these guys get an award at the VGAs, and as they came out on stage, they played the “Alive Inside” theme and just hearing that music again was like a lead weight in my chest. Even now, years and years later, it’s… heavy, hearing it again.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009) The first, and possibly only, truly “good” Batman game. I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with the sequels to Asylum, but I don’t think any of them reach the same highs, from what I understand. This game put a lot of people, and things, on the map. A good, multi-directional combat system (so good that games are still referred to as having “Arkham combat”). A fully 3D Metroidvania that wasn’t necessarily an actual Metroid game. Reuniting the voice cast of Batman: The Animated Series. It’s not a perfect game, but dang if it isn’t still great.

Mario Kart 8 (2014) I debated on saying this was a tie with Sonic Racing Transformed, but that wouldn’t be fair, I guess. Mario Kart 8 is hands down my favorite Mario Kart, I’d say. It’s absolutely gorgeous, it has tons of tracks, and at least as far as the Wii U version goes, it’s actually balanced and fair in a way you don’t normally expect from a Mario Kart game. While I still love Sonic Racing Transformed greatly, there’s no denying that Mario Kart 8 is far more tight and polished than that game ever will be.

Honorable Mentions

Sonic Mania

Freedom Planet

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Bayonetta 2

Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze

Dishonorable Mentions

Rocket Knight

Turtles in Time: Reshelled

Sonic Lost World

Parappa the Rapper Remastered

Yooka-Laylee