#but despite Michael’s best efforts all of them ended up in a dire need for a haircut — something Gabriel would keep true long after

[godsprettiestprincess]

To me the “pre-fall” of any human au is the summer right before Lucifer turned 16 when they all went up to the cabin Chuck locks himself up in to write for 3 months with no interruptions and Chuck decided that him and Michael were old enough to watch the little ones on their own so they spent the whole summer sprouting freckles and getting scratched up diving into berry bushes and skinny dipping in the lake with few enough interruptions that any demand to be quieter could be made into a game or an excuse to stay out past bedtime catching fireflies

[deadendsave]

Pastor Adam Davis’ Journal (2023)

1: Today, I convinced another family to sell their home to the mayor’s development project. It wasn’t easy, but I reminded them that what my brother Michael plans for Millhaven is all in God’s plan. Them sacrificing a little for the greater good is what God would want. And besides, after the town is revitalized we’ll attract more wealthy residents who can donate to the church. I didn’t mention that to them though.

2: I had a meeting with Michael regarding the plans of the new megachurch. He’s promised to make it the biggest and most impressive church in the state. I can already envision the headlines: ‘Millhaven’s Pastor Leads Charge to Build Largest Church in Oregon.’

3: I approached Barbara today after Sunday service. She’s one of the few holdouts that won’t sell her property to Michael. I tried to convince her again, but she wouldn’t budge. It’s frustrating because I know his plans are what’s best for Millhaven. But I guess not everyone sees it that way. Maybe I’ll have to pray for her to see the light.

4: I can’t believe how much money the congregation has tithed already. Thanks to my persuasive sermons, even those who don’t have much are willing to give. My lifestyle isn’t cheap, and I need to continue to live comfortably so I can be a better pastor and inspire others. One day I’ll be a televangelist. The world will know my name.

5: I can sense the tension in the air every time I stand at the pulpit lately. Barbara is becoming more about her opposition to the mayor’s plans and is trying to turn the town against me. They all fail to see that our town must grow and evolve in order to attract new people and opportunities. Despite my efforts to explain this to them, they remain stubbornly resistant.

6: And then there’s the matter of the church, I know that tearing down the old building and replacing it with a new, modern one will be a huge undertaking, but it’s necessary if we want to keep up with the times.

7: It’s not easy being the pastor of the only church in town. I’m caught between my duty to my congregation and the loyalty of my brother. But I know what we’re doing is right. Millhaven needs to change. And if Barbara and her little group can’t see that, then they’re just standing in the way of progress.

8: The end times are here. A new plague is in the modern world: LHV. Maybe this is the moment when God will reveal himself to us, he’ll take the faithful up to heaven and leave the sinners to face the apocalypse. I’ve been preaching about the rapture for years, preparing the congregation. I fear I don’t know where I stand in God’s eyes. I’ve asked for forgiveness. I’m trying to do right by letting members into the church that seek refuge. I’ve got canned goods from the church’s food donations and we have armed security.

9: Michael is nowhere to be found. He’s attending some conference on the other side of the country. I can’t help but feel a mix of emotions, anger for him not being here to help me guide these people, and worry for his safety. I hope he’s okay out there, I’ve been praying for him.

10: I can’t help but feel like the outbreak is all my fault. God is punishing me for my sins and my family’s past. The mill, the gentrification. It was all for our personal gain. I’ve led the people astray, and now we are all paying the price. Every night, I pray for forgiveness and hope that somehow, someway, God will save us from this nightmare. It’s like the devil himself has taken over the world.

11: Many more people have come seeking shelter. It’s overwhelming. This situation is getting dire. We’re running low on food on water. I had to start rationing out supplies, but I fear it won’t be enough. I’ve tried to convince the people to just pray and have faith, but some are starting to lose hope.

12: I’ve been struggling with myself. I can’t help but feel guilty for hoarding some of the supplies for myself. I know it’s selfish, but I’m the leader. I have to stay strong to guide these people.

13: I can’t take it anymore. I’ve been hearing the cries of hungry children and it’s tearing me apart. I have to do something. I’m going to distribute the remaining supplies to the people. Maybe it’s not too late to make things right.

14: Today, even more people arrived at the church seeking shelter, but we simply didn’t have the capacity or resources to accommodate them all. It was heartbreaking to turn them away, but the safety of those already inside was my top priority. The refugees are upset with me, especially after I had to refuse families with young children.

15: Things have turned quickly. Those who once looked up to me are now against me. A man tried to attack me. He wasn’t one of the demons, he was just hungry and angry with me. An armed guard shot him. This made the other refugees panic. I knew they would all turn on me soon. I had to make the tough decision and order them all to leave. I said the guards would use force if they didn’t comply. It wasn’t safe to keep them here, I couldn’t risk my own survival.

16: I feel terrible about what happened. I was scared and only prioritized my own safety. I’m trying to be a better man, but I mess up every time. The demons attacked the people. It’s not entirely my fault that they got them: they should have been more careful and not gone against me. Still, it’s hard to shake off the guilt. I’m a pastor; I’m supposed to help people in need, not turn them away to their deaths. I hope I can be forgiven.

17: It’s hard to put into words the level of guilt and shame that has consumed me. I feel as everything I’ve done, every decision I have made, has been a mistake. I led the people of Millhaven astray, I allowed my brother to continue his unethical plans, and worst of all, I turned away the people seeking refuge in our church. I knew deep down would never make it out alive.

18: The guilt of my actions has become too much to bear. I can’t even bring myself to look at my own reflection in the mirror anymore. I’m a selfish, self conflicting hypocrite. I’ve made a decision, I can no longer live with the weight of my mistakes. I hope God forgives me. I’m sorry to those I’ve hurt, to those I’ve turned away, and to those whose lives have been lost because of me. This is my final entry. Goodbye. - Pastor Adam Davis

stray note, church basement:

As I write this, I can hear Pastor Davis preaching about how we must “sacrifice" for the greater good. But it's clear that his definition of “greater good" only applies to himself. He hoards the food and water while the rest of us go hungry. The children cry themselves to sleep every night. I hope the soldiers can clear the area, we all need to leave before we starve to death.

[fndmxreader]

TITLE :   can end in burning flames or paradise . PAIRINGS :   michael x reader . REQUEST : Hello! How’re you doing? I would like to request something Michael x reader, maybe where they’re dancing around their feelings for each other? I love Michael and would love to see more of him. If not, that’s ok! I hope you’re doing well! Thank you ☺️ INSPO : i'm so into you, i can barely breathe and all i wanna do is to fall in deep, but close ain't close enough 'til we cross the line, baby.  

      YOU NEVER TRULY FELT WORTHY TO BE IN THE SAME ROOM AS HIM .  when the arch angel entered,  all eyes would turn to him,  even those who weren’t aware of what he truly was .  everything about him was so charismatic,  dominant   -  just utterly devastating.   most swooned just looking at him,  but for you it was his energy  (  though looks certainly helped  ) ,  how he carried himself  ?  it made your knees weak,   made your cheeks heat up and heart beat so fast its like the first time in your life you feel alive  .   it was pathetic how you acted,  like a school girl experiencing a crush for the first time  .   you tried to shove them down,  tried for months,  but it seems the more you did it only got worse and more intense  .     you knew you weren’t exactly subtle about it,  even if you tried your best to deny it  -  how you looked at him,  eyes sparkling with awe,  with wonder... with love  .  even now,  here you were  :  your chin in hand,  staring at him even though it should be on the book in front of you,  you were in deep and each day had you sinker further and further ...  you stopped struggling by now,  to collapse in front of such a being was too welcoming .  

   THOUGH DESPITE HOW CONTENT YOU WERE WITH FALLING,   you weren’t ready for the confession yet,  to fall on your knees and stare up at the almighty is something that was just too intimidating,  and you feel like you already know the answer if you did  .  all that lied beyond the blinding tunnel was rejection,  so you will avoid the cross decorated booth,  instead you day dream about things that will never be  .

   “ YOU SEEM DISTRACTED,  Y/N “   the angel of the hour was sat opposite you in the library,  posture straight an lips curled up into a slight smirk  .  he always wore that,  even when the times seems dire such a look never left his face  “  is everything alright  ? “  

    YOU HAD NO IDEA THAT HIS CLUELESSNESS WAS AN ACT,  michael was an all knowing celestial being  -  furthermore,  he knew what people wanted,  what they desired  -    oh,  he knew what you wanted,  what you craved and ached for :  him .    he can’t say he’s displeased with the situation,   every time he walked into the room your aura brightened,  he could hear your breath hitch and stare up at him in nothing but amazement .   not only did it stroke his already inflated ego,  but more importantly it made him feel wanted .   people often forgot that michael too was hurt by the absence of god,   the demoralization of his character across the board  -  he was a soldier,  a warrior,   a broken diamond with the shine but without the worth  .  you made the being ...  feel,   feel what he doesn’t truly understand  ...  perhaps more human,  more like an angel rather a disregarded creation,  whatever it was -  he was addicted to you,  to your presence,  your voice  .  he was always drawn to you,    but the minute you started acting this way,   when what he felt became reciprocated,   he became much more attached  -  however arms length you must stay,   his world was far too dangerous for you,  you’re the one human he’d mourn,  to see you leave this plane would destroy him and the world along with it  .

   “ I’M FINE “   the squeak the words came out as your eyes darting back down to the black and white pages,  “ i’m just ...  day dreaming “   about us,  you want to add,  but you bite your tongue .  you think about how his hands must feel against the softest parts of your body,  what it would feel like to have his lips against yours  .  but beyond that,  thinking about what it must be to feel loved by the most feared angel of them all .   you bet he would be possessive but gentle,  hold you like a delicate rose,   you think about what it would be like to see the most softest parts of his personality  when its just the two of you  .  

   MICHAEL KNOWS THE DAY DREAMS,  and oh how his body shuddered at your thoughts  -  he briefly wonders why you struggle to sense his wings, you were so in tuned with the supernatural more than the humans most times, how can you fail to sense the way his wings itch towards you and want to slowly trail across your face  ?  “ my dear, lovely y/n, “ michael thinks to himself,   “ you already know me,  can you not see how my fiery blade is hoisted in your presence ? “  but much like your thoughts,  his stay exactly that,  thoughts  .   the world is not a peaceful place,   you and him,  perhaps in time :  but in this one and the realities that live side by side ?  there is no such thing,  no possibilities where you can both end up happy .   blood,  chaos and destruction,  an angel was never a lover,  that much is clear -  and even with the way his grave sin is pride,  michael doesn’t feel worthy of you  . 

    “ I TAKE IT YOU AREN’T PLANNING ON SHARING WHAT’S GOING ON IN THAT PRETTY LITTLE HEAD OF YOURS ? “    his eyebrow cocked,   he knows you wont,  but he loved to see you shuffle on the spot when you get all flustered and embarrassed .  

    “ THERE’S NOTHING TO TELL “   your bottom lip meets between teeth,  biting into the flesh as you try and focus on something other than the air suffocates around you .  it’s then you decided to stand up,  against the better judgment of how michael looked at you under intense gaze  “  though i should go tell sam about what i found out,  the sooner we get on the road the sooner we can help those people “  it was the first sentence you got through without stuttering while meeting his gaze .  

    “ YOU NEED ANYTHING “  michael stands along with you,  towering over you without much effort  ��� just send me a prayer “  firm,  he knows you can handle yourself,  but it had to be said  -  he wouldn’t be able to rest if he didn’t .  the back of his hands raised when you nodded in understanding,  just grazing your cheek .   though once you both felt that first touch,  the electric shock between you both made you jolt away in surprise and the lights flickered in the library,    michael remained stotic as ever but tense,  hands now by his side and turned into fists,  jaw clenching as he felt the need to take a sharp inhale .  

    “ THE POWER IN THIS BUNKER IS SHOCKING “    your laugh is forced,  your left feeling dizzy from the touch but oblivious to michaels reaction .  he’ll agree,   you can’t know,  you can’t ever know ;  and oh,  does that just kill the sword wielding angel from the inside out . 

[bigwazowski-rp]

Michael “Mike” Wazowski — Thirty-one — Co-owner of Monsters Imaginative — Non-magical

Name: Michael Wazowski Nicknames: Mike, Googly Bear Age: 31 Height: 5′5″ Sexuality: Bisexual

Mike Wazowski has always been the man with a plan. He’s known what he wanted to do with his life since he was a kid, and there was nothing that could get in his way of achieving his dreams. Even when things don’t go right—even when things go horribly wrong—he’ll always be ready with a plan B, C, D and so on.

That doesn’t mean he stays entirely cool in times of stress, however; because his mind is always running through scenarios of what might happen, he has his moments of panic. It’s not easy being the only guy around with some common sense, but he’ll do what he can to keep things under control.

In one way, Mike takes himself too seriously, while in another sense he’s not serious at all. He’s always ready with a sarcastic quip or joke even in dire circumstances—everyone needs someone to lighten the tension when things get dark. He has a certain disposition for remaining optimistic despite every curve-ball life throws his way. After all, there’s always a laugh at the end of the tunnel.

He has poor eyesight and has prescription glasses, though he prefers to wear contact lenses whenever possible. When he was a kid. he was made fun of for basically being a cyclops because his astigmatism was much worse in one eye than the other, but that’s when he learned that humor was one of the most important skills a person can master. If you make fun of yourself first, it takes the power away from the person who tries to use words to hurt you.

His mom is his favorite person in the world honestly, he’s a mama’s boy at heart. And that’s not the kind of mama’s boy who lives in his parents’ basement and has mommy doing his laundry as a grown adult—he’s always been very ambitious and independent. But she’s always been his number one supporter, and he calls her regularly.

Mike considers himself to be a bit of a romantic. It’s something that he puts effort into because he cares, and maybe that’s why he has such a natural way with the ladies (or something like that.) Really, he only has eyes for one woman right now and that’s Celia. He’s liked her since the moment they met, and there’s an obvious, palpable connection between them, but it has just taken so long to finally lock it down. He feels close now, as far as considering her his “almost-girlfriend,” but he knows he has to stay on his toes and keep putting the effort in.

Mike doesn’t blame Sulley anymore for his breakup with Randall back in college, though at the time he did feel like Sulley had ruined his entire life—not only his degree and future career prospects, but his relationship as well. And of course, their expulsion wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for the rivalry the two had getting out of hand, but in the end, Randall turning his back on Mike at his lowest moment just showed his true colors. Meanwhile, rooming with Sulley and becoming friends ended up being the biggest blessing in disguise.

So, in the end…his boyfriend became his arch enemy (Randall), his arch enemy became his best friend (Sulley), and his best friend became his girlfriend (Celia.) But hey, that’s life!

It’s not as well known as his proclivity for comedy or business, but Mike does take an interest in musical theatre. Maybe it’s just because he loves the attention of being on stage—which serves well for his stand-up routines—combined with his enjoyment of singing. He has written, produced and starred in a company play on a very minimal budget (the crowd of Monsters Img employees were duly impressed and his mom was very proud.)

Let’s point out the obvious, he’s a short king and he knows it and accepts it and we love that for him. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[oscopelabs]

War Starts At Midnight: The Three Wartime Visions of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger by Josh Spiegel

Few filmmakers have made films as thematically rich as those from writers/directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in the 1940s. From 1943 to 1949, Powell and Pressburger, better known as the Archers, made seven superlative films that leapfrog genres with heedless abandon, from wartime epic to fantastical romance to psychosexual thriller to ballet drama. Thanks largely to cinephilic champions such as Martin Scorsese and his longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker (who married Powell in 1984), as well as home-media ventures like The Criterion Collection, the Archers’ films have received a vital and necessary second life.

While the Archers’ 1940s-era septet have recognizable throughlines as well as a reliable stable of performers, three of those films are cut from the same cloth, despite telling radically different stories with varying tones. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Canterbury Tale, and A Matter of Life and Death all take place, at least in part, during World War II, and all three films depict a nation at war, as much with other countries as with itself. When we think of British culture, we think of the stiff-upper-lip mentality depicted in popular culture for decades, typified by how Brits acted and reacted in World War II. But the Archers, in this wartime trio, debated the validity of fighting a war with that old-fashioned mentality, offering up films designed to be propagandistic enough to be approved for release but that also asked what it meant to be British in seemingly perpetual wartime.

* * *

“But war starts at midnight!” -- Clive Wynne-Candy

“Oh, yes, you say war starts at midnight. How do you know the enemy says so too?” -- Spud Wilson

The nuance of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp was likely always going to make it a sore spot for the British government. Colonel Blimp was not original to The Archers; he was a comic-strip character created by David Low in the 1930s, meant to skewer puffed-up elder statesmen of the British military. The stereotype of a fatheaded, pompous fool had pervaded the national consciousness so much that Winston Churchill feared the Archers’ adaptation would revive the public’s critical perception of the military when support was needed the most. But while the title invokes Colonel Blimp, the lead character is never referred to as Blimp, and is much less foolish than he may seem when initially seen attacking a young British soldier in a Turkish bath. Powell and Pressburger used the character and the staid, fusty old notions of British militarism as a jumping-off point for a detailed, poignant character study.

Set over four decades, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp begins near its finale, as Great Britain struggles to gain a foothold over the Nazis. We first see our Colonel Blimp, the portly, bald, and mustachioed Clive Wynne-Candy (Roger Livesey), beset upon by younger soldiers in the club where he now lives as part of a training exercise. Clive is infuriated because they’ve started hours earlier than planned; before the smug young soldier leading the charge can explain himself, the two get into a tussle that speaks to why Powell and Pressburger wanted to tell this story. In the production of their previous film, One of Our Aircraft is Missing, the directors removed a scene where an elderly character tells a younger one, “You don’t know what it’s like to be old.” (The idea that this could serve as the thematic backbone to an entire feature was provided by the Archers’ then-editor, David Lean.) Clive’s rage at being taken off-guard leads him to thrash young Spud Wilson and teach him a lesson: “You laugh at my big belly, but you don’t know how I got it! You laugh at my mustache, but you don’t know why I grew it!”

And so, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp flashes back 40 years, a rare instance where a movie indulging in the now-hoary in medias res technique pays dramatic dividends. The rest of the film focuses on three points in the life of the man known first as Clive Candy: his time in the Boer War, the devastating World War I, and his twilight years of service as World War II ramps up. For a war film, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp offers exceedingly little bloodshed. Powell and Pressburger’s film examines how such gruesome action informs men like Clive away from the battlefield, instead of depicting that action in full. Each section of Blimp shows how his noble efforts make him hardened and intractable over time, even against the tide of a truly tyrannical force. At first, Clive’s militaristic mantra is honorable: “Right is might.” But as the film reaches its third hour, he learns that his theory, one embodied by his nation, has been so cruelly disproven by the Nazi scourge that he and Britain must change their ways.  

In the earliest section, Clive steps to the aid of Edith Hunter (a young Deborah Kerr), a British governess in Berlin who’s concerned about a German soldier spreading anti-British lies regarding their treatment of South African women and children in the Boer War. In so doing, and after insulting high-ranking German officers, Clive must duel with a German soldier chosen by lot, Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook). Watching a Brit face off with a German soldier might’ve felt appropriate, at least to the watchful eye of the British government. But Powell and Pressburger shrewdly show us the build-up to the duel itself, not the actual fight; instead, we see the aftermath, as Clive and Theo both convalesce in the same hospital, become close friends, and fall in love with Edith. Only Theo is lucky enough to win her heart; though Edith has as much love in her heart for Clive as for Theo, Clive only grasps his feelings once she’s left his life.

Portraying Theo, the film’s major German character, as surprisingly decent is one significant way in which the Archers brought nuance to what might have been another propagandistic WWII-era film. His innate humanity becomes heartbreaking as the film progresses. In the second section, Theo is a prisoner of war who’s initially too proud to admit his previous connection to Clive, before they reunite briefly. In the final section, Theo is older and much wiser than his friend, yet no luckier. He’s seen in a British immigration office, attempting to leave Germany on his own: his two sons have become Nazis and Edith has passed away. (“None of my sons came to her funeral. Heil Hitler,” Theo says grimly.) Theo then explains what drew him back to the UK, in a measured yet passionate soliloquy. No matter how many faults Theo sees in the Brits—after he reconnects with Clive post-WWI, Theo tries to point out that regular citizens “can’t be adjusted from war to peace as easily as you”—it is still a far kinder place to live than Germany. That the film’s most impassioned speech, expressing fondness for the British way of life, comes from a German is one of its many welcome surprises.

The film’s most haunting twist revolves around the women in Clive’s life. When Edith joins Theo in Germany, Clive is so shaped by her memory that when he settles down and marries the charming Barbara Wynne, she just so happens to look like Edith’s twin. Barbara, like Edith, passes away before World War II begins, but though Clive has aged, he hasn’t changed; his driver, Angela “Johnny” Cannon, looks just like Barbara and Edith, to the point where he introduces Johnny to Theo, fully aware that both men spot the similarity. Kerr, thus, is playing three strong-willed women, all of whom feel like perfect fits with the men of the film.

Clive, like his country, stays firmly and proudly rooted in the past, much to his detriment. When Theo, as an older man, reasons with Clive about how his way of waging war is outdated, it falls on deaf ears despite being a darkly accurate portrait of how WWII could have been lost: “If you let yourself be defeated by them just because you are too fair to hit back the same way they hit at you, there won’t be any methods but Nazi methods.” Only after Spud Wilson’s gambit to throw oldsters like Clive off their game in the training exercise does Clive begrudgingly realize that time has passed him by. The old-fashioned sportsmanship of battle could no longer apply for the Clive Candys of the world; at least this one realized it.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp ends wistfully, as Clive surveys the literal waterlogged wreckage of his life, having lost his house in the Blitz. He, Theo, and Johnny stand by the debris, and he recalls Barbara’s long-ago declaration: “You’ll stay just as you are till the floods come.” As he looks at where his house once lay, he says to himself, “Now here is the lake and I still haven’t changed.” Livesey, one of the very best actors to work with the Archers, imbues that line with a fine blend of pride and heartache, as he does with the salute he gives to the passing, much younger army of his native land. This elder statesman isn’t quite Colonel Blimp, only grasping Theo’s warnings about the Nazis after it’s too late, but he can see complexities of his life where others might not.

It took The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, like the other films explored here, years to fully get its due in the U.S. While Churchill didn’t bar Blimp from release in the United Kingdom, he enforced an export ban on the feature because he saw it as a less-than-helpful presentation of the military at such a dire period. (Or, as some have wondered, he may well have seen the older Clive Candy as a critique of him. Of course, Churchill reportedly never saw this film, because that would have been too challenging.) A shortened version was released in U.S. theaters in 1945, cutting out the flashback structure. The truncated TV version, which runs just 90 minutes—the original is 163 minutes— was still able to excite a young Scorsese, who helped fund a restoration in 2013 for this classic.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp was, perhaps, doomed for failure; its treatment of people perceived as the enemy could gain resonance only with distance from WWII. The British War Office and Churchill stated their antipathy to the production even before it began filming, refusing the Archers’ request to release Laurence Olivier from service to star as Candy. (Livesey, to note, is wonderful in the film, so the Archers’ loss is our gain.) But Clive Candy was able to weather attacks, and so too was Blimp, the beginning of a seven-year period where the Archers upended expectations, strove to break cinematic ground, and stayed true to their artistic principles. Here is the lake, and still, this movie hasn’t changed. It only grows with age.

* * *

“It’s a great thing to sit back in an armchair and watch the world go by in front of you.” – Sgt. Bob Johnson

“The drawback is…that people may get used to looking at life from the sitting position.” – Thomas Colpeper

Fourteen months after The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Powell and Pressburger released another film set during World War II, which presented both the natural wonder and beauty of England while calmly displaying the ways in which the war had devastated some of its history. A Canterbury Tale wasn’t a hit with critics or audiences in the late summer of 1944; by the time it was released in the United States, the year was 1949, and a movie about three young strangers who journey towards Canterbury Cathedral in the waning months of World War II needed new, American-focused framing scenes to entice audiences.

Over 70 years after its initial release, what can we make of A Canterbury Tale? The allure of this low-key drama is, like its setting, ineffable and mysterious. The three leads, waylaid in the small English town of Chillingbourne while they wait for another train to Canterbury, ostensibly try to solve a mystery whose solution isn’t that mysterious. Some aspects of this film—whose three protagonists were all newcomers—feel less like drama and more like the Archers trying to make UK citizens turn away from the dark days of World War II and remind them of their land’s own beauty. From the vantage point of the 21st century, A Canterbury Tale is an utterly fascinating and serene look at how small towns tried to maintain a community-wide calm in the midst of terror.

Bob Johnson (Sgt. John Sweet) is an American soldier on his way to Canterbury Cathedral to meet a fellow Yank and do right by his mother back home in Three Sisters Falls, Oregon. Peter Gibbs (Dennis Price) is a British soldier who seems outwardly as arrogant as Blimp’s Spud Wilson, even though his true passion is playing the organ. While he plays it at cinemas back home, he’d rather play the kind of organ in the handsomely appointed Canterbury Cathedral. Alison Smith (Sheila Sim) has been conscripted into the Women’s Land Army; assigned to a farm in Chillingbourne, she has personal memories from her time near Canterbury that she can’t help but unearth. These strangers are brought together one dark Friday night by happenstance: Bob misheard the station stop and got off early, but he and Peter end up helping Alison after she’s beset upon by a mysterious figure who puts, of all things, glue in her hair. Strangest of all, this isn’t the first time a young woman was attacked by “the glue man” in Chillingbourne.

In a more predictable film, this inciting incident would lead our trio down some dark paths in Chillingbourne, a name that portends something terrifying. But while there’s an unquestionably disturbing subtext to a man placing “sticky stuff,” as Alison describes it, in young women’s hair, there’s little in the way of conventional twists in A Canterbury Tale. When our heroes meet Thomas Colpeper (Eric Portman), the magistrate of Chillingbourne who’s coincidentally the farmer to whom Alison has been assigned, it’s immediately obvious that he’s the glue man. Our heroes use the summer weekend, as they wait for the next train to Canterbury, to build up evidence, but as the weekend progresses, Bob and Alison (and eventually Peter) lose interest in solving the case as they fall in love with the British countryside.

Unlike Blimp, A Canterbury Tale has an ensemble of disparate characters who mostly have never seen serious battle. So many of them are average people conscripted into action, trying not to admit how terrified they feel. A Canterbury Tale features no bloodshed, but Powell and Pressburger stuck to the notion of making the film feel like a document of regular civilians by casting few recognizable actors. Portman worked with the Archers on the earlier film 49th Parallel and was, at the time, this film’s most well-known actor. Sweet, on the other end of the spectrum, was the least well-known; this was his first and only role in a film.

Recently, much was made about how Clint Eastwood’s The 15:17 to Paris, in which three young men who foiled a real-life attack, feature those three men playing themselves. When Powell and Pressburger cast their American character, they didn’t change his name to match the actor’s, but they might as well have: John Sweet was an Army Sergeant at the time, and his first-time performing style is always evident. Unlike the performances in The 15:17 to Paris, however, Sweet’s work is oddly charming. Watching him interact with the ensemble allows for the understandable awkwardness of his performance to take on a double meaning; Sweet is the outsider as much because he’s untrained as because he’s American. Bob Johnson is incurably curious and inquisitive, having so little awareness of British traditions, making his languorous journey through Chillingbourne all the more compelling.

By the close of A Canterbury Tale, all three of our heroes receive a blessing in the style of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. For Bob, it’s a revival of a romance he presumes is finished. His paramour, who he figured had moved on, has instead joined the Women’s Army Corps in Australia and has responded to the letters he thought had been ignored. Even before that, the people Bob meets in Chillingbourne, from the boys playing soldier to the local mechanics and a fellow military man from Seven Sisters in England, serve as a kind of blessing. When we first meet Bob, he’s all too happy to get his visit to Canterbury out of the way; before the movie ends, he’s taken to running down the sloping hills of Chillingbourne with his new friends, an overgrown boy at play. Stopping in Chillingbourne brings him joy even before his love life is given a new chance.

Alison, too, becomes closer to nature as she explores Chillingbourne. Of all people, she finds herself associating with Colpeper, even after she’s correct in presuming that he’s the culprit. Her blessing arises from memories she has of spending a summer outside Chillingbourne in a caravan with her fiancé, now presumed dead. But before she can receive the happy news that her fiancé is alive and well, she has to almost commune with the Earth to try and move on. By the second half, Alison is so in touch with nature that she hears the sounds of music and voices in the hills, akin to the centuries-old pilgrims Chaucer wrote about.

Alison’s connection is validated and shared by Colpeper, with whom she’s convening in those same hills Bob runs down. Even after Alison confirms Colpeper’s nighttime habits, she admits, “I was very mistaken about you.” Their connection is more emotional than anything else; Colpeper tells her that hearing voices as she does only works “when you believe strongly in something.” Colpeper’s strong belief in respecting Britain’s history is how he became the glue man. After his historical lectures were met with boredom and few attendees, he made it so British soldiers had little choice but to listen about their homeland’s history. By giving the soldiers a bad name (other townspeople, including the young women, presume one of them is the glue man), Colpeper assumed he could make a small encouragement to the British military to learn about the land it defended. As he explains to Peter on the train to Canterbury, “There’s no sin in being a savage, but a missionary who doesn’t try to do his duty is a bad missionary.”

Though Portman’s enigmatic performance turns Colpeper frosty even here, the magistrate receives a blessing from an unlikely source: Peter. Though Peter is the most gung-ho of the three young people to find the glue man, he chooses not to give Colpeper away to the authorities after he receives his blessing: the chance to play the Canterbury Cathedral organ. But Peter’s decision to let Colpeper walk is portended in one of the wonderful flourishes thrown in by the Archers in the film’s lush black-and-white cinematography. While on the train to Canterbury, Peter scoffs in response to the magistrate asking him if he is an instrument of judgment and says, “I’ll believe that when I get a halo over my head.” Cue the train light creating a halo effect over him.

There is no action-heavy setpiece in A Canterbury Tale, which instead features plenty of images of the main characters taking in the beauty of Chillingbourne. Through Colpeper, we see how hard it is for regular people to both support the military in wartime and forgive soldiers their vices. Through Peter, we see how soldiers didn’t quite grasp that their presence in small towns threw other people’s lives into upheaval. You could argue that very little happens to the characters in A Canterbury Tale; all that does happen is that Powell and Pressburger let the audience watch these people’s unremarkable yet compelling lives, and that they each secretly want to find some purpose when they arrive in Canterbury. The heroes appreciate what it meant to be British in decades gone by, and reflect on how that impacts their actions in the present. A Canterbury Tale was a love letter to England, made as gorgeous by its rolling hills as by its people. Though it didn’t hit big originally, and additional footage featuring Bob reconnecting with his girlfriend (Kim Hunter, about whom more very shortly) didn’t help it translate in America, A Canterbury Tale is a truly entrancing story of how badly people needed their unique burdens eased in such a horrific time of history.

* * *

“This is the universe. Big, isn’t it?” – Narrator

It’s hard to decide which is the best Archers film. Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes, perhaps their most broadly appreciated films in America, are remarkable leaps forward for Technicolor cinematography, while showcasing incredible performances, breathtaking set designs, and more. They are gorgeous films, featuring some of the most jaw-dropping images in the Archers’ filmography. But the film released the year before, suggesting the possibilities of what the Archers would do next, is just a touch greater. It is a film that was well-received initially, despite receiving a new title for its U.S. release; a film that’s only getting its first Region 1 Blu-ray release this summer although it offers some of the richest, most colorful images in Three-Strip Technicolor; a film that’s influenced everything from The Simpsons to Harry Potter. It is A Matter of Life and Death.

What if someone was supposed to die, but got misplaced? What if that person, with their extra time, fell in love before they were found by their bringer of death? This, in effect, is the concept of A Matter of Life and Death, in which Peter Carter (David Niven), a cheerful RAF pilot, is meant to die when he escapes his damaged plane without a parachute. Before Peter jumps, he contacts June, a winsome young American radio operator (Hunter), to share what he presumes are his last thoughts in the strangest Meet Cute ever. Peter jumps from quoting Walter Raleigh to brazenly declaring, “I love you, June. You’re life, and I’m leaving you.” But once Peter exits the plane, the damnedest thing happens: he wakes up on the beaches of England very much alive, after which he meets June in person, officially starting their relationship.

The whimsy of A Matter of Life and Death is clarified when we learn why Peter was apparently able to cheat death: his French conductor (Marius Goring, who co-stars in The Red Shoes) couldn’t locate Peter in the thick English fog. Peter is dismayed to learn that his permanent eternal presence is requested in the Other World, taking him away from June. She, of course, is concerned that her new boyfriend might be going mad; kindly local doctor Frank Reeves (Livesey again) believes Peter might be suffering from a brain injury. The perpetually unanswered question is just that: is Peter hallucinating the Other World because his mind is going, or is he really at death’s stairway?

Powell and Pressburger don’t answer the question, providing just enough medical details, down to the smell Peter notices when he speaks to his Conductor, that it might just be a mental malady. (I submit that Peter isn’t hallucinating the Other World because the film never answers one question: how the hell did he survive that fall from the plane?) The closing moments of the film suggest that either option is possible, when it’s revealed that the judge of the Other World’s court of appeals and the surgeon operating on Peter are played by the same actor.

But the mystery of Peter’s circumstances is not what makes A Matter of Life and Death so special. This is one of the most ambitious films the Archers ever made. It is a buoyant, bursting-with-emotion romance between two star-crossed lovers whose connection is straight out of a fairy tale. It is a film designed to help bridge divides between the British and the Americans in the immediate aftermath of World War II. (The story begins just six days before the European section of WWII concluded.) And it is, above all else by the finale, meant as a rousing and spirited defense of the British people. When the Other World allows Peter to appeal his case, he chooses the firm, well-spoken Reeves—who dies tragically in a motorcycle accident before Peter’s surgery—to plead Peter’s case, passionately arguing in favor of his client’s basic humanity.

In these spectral, spiritual moments, Reeves goes head-to-head with Abraham Farlan (Raymond Massey), the first American felled by a British bullet in the Revolutionary War, in arguing for Peter’s clemency. But it becomes clear that Reeves and Farlan are not arguing over Peter’s right to live longer than originally planned: they are debating what it means to be British and to be American. Farlan doesn’t think much of the romance between Peter and June, seeing it as another case of two people ruining relationships back home because they’re thrown into unexpected circumstances abroad: “Men and women thousands of miles away from the love they left behind. Minute sparks, instead of scorching flames.”

This is the Archers’ irreverent way of presenting the British and American states of mind post-WWII. It’s also a sign of their empathy as filmmakers: when Reeves argues that the current jury—all men from different countries around the world impacted by England’s imperialist rule at varying points of history—is unfairly biased, he asks for six American citizens. The reveal is powerful in 2018 as much as it may have been in 1946: the six American citizens are all immigrants, French to African to Irish. There is no one type of American citizen, as there is no one type of British citizen: this film is a dissertation on what it is to be human.

Visually, A Matter of Life and Death is unparalleled in the Archers’ work; the cinematography shifts from Technicolor (in the real world) to black-and-white (in the Other World), and the design of the Other World creates a series of gasp-inducing images. There is the impossibly wide shot of the attendees of Peter’s appeal, in a vast auditorium that reveals itself to be the size of an entire galaxy; there is the design of the literal stairway to heaven (hence its American title, Stairway to Heaven), which seems appropriately infinite without being terrifying; there is the moment when Peter’s fellow RAF pilot, waiting for him in the Other World, peers down to the vast center where files on all people from Earth are kept, and we see his silhouette from far above. The sense of scope and scale in moments like these should be teachable moments for anyone crafting some big-budget spectacle; this film’s moments of wonder were accomplished with a meager budget.

The grandness of A Matter of Life and Death—a movie that begins with the camera panning through the vast universe and closes with lovers reuniting happily—is coupled by its creators’ aims, to emphasize the humanity in people of different creeds and cultures. Peter Carter seems almost carefree in his opening scene, throwing slang left and right to the woman who he’ll fall for even as he expects to die. By the end, Peter and June are united by what Reeves deems the most powerful force on Earth: love. It’s a declaration that manages to be corny and life-affirming at the same time, much in the same way as Powell and Pressburger attempt to emphasize the universal qualities of mankind throughout the spiritual-court climax. In this film, as in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and A Canterbury Tale, to be British is to be human.

* * *

Unlike some of their British cohorts, such as David Lean and Alfred Hitchcock, most of the Archers’ films didn’t immediately hit big in America. Powell’s 1960 horror film Peeping Tom didn’t exactly end his career (he kept making films after that disturbing effort), but it garnered fiercely negative criticism. Over the last couple of decades, the Archers’ films have received well-deserved revivals. Last year, A Matter of Life and Death received a 4K restoration overseen by Scorsese and Schoonmaker, which is translating to the film soon receiving a Region 1 Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection. (It is painfully overdue.) Before that, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and the operatic The Tales of Hoffman both received restorations, hopefully introducing more people to the wonder of these filmmakers.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Canterbury Tale (which also deserves the Blu-ray treatment), and A Matter of Life and Death are the product of fertile creative minds who used the backdrop of World War II to explore vastly different worlds that all happen to exist in Great Britain. This trio runs the gamut of genres and emotions, all while showcasing the kind of soldiers who protected the United Kingdom throughout the first half of the 20th century. The raffish romantic lead of A Matter of Life and Death could easily have been the same kind of soldier to surprise the elderly Clive Candy in the opening of Blimp, or he could have just as easily stumbled across Chillingbourne’s glue man. He could have even been the young Clive Candy. These characters are distinct enough to exist within their own stories as they are to represent attitudes and personalities across all of the Archers’ films. These films encompass a vast universe, one that offers new wonders to cinephiles. Just as the pilgrims came to Canterbury for blessings, so too do true cinephiles receive blessings when they make the pilgrimage to watch Powell and Pressburger’s films.

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5 Horror Franchises We Hope Get A New Sequel (& 5 We Don't)

As seen with the new Halloween movies and producer Jordan Peele’s upcoming Candyman reboot, old-school horror movies getting long-delayed sequels is one of the genre’s biggest trends today. In doing so, horror series from yesteryear (or from just a few years ago) are given a second chance at life, to either give their overarching stories the ending they deserve or redeem themselves of shameful sequels that came before.

RELATED: 10 Movies To Watch If You Liked The Halloween Reboot

Seeing the likes of Michael Myers return to his murderous roots in Haddonfield brought a tear to many a horror fan’s eye, leaving them wondering who could be up next for a new sequel in the coming 2020s. Without further ado, here are 5 horror franchises that need a new sequel, plus 5 more that should be left in the past for different reasons.

10 Needs a Sequel: The Real Leprechaun

In 2018, the Leprechaun came back in Leprechaun Returns. Normally, this would be reason to celebrate among Lep’s fans, but there was one big problem: Lep wasn’t portrayed by Warwick Davis.

Davis’ goofiness and enthusiasm made the Leprechaun series a cult favorite despite Lep having two questionable sequels already, and the newest entry lacks this charm. Now that long-delayed horror sequels are the trend, there’s no better time for Davis to properly conclude Lep’s saga.

9 Doesn’t Need a Sequel: Paranormal Activity

Found footage movies have been around for a long time, but Paranormal Activity arguably made the popularity of the concept explode. The first movie’s surprise success led to five sequels, all of which diminished in quality with each passing entry. Not only is the Paranormal Activity series floundering, but found footage has fallen out of favor.

RELATED: 5 Awesome Found Footage Horror Movies (& 5 That Don't Work)

With few exceptions, these low-budget movies have been exposed as lazy cash grabs that are indistinguishable from one another. There are rumors of a seventh Paranormal Activity, but maybe it’s better for this fad to fade away, beginning with the one that started it all.

8 Needs a Sequel: The Original Child’s Play

The case of the Child’s Play movies is a strange one. The original run is still ongoing and will be followed up in an upcoming series, and it still got a reboot this year that’s bound to spawn some sequels.

The reboot has its strengths and merits, but its mere existence runs the risk of rudely overshadowing a beloved long-running story that has yet to end. The events of Cult of Chucky ended on an inspired cliffhanger where Charles Lee Ray is free once more, and his killing spree deserves a proper conclusion before a new generation takes over.

7 Doesn’t Need a Sequel: Jeepers Creepers

One of the few original and recognized horror franchises of the 2000s is Jeepers Creepers, a trilogy (at the moment) about a flying cannibal who awakes every 23 years.

Jeepers Creepers 3 was so poorly made and received that it killed any interest in the sequel it was building up to. The third movie was mostly filler with watered-down kills, lacking its predecessors’ dread. It's one of those franchises that seemed to lose its momentum, and that's a very difficult thing to recover from.

6 Needs a Sequel: Hellraiser

The production cycle of the Hellraiser movies is a mess. With the exception of the first two movies, the Hellraiser series has almost no involvement from its creator Clive Barker. The celebrated horror author wrote the first two films and even directed the original, but lost creative control of anything after that.

To say the sequels missed the point of Barker’s vision is an understatement, as they degraded his uniquely Gothic vision into typical slasher gore. A return to form is reportedly in the works, thankfully with Barker back in the fold.

5 Doesn’t Need a Sequel: The Amityville Horror(s)

Believe it or not, there was an Amityville movie released in 2018… a year after another Amityville movie opened in 2017 following years’ worth of delays. The Amityville movies went from being decent haunted house fare to becoming a cliché of their own.

RELATED: The Best Haunted House Movies Of All Time

These movies are always about a hapless family moving into the legendarily spooky house, only for them to get spooked on and killed later. Unless a team of visionary filmmakers takes control, Amityville movies are probably better left dormant in their grave of cinematic obscurity.

4 Needs a Sequel: The Evil Dead

Unlike most horror properties, The Evil Dead  boasts a good original franchise and a well-made reboot. The Evil Dead remake may be a bit more serious than expected, but it deserves a follow-up after director Fede Alvarez showed what he’s capable of.

Meanwhile, the original The Evil Dead trilogy continued in Ash vs. Evil Dead, which was canceled after three seasons. Ash Williams’ story closed with an open enough ending, but it still feels a bit lacking. Whether it’s through a crossover with the new generation or a definitive final chapter, Ash deserves a proper last hurrah.

3 Doesn’t Need a Sequel: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The horror of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre lies in how little is known about Leatherface and his cannibalistic clan, yet the franchise keeps on adding prequels and reboots that needlessly reveal their backstories. In this series’ case, it has to stop churning out origin stories and restarts no one asked for.

RELATED: 10 True-Crime Movies That Will Keep You Up At Night

If anything, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre needs more sequels because it’s known for making some of the strangest follow-ups in horror history. Given the film-makers’ obsession with exploring Leatherface’s childhood, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll get something as amazingly weird as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 again.

2 Needs a Sequel: Friday the 13th

Unlike most other horror reboots of the 2000s, the new Friday the 13thwas actually good, if not great. It breathed life into Jason Voorhees and introduced the classic slasher killer to a new generation, properly modernizing his myth in ways that the futuristic guilty pleasure Jason X failed.

A sequel (or another reboot) has been in the works since 2009, but the series’ legal battles bogged everything to a screeching halt. The modern horror genre is in dire need of some good old fashioned slasher fun, which is something Jason can provide.

1 Doesn’t Need a Sequel: A Nightmare on Elm Street

If Friday the 13thdid its job in 2009, A Nightmare on Elm Street failed catastrophically in 2010. Despite Jackie Earle Haley’s best efforts as the new Freddy Kruger, the Elm Street remake was a dull retread that lacked any of the franchise’s signature horror, creativity, and fun.

There are rumors of another remake, but thankfully, New Line Cinema is occupied with The Conjuring movies. Also, as iconic as he is, Freddy – a shape-shifting killer who preys on fearful children – has been somewhat usurped by the new Pennywise in the IT movies, making his return all the more unlikely.

NEXT: The 10 Best Horror Movies Of 2019 (So Far), According To Rotten Tomatoes

source https://screenrant.com/horror-franchises-sequel-best-worst-idea/

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The Definitive Ranking of Every Assassin’s Creed Game

May 7, 2020 4:00 PM EST

When looking at all twelve mainline entries in the Assassin’s Creed saga, here’s what we at DualShockers consider to be the best of the best in the franchise.

As it approaches its fifteenth anniversary, the Assassin’s Creed franchise has been just about all over the place. From Renaissance Italy, to Ancient Greece, and even the American Revolution, the Assassin’s Creed saga has taken us on many different adventures all of varying quality.

Now, with Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla set to come out later this year on current and next-gen platforms, we figured now would be as good of a time as any to take inventory of the franchise and see which games rank above the rest. So that’s exactly what we did just recently. In a group comprised of Michael Ruiz, Mario Rivera, Logan Moore, and Cameron Hawkins, we here at DualShockers decided to rank every mainline entry in the AC series and determine once and for all which games in this series rule, and which ones aren’t so good.

If you want to hear how we came to the decisions found in this article, you’re more than welcome to listen to our over two-hour-long debate in the video below. Otherwise, feel free to yell at us in the comments and tell us about how wrong we are, if you feel so inclined.

12. Assassin’s Creed: Unity

Assassin’s Creed: Unity legitimately hurt the AC series for a span of years. Filled with a litany of bugs at launch that kept many from taking the game seriously, Unity showed that Ubisoft’s annualized trotting out of this franchise had finally caught up to them and was in dire need of a break. While lambasted on its own, the damage that Unity caused the Assassin’s Creed series reverberated for years to come, and even led to Syndicate having lower sales the following year upon its release.

Bugs and launch issues aside, Unity also just struggles to stand out in the larger franchise. It’s devoid of any interesting characters, a meaningful story, or memorable gameplay moments. From top to bottom, Unity easily stands as the worst installment in the series and that’s not a stretch to claim whatsoever. – Logan Moore

11. Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation

If you’re wondering why Assassin’s Creed: Liberation is very low on the list, it’s because no one on our board has really played this entry. Originally released on the Vita, yet still considered a mainline title for the series, it is one that fell under the radar for many.

So, why is it below Assassin’s Creed III? Well, since it is somewhat of an extension of III, it seemed reasonable to kind of pack it in with its contemporary. It is above Unity because, as mentioned, Arno’s adventure left a huge stain on the franchise enough for us to consider it the worst in the series despite having never spent much time with Liberation. – Michael Ruiz

10. Assassin’s Creed III

It cannot be understated how much of a letdown Assassin’s Creed III was when it released. After years of narrative build-up with Desmond across the Ezio trilogy, what was meant to be the franchise’s crescendo ended up being a completely botched finale in nearly every way. Not only was the conclusion of Desmond’s story a convoluted mess, but it actively soured everything that came before it, too.

And even when it comes to the actual assassin gameplay, the American Revolution setting, and the new protagonist of Connor Kenway, everything just felt like a disappointment compared to what we had before. Following the charismatic Ezio, Connor is perhaps the blandest character in the entire saga. Gameplay-wise, much of what was shown here felt worse on a mechanical level compared to titles like ACII and the American setting that the game finds itself in is much emptier and less exciting than you would initially expect.  Assassin’s Creed III should have been far better than what we got and it’s still a bummer to this day. – Logan Moore

9. Assassin’s Creed

The original Assassin’s Creed launched back in 2007 with story and gameplay that would influence many future Ubisoft titles. It is a solid proof of concept that was then perfected in its sequel, Assassin’s Creed II.

So, why is Assassin’s Creed near the bottom of our list? Well, it really is dull, even by past standards. While it introduced us to the ridiculous time-hopping tale of Desmond Miles, the Assassin’s Brotherhood, and the “evil” Templars, the gameplay is just somewhat bland and features the blank slate of an assassin known as Altair. It may have been a solid first entry for the time, but it feels so antiquated now, with many of the series’ future titles improving on this foundation tremendously. – Michael Ruiz

8. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

In Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, we see the end of Ezio’s story. We see a more mature version of the charismatic hero make his way to Constantinople trying to find information about the Brotherhood during the time of Altair in the 12th century. While it brought back Altair in a coo,l significant way that ultimately made the original Assassin’s Creed more important narratively, it didn’t feel like it needed to be a full-length title. Getting to learn more about Desmond’s past before Abstergo and the modern-day Brotherhood was fascinating and shed more light on the main protagonist. Outside of that, however, Revelations is a rather unmemorable experience. – Cameron Hawkins

7. Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate is a good game that released at a low point for the series. Launching just a year after the disastrous Assassin’s Creed: Unity, it presented some really cool ideas within the then-current formula. Jacob and Evie Frye were both solid protagonists for the franchise, especially after playing as Arno. The train hideout and zipline were also really cool features that Syndicate brought to the table.

However, despite its efforts, Syndicate just never really stood out as a landmark title for the Assassin’s Creed series. Especially after Unity, some huge improvements would have had to be made for this one to stand out. And while it did everything better than its predecessor, it wasn’t enough. – Michael Ruiz

6. Assassin’s Creed: Rogue

Assassin’s Creed: Rogue is the dark horse of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Originally released as a last-generation exclusive, a lot of people missed out or skipped this entry when in reality it is one of the best in the series. Rogue is a prequel to the lackluster Assassin’s Creed III, but with all the great gameplay and features from Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. Playing as an assassin gone templar after being betrayed by the creed creates a compelling narrative because it is the first time in the franchise where it puts the brotherhood in a new light as the antagonists. The only crime that Rogue commits is ending with a major cliffhanger that unfortunately has not been (and likely never will be) resolved. – Cameron Hawkins

5. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey

The most recent entry in the Assassin’s Creed series and the first game chronologically, Odyssey feels way less like an AC game and more like a full-blown action RPG. This is both good and bad as what’s included here is a ton of fun to play, even though aspects like stealth seem to have far less of an importance than ever before.

Amongst new additions like special combat moves, dialogue trees, and the return of naval warfare, Odyssey also includes a variety of exceptional pieces of side content that will keep you coming back time and time again. With a gripping story to boot that ties into the larger franchise in some interesting ways, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey mostly iterates and improves on many elements that were introduced in Origins, even if it can feel overwhelming to play due to how much content is packed within. – Logan Moore

4. Assassin’s Creed II

Assassin’s Creed II is the game that put the franchise on the map and led to Ubisoft annualizing the series for years to follow. It improves on everything the original introduced while introducing other great new features including the iconic double hidden blades. Getting to explore different areas of Renaissance Italy, teaming up with Leonardo da Vinci, and taking down the templars made it such a unique experience for its time. Ezio Auditore goes through a compelling development from a ladies man to an assassin whose sole objective is to get revenge on those who killed his family. It is a very memorable adventure that still holds up to this day. – Cameron Hawkins

3. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag

Pound for pound, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag might be the most enjoyable entry in the entire series. While it spurns much of the franchise’s roots when it comes to the focus on the Brotherhood, and the modern-day sequences with Abstergo are an absolute drag, Black Flag’s final result still makes for one of the best pirate video games ever made.

The gameplay loop of sailing around the high seas, upgrading your ship, and doing battle with other pirate captains is almost always a complete joy. With sea shanties, shark hunting, underwater exploration, and a litany of other exciting tasks spread throughout, the world of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag will more than keep you busy for quite some time and allows you to finally live out your sea dog dreams. – Logan Moore

2. Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is the pinnacle of what the franchise literally represents. After losing his home and yes, his family, Ezio migrates to Rome where he builds a new life which includes renovating the city and creating a true Brotherhood of assassins. We get to experience Ezio accept his role and destiny as the leader of the creed. Being able to call in your brothers to take down enemies is a feature that you can only find in Brotherhood, making you truly feel like the leader of the pack. Brotherhood and Assassin’s Creed II are very similar to each other, but the improvements of gameplay, as well as the powerful narrative moments that this successor brings, just slightly pushes it to a higher mantle. Also, the multiplayer was surprisingly fun. – Cameron Hawkins

1. Assassin’s Creed Origins

This was a pretty hard choice, but as a group, we decided Assassin’s Creed: Origins was the best game in the series.

In a time where Assassin’s Creed: Unity left somewhat of a stain on the franchise, fans started to think maybe Ubisoft’s annualized series run its course. Next was Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, which is a fine game by all accounts, but the reverberations of Unity’s poor reception carried over. It was time for a change.

Ubisoft did something unprecedented for the triple-a franchise and took a year off. In 2017, a new era of Assassin’s Creed began, and it all started with Origins. Unlike its predecessors, this entry featured more traditional open-world RPG mechanics along with revamped combat. It was the breath of fresh air the series needed and is now the template that Assassin’s Creed games are based on moving forward.

Along with its improved gameplay was a story, character, and environment that all worked together to keep the player engaged. Bayek, the playable “assassin” this time around, is debatably the best protagonist in an Assassin’s Creed game only second to the iconic Ezio Auditore. He is compelling and multi-faceted, which is more than what you could say about Connor, Edward, Arno, and just about every assassin before him. His story of revenge is one that kept me glued to my couch for hours. The Ancient Egypt setting only complemented its strengths, with awesome landmarks to visit and interesting areas to explore.

Origins is so comprehensive compared to its predecessors. It changed the series in a way both newcomers and seasoned players could enjoy. It also set the tone for Assassin’s Creed’s future in such a profound way, which is why it takes the number one spot on our list. – Michael Ruiz

May 7, 2020 4:00 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/05/the-definitive-ranking-of-every-assassins-creed-game/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-definitive-ranking-of-every-assassins-creed-game

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Pope Francis Sets Aside Proposal on Married Priests

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has for now rejected a landmark proposal by bishops to allow the ordination of married men in remote areas underserved by priests, a potentially momentous change that conservatives had warned could set the Roman Catholic Church on a path toward lifting priestly celibacy and weakening church traditions.

The decision, in a papal letter made public on Wednesday, was welcomed by conservatives, but it was a major setback for many of the Catholics who see Francis as their best hope for bringing fundamental change to the church.

With the church facing a shortage of priests and increasing competition from evangelicals in many countries, the idea of opening up the priesthood to married men had held broad appeal for liberals worried about the church’s future.

Coming seven years into Francis’ papacy, his decision also raised the question of whether his promotion of discussing once-taboo issues is resulting in a pontificate that is largely talk.

“It’s difficult to reform a longstanding global institution,” said Marco Marzano, the author of “The Immobile Church: Francis and the Missed Revolution,” who called it “improbable” that Francis could deliver on all the changes his supporters hoped for. For liberals, he said, “There has been an exaggerated optimism.”

His closest advisers have acknowledged that the pope’s impact has waned on the global stage, especially on core issues like immigration and the environment. His legacy, they have said, will be inside the church, where his authority is absolute.

But the pope’s refusal to allow married priests came as a relief to conservatives, many of whom have come to see Francis and his emphasis on a more pastoral and inclusive church as a grave threat to the rules, orthodoxy and traditions of the faith. Some interpreted the pope’s decision as an olive branch to conservatives.

Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, who was fired as the church’s top doctrinal watchdog by Francis in 2017 and has emerged as one of his most prominent conservative critics, welcomed the letter as a “document of reconciliation.”

“This text could also have the reconciling effect of reducing internal church factions, ideological fixations and the danger of inner emigration or open resistance,” Cardinal Müller, of Germany, wrote on Wednesday.

The recommendation to allow married priests in remote areas was approved by more than two-thirds of the voting members who attended a church leaders’ summit on the Amazon region in October.

Francis had in the past expressed openness on the subject, and had often emphasized his desire to empower bishops around the world, to listen to their needs and create a less top-down church.

But the proposal to ordain married men in the Amazon region, where the shortage of priests is dire, set off a polarizing debate.

Progressives said it was high time the church recognized reality and the demands of the faithful; conservatives called the idea a threat to the priesthood, and warned that married priests would follow everywhere, including Europe.

Even the pope’s predecessor, Benedict XVI, put a finger on the scale, arguing for priestly celibacy in a rare intercession that highlighted the hardening of liberal and conservative camps that has come to define Francis’ papacy.

Despite expectations, Francis backed off.

In his letter, which took the form of a 94-page booklet and has the power of church teaching, Francis notably made no mention of ordaining married men in good standing or elevating to the priesthood married deacons, a lower clerical rank that does not require celibacy.

The silence amounted to a pocket veto of the proposal.

Cardinal Michael Czerny of Canada, a close adviser to Francis, said in a news conference on Wednesday that specific proposals in the final October document “remain on the table” and characterized the process as a “journey.”

But the Vatican made clear that for now the pope had not given the go-ahead for married priests in the Amazon.

Writing that “a specific and courageous response is required of the church,” Francis argued in his letter that access to the sacraments needs to be increased in “the remotest” places, but that a “priest alone” can celebrate communion or absolve sins.

Francis argued that the gap should be filled with a culturally sensitive effort to increase priestly vocations and by encouraging more of those already ordained to go to remote areas.

Francis, who blames abuse of power by priests for many of the church’s ills, argued that the way forward rested in “the growth of a specific ecclesial culture that is distinctively lay.”

“It is not simply a question of facilitating a greater presence of ordained ministers who can celebrate the Eucharist,” he added, dismissing such a goal as “a very narrow aim.”

Anticipating the backlash that Francis’ decision might bring after months of fervid debate, the Vatican immediately sounded a defensive note on Wednesday.

The pope’s letter “demonstrates a thought that supersedes the dialectical diatribes which ended up representing the Synod as a referendum on the possibility of ordaining married men,” Andrea Tornielli, a Vatican spokesman, said in a statement.

He said the pope had decided against “changes or further possibilities of exceptions.”

Francis said he would “officially present” the bishops’ final document, “The Amazon: New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology,” and recommended “everyone to read it in full.”

But there was some confusion about how influential that document was. Cardinal Czerny said on Wednesday that the document had a “moral authority” and that “to ignore it would be a lack of obedience to the Holy Father’s legitimate authority.” But the Vatican made clear that this moral authority did not extend to ordaining married men.

The bishops’ document urged the church to adapt to the religious customs of Indigenous people and to support them in their resistance to large economic and political interests exploiting the Amazon.

The pope’s letter echoed those concerns, arguing for the protection of the environment, but stopped short of calling deforestation and stripping of resources a “sin,” as the bishops had.

During the bishops’ meeting, conservatives expressed deep concerns that the church was diluting its teaching by opening to Indigenous forms of worship that they considered pagan.

At one point, fertility statues were stolen from a church near St. Peter’s Basilica that had become a makeshift headquarters for the Indigenous attendees.

In his letter, Francis wrote: “Let us not be quick to describe as superstition or paganism certain religious practices that arise spontaneously from the life of peoples,” adding, “It is possible to take up an Indigenous symbol in some way, without necessarily considering it as idolatry.”

But the section of the document that might have presented the greatest change — potentially a diversion from 1,000 years of church tradition — was on ordaining married men as priests.

Married priests are already allowed in Eastern Catholic Churches loyal to the pope, and Anglican priests who convert to Catholicism can remain married after ordination. But the document wrestled with what many church historians consider a more significant change.

At the close of the October meeting, bishops from the Amazon region had proposed that the pope ordain as priests “suitable and respected men of the community” with families who had already had “fruitful” experiences as deacons and who would “receive an adequate formation for the priesthood.”

The Amazon bishops argued that the change was necessary because many of the faithful in the region had encountered “enormous difficulties” in receiving communion.

Critics said it was a sea change, not simply a practical measure.

The bishops at the October summit had already disappointed some liberals on the question of empowering women in the church.

The bishops recognized how important women were in the church in the Amazon, where they often lead services and act as anchors for Indigenous congregations. But the meeting did not recommend elevating those women to the position of deacon, while noting that discussions on the subject had been “very present.”

Church analysts said that debate touched on critical theological issues, given that a deacon is a clerical position and is step toward priesthood.

Francis has talked a lot about elevating women. He said on Wednesday that women should have more formal roles in churches but again resisted moving them up in the hierarchy.

It would be reductionist, he wrote, “to believe that women would be granted a greater status and participation in the church only if they were admitted to holy orders.”

He added, “We must keep encouraging those simple and straightforward gifts that enabled women in the Amazon region to play so active a role in society.”

Last month, Pope Emeritus Benedict contributed to a book defending priestly celibacy, which is part of Catholic tradition, though not required by doctrine. Many saw the timing of the publication as an attempt by Benedict, or his coterie, to influence Francis.

But church officials said Francis had already delivered his letter by then, and it was published later only because of the time required for translation.

Some of Benedict’s allies clearly thought it was worth the wait.

“The pope does not want to fuel existing political, ethnic and inner-church conflicts and conflicts of interest,” Cardinal Müller wrote. “But rather to overcome them.”

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Changing the Target of Your Ire: Thoughts After Maple Leafs 6, Flyers 0

My good friend Frank Seravalli of TSN in Canada had three successive tweets during the Flyers embarrassing (again) 6-0 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs Saturday night that were not only really accurate but also quite timely in my opinion:

#Flyers now on their 5th goalie of the season in Game No. 23. Team save percentage is by far league-worst at .877 incl tonight. That’s almost 3 GA every 20 shots. Impossible to win with that. Utterly unacceptable – and you can’t say it snuck up on management.

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) November 25, 2018

Let’s put it another way: #Flyers have allowed 4 or more goals in 12 of 23 games. No chance to win when you need to score 5 every other night. A team poised to “take a step forward” needed a bridge to Carter Hart. Instead, Elliott + Neuvirth = Malpractice. No hindsight there.

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) November 25, 2018

I’m not a Hakstol defender, but I’d like to see what his team looks like with decent goaltending. 15-16: .917 (7th) | Lge Avg: .910 16-17: .901 (26th) | Avg: .910 17-18: .903 (22nd) | Avg: .908 18-19: .877 (31st) | Avg: .904 All considered: Playoffs in 2/3 isn’t bad.

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) November 25, 2018

Rather than dive into the terrible play and continued malaise of the fragile Flyers team after their latest blow out loss, I’d like to breakdown Frank’s tweets instead and try to piece together an assessment from them, because that’s far more interesting than writing the Flyers sucked for the umpteenth time in my 14 months here at Crossing Broad.

So, analysis after the jump:

1. “Five goalies in 23 games”

That’s almost unbelievable, but it’s not, because it’s the Flyers, who have had goaltending issues since the dawn of time.

The latest was Anthony Stolarz, who was pressed into action in the most dire of dire situations. Stolarz was pretty much the odd man out for the Flyers organization. With Brian Elliott and Michael Neuvirth slated as the NHL netminders and Carter Hart and Alex Lyon slated to man the space between the pipes for the Phantoms in the AHL, Stolarz was sort of the odd man out.

In fact, in his time with the Phantoms this year, he had only appeared in three games total, and only one game since Oct. 14.

The Flyers had so soured on Stolarz that they chose instead to claim Calvin Pickard off waivers rather than turn to Stolarz for a backup role when both Lyon and Neuvirth weren’t healthy at the start of the season.

But now, Elliott is hurt again (second time in seven months), Neuvirth is on injured reserve, which is as unsurprising as statement as there are still Thanksgiving leftovers in the fridge three days later, and now Lyon has a minor lower-body injury.

This left the Flyers with Pickard and no one else available to back him up.

The Flyers weren’t about to call on Carter Hart, who can’t stop pucks in the AHL right now (3.61 GAA, .884 save percentage in 12 games) so, by default, Stolarz was all they had left.

Of course, he was just being recalled to hold a seat on the NHL bench and basically be an emergency goalie – no different than, say, Scott Foster. 

OK… maybe it’s a little different, after all, Stolarz is truly under contract. But, he was not expected to play. At all.

Pickard, who shut out the New York Rangers Friday was going to start again. And he was going to do it against the Leafs, who waived him for the Flyers to claim him.

No doubt Pickard was amped for the opportunity to stick it to his old team – especially coming off the emotional high of a shutout the day before.

Except Pickard made only two saves, allowed four goals, and didn’t survive the first period. That’s because the Leafs, knowing him well, exploited his weaknesses – over-committing on plays and being prone to shots aimed for the five hole.

And with that, Stolarz got into the game. He played well in his two-plus periods. He made 32 saves on 34 shots.

But that really doesn’t matter. What matters is the Flyers goaltending situation is such a fetid disaster that they were forced to use five goalies in 23 games, and none of them have fared well. Elliott has been decent – basically a little better than league average (2.59 GAA, .911 save percentage) – despite having a losing record.

But otherwise, the Flyers goaltending has been trash. You can’t win, even occasionally, when you are using five different goalies in 23 games.

2. “Team save percentage is by far league-worst at .877 incl tonight. That’s almost 3 GA every 20 shots.”

The Flyers have allowed 3.57 goals per game. Only two teams in the entire NHL are worse – the Florida Panthers and the Ottawa Senators.

But that save percentage – it’s actually .880 now thanks to Stolarz’ effort against Toronto – is an abomination. It’s 0.24 below league average. Think about that for a second. The Flyers goalies are allowing one more goal for roughly every 40 shots taken against them than the average team. Not the best team but the middle-of-the-road goaltending team. They’re actually 0.45 behind the best team (Boston). That means that Boston goalies stop almost five percent more shots than Flyers goalies do. Woof.

Making matters worse, the Flyers are actually an OK offensive team production wise. Their 68 goals rank 17th in the NHL, which is right in the middle of the pack. And yet, their goal-differential is fourth-worst in the league (minus-14).

3. “Let’s put it another way: #Flyers have allowed 4 or more goals in 12 of 23 games. No chance to win when you need to score 5 every other night.”

No Frank. You can not.

4. “Utterly unacceptable – and you can’t say it snuck up on management.”

5. “A team poised to “take a step forward” needed a bridge to Carter Hart. Instead, Elliott + Neuvirth = Malpractice.”

That’s the word I really wanted to get to – malpractice. Because that’s what this is. Ron Hextall had to know his goaltending situation was shaky at best coming into the season.

Neuvirth was constantly hurt last year.

Elliott played well at times, but he was felled by a serious core muscle injury (nee, hernia) and never looked the same after coming back.

Trading for Peter Mrazek was a disaster and he wasn’t welcomed back.

Although Lyon gave it the old college try, he’s still not really ready for the NHL, and if and when he ever is, it’s likely as a backup at best.

Stolarz was coming off a pretty bad knee injury himself, and it was obvious he wasn’t part of the team’s plans moving forward.

And yet, despite all of these concerns, this issue was not addressed by Hextall in the offseason. Rather than pursue a goalie who could be a bridge to Carter Hart and keep the Flyers competitive, Hextall closed his eyes and hoped for the best.

And it has been the most unmitigated disaster of his tenure as general manager.

People can complain all they want about the coach, or the players not living up to expectations, or the penalty kill being terrible or the power play nose-diving, or any other myriad maladies the Flyers have – and all of them have merit.

But those would be masked a little better if there was even a sense of stability in net, and Hextall ignored it. This is akin to leaving the surgical scissors inside the patient after stitching him back up.

He has to know it. His bosses have to know it. It’s why they’ve been circling the Wells Fargo Center press box more lately than ever before.

Blame whoever you want, and there’s a lot of finger-pointing that is valid at this juncture, but the first target you should have in your sights is the GM.

6. “I’m not a Hakstol defender, but I’d like to see what his team looks like with decent goaltending.”

Again, I agree with Frank – and I’ve been one of the more fervent Hakstol critics out there. But the guy has been a different coach this season. Maybe we’re seeing him react to the pressure that is on him and this organization to finally succeed. Maybe it’s taken him longer than it should to figure this NHL game out, but he is figuring it out.

Or maybe he’s coaching by the seat of his pants and isn’t really good at his job. Who knows for sure. But Frank makes a great point. Hakstol and the Flyers have been the poster child for traditionalists against the analytics boom in hockey.

The Flyers do often have good underlying metrics to their game. The fancy stats usually show that this team is playing better than the results would indicate.

It’s why we heard last season during a 10-game losing streak that the team was playing far better than their record would indicate.

And yet, despite all of these good sub-statistics, the Flyers are still mediocre at best, and well below average at worst.

But maybe, just maybe, this team would be what they think and believe they can be with better goaltending. Maybe it’s mental. Maybe the players lack confidence in who they are trotting out there in the crease game after game – and maybe that confidence is completely shaken after a bad goal or two, or the goalie not bailing out a mistake in front of him.

Maybe that causes the team to play tight, and once you tighten up, the odds of making mistakes increases. Turnovers, penalties. Making plays where you overthink instead of playing instinctively in the moment.

Or maybe, as Scott Laughton said several games back, the Flyers try to cheat too much to create offense because that confidence on the last line of defense isn’t too high, and that more cavalier approach to hockey ends up biting them.

All of these things are possible. And the GM needs to be able to recognize that and rectify that, and he hasn’t been able to do so in his four-plus years at the helm.

Which brings me to this:

7. A conclusion

What if all of the focus by fans and the media have been on Hakstol’s job as the coach, but internally the focus is on Hextall’s job as the GM?

What if Hextall is on the hot seat more than his coach is?

Sound crazy?

Maybe it is. But then again, maybe it’s not.

Maybe the conversations between Senior Vice President Bob Clarke – who is basically a highly paid consultant for the team these days – and President Paul Holmgren – which have been happening regularly with little to no reporting or fanfare – are more about Hexy than Hak.

Tough decisions are coming. It could start with the coaching staff – but not necessarily Hakstol.

I wouldn’t be surprised, for instance, if Ian Laperriere is finally relieved of his assistant coaching position and replaced by Phantoms head coach Scott Gordon. Gordon has a long history of coaching good penalty kill units at all levels of hockey.

And I know the Flyers organization really likes assistant coach Kris Knoblauch as a potential future head coach, but I also know they would want him to gain experience on that front too. So I could see Knoblauch re-assigned to the Phantoms as their new head coach.

I’m not sure the Flyers would add another assistant, or just roll with Gordon and Gord Murphy on the bench with Hakstol. The latter seems more likely, but one can’t be sure.

Those changes would likely come first before Hextall or Hakstol ended up on the chopping block.

A big trade can also happen. And we’ve covered this extensively here, on the Snow The Goalie podcast and during the Press Row Show live on my Twitter feed (Periscope) and the Crossing Broad Facebook  page (FB live) from Flyers home games. Jake Voracek continues to be the name I think would bring the Flyers the most return and have a significant impact on the locker room.

And if Hakstol were to be let go, I think Gordon to close out the season makes the most sense and then evaluate the situation at season’s end with several options like Gordon, Knoblauch or an outside option (Quenneville?)

But the real interesting seat is the GM’s chair. Can Hextall preserve his job by changing his far-too-patient and conservative management style? And if not, who could replace him? Internally Chris Pryor has been a long-time good soldier for the organization, patiently waiting his turn. He’s been with the organization for 20 years, has been director of player personnel for more than five years and was promoted to assistant GM prior to the start of the 2016-17 season.

And then there’s Dean Lombardi, who won a couple Cups as GM of the Kings, who currently serves as a senior advisor to the scouting staff.

Or the Flyers could look outside of the organization, although that’s rarely been the case (Russ Farwell has been the only GM brought in “from the outside” in the history of the franchise.)

Anyway, I get the sense that change is on the horizon in some capacity – and the coach, who has been the target of so much fan-generated ire – might not be the first to go.

The post Changing the Target of Your Ire: Thoughts After Maple Leafs 6, Flyers 0 appeared first on Crossing Broad.

Changing the Target of Your Ire: Thoughts After Maple Leafs 6, Flyers 0 published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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When Everything is Special, Nothing Is

Beating up on Dungeons And Dragons Official licensed works rightfully has a reputation for playing the literary criticism game with the difficulty set to “I’m Too Young To Die”. The lifestyle brand sells the books, and the community, not the actual prose, and Wizards of the Coast has only rarely made an effort to improve on the well-earned reputation of their novels. They sell enough to turn a profit, and keep the brand alive, and these days reinforce the usual political narratives, and that’s enough. Back in 2011, they took a shot at it by assembling a solid team of well-known writers such as Alan Dean Foster, Mike Resnick, and Kevin J. Anderson to contribute to short works to Untold Adventures: A Dungeons and Dragons Anthology.

Curious to learn how an author such as Alan Dean Foster might approach such a herculean task, reading his entry, The Steel Princess provided some insight into why the D&D style of fiction always feels so hollow. Alan Dean Foster has long been a workhouse of traditional publishing. While his prose never truly excels, his ability to take the lighter fare of screenplays and enhance them with considerable world-building and depth in settings and characters has earned him a reputation as a man able to spin, if not gold, at least a valuable thread of silver from cinematic straw. If anyone could make D&D fiction interesting, certainly it’s Alan Dean Foster.

That being the case, The Steel Princess provides further evidence that no one can make D&D fiction interesting. He makes a valiant effort, and the core of this story shines through despite the thick covering of D&D tropes. Long ago a princess was cursed to guard a battlefield until all the fallen and broken swords, and her new metallic body composed entirely of blades, rust away to nothing but crimson dust. Our hero seeks out this Queen of Swords to trade his life that she might command a sliver of steel lodged in his brother’s breast to release its hold and spare the man’s life. Those two sentences might make for an incredible tale of sacrifice and redemption and love. If handled right, the set-up, the setting, and the resolution could resonate deeply with the reader and provide a rare glimpse into a world of wonder and alien beauty and magic.

If handled wrong, and they most certainly are handled wrong, the core of this story becomes just another everyday occurrence. Boy meets princess. Boy breaks curse. The end.

The trouble begins right from the start. The first half of the story actually consists of a bar-fight to showcase how noble and strong the hero of the piece is. This being a D&D novel the bartender has to be a dwarf. The antagonists three brother ogres who don’t cotton to the hero’s kind around these parts, what with these parts being fit only for decent folk, of which the hero most certainly is not. Because he is a snow leopard Rakshasa. A sorcerous snow leopard Rakshasa. Who is, most strange of all, also a Ranger. With a sword with not one, but two personalities of its own, and personalities that don’t get along with each other. Oddity piled on oddity with even the passing mention of the patrons fleeing the impending barfight requiring a reference to an elf.

It’s all so tragically mundane in its everyday acceptance of the wondrous that it sucks all the magic and mystery out of the tale. When our Rakshasa does journey to the creepy strangeness of the blasted rubble filled battlefield, the alignment of the broken blades pointing at a central point carries no weight and no mystery. It’s just one more-light on the Christmas tree and conveys no more novelty than blades of grass or wind-swept sands.

Even the accursed princess, a clockwork demon of blades with hair of garrote-string and wrists and ankles like hilts, cannot be simply a cursed woman. Her natural form is some sort of elven creature, and not just any elven creature, but an extra special sub-race of elves! It’s all just too much to carry any real impact. With all of the casual disregard for any firm foundation to the story, the journey from the everyday magic to the dire magic of the battlefield conveys no more suspense than stepping from a parking lot into the cool confines of the local Wal-Mart.

How much more powerful the mystery of the cursed princess had the tale been that of a knight errant wandering the French countryside? The opening fight to establish his character – no mean killer, but an honorable man in search of a means to save his brother’s life – would work just as well had he fought three local farm toughs, and it would have grounded the story in the mundane so that the journey to find the Steel Princess would build the suspense and allow more of the dreamlike ambiance of her waking tomb to shine forth, rather than serve as just one more layer of frosting on an already heavily frosted cake. A little magic goes a long way when set against the gray backdrop of a mundane world. We are creatures of habit, we humans, and our immunity to wonder grows swifter than a drunk’s to alcohol. You need to use a deft touch when dealing with the supernatural. An over-reliance on the checkboxes of the D&D game and setting forces writers to wield magic with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer and all the nuance of a Michael Bay movie. Unfortunately, that kitchen-sink approach to fantasy settings has so become a part of D&D’s genetic code that you can’t have one without the other. As a result, it becomes nearly impossible to use the D&D style of fantasy setting to instill in the reader the same sense of wonder that one gets from a more sedate passage into the realms of wonder such as one finds in more remarkable literary fantasy works written by men not hobbled with the heavy load of expectations inherent in D&D fiction. Thanks for trying, Mr. Foster. You did your best, but not even the man who made George Lucas’s Star Wars novels interesting could do the same with D&D books.

When Everything is Special, Nothing Is published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

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Changing the Target of Your Ire: Thoughts After Maple Leafs 6, Flyers 0

My good friend Frank Seravalli of TSN in Canada had three successive tweets during the Flyers embarrassing (again) 6-0 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs Saturday night that were not only really accurate but also quite timely in my opinion:

#Flyers now on their 5th goalie of the season in Game No. 23. Team save percentage is by far league-worst at .877 incl tonight. That’s almost 3 GA every 20 shots. Impossible to win with that. Utterly unacceptable – and you can’t say it snuck up on management.

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) November 25, 2018

Let’s put it another way: #Flyers have allowed 4 or more goals in 12 of 23 games. No chance to win when you need to score 5 every other night. A team poised to “take a step forward” needed a bridge to Carter Hart. Instead, Elliott + Neuvirth = Malpractice. No hindsight there.

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) November 25, 2018

I’m not a Hakstol defender, but I’d like to see what his team looks like with decent goaltending. 15-16: .917 (7th) | Lge Avg: .910 16-17: .901 (26th) | Avg: .910 17-18: .903 (22nd) | Avg: .908 18-19: .877 (31st) | Avg: .904 All considered: Playoffs in 2/3 isn’t bad.

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) November 25, 2018

Rather than dive into the terrible play and continued malaise of the fragile Flyers team after their latest blow out loss, I’d like to breakdown Frank’s tweets instead and try to piece together an assessment from them, because that’s far more interesting than writing the Flyers sucked for the umpteenth time in my 14 months here at Crossing Broad.

So, analysis after the jump:

1. “Five goalies in 23 games”

That’s almost unbelievable, but it’s not, because it’s the Flyers, who have had goaltending issues since the dawn of time.

The latest was Anthony Stolarz, who was pressed into action in the most dire of dire situations. Stolarz was pretty much the odd man out for the Flyers organization. With Brian Elliott and Michael Neuvirth slated as the NHL netminders and Carter Hart and Alex Lyon slated to man the space between the pipes for the Phantoms in the AHL, Stolarz was sort of the odd man out.

In fact, in his time with the Phantoms this year, he had only appeared in three games total, and only one game since Oct. 14.

The Flyers had so soured on Stolarz that they chose instead to claim Calvin Pickard off waivers rather than turn to Stolarz for a backup role when both Lyon and Neuvirth weren’t healthy at the start of the season.

But now, Elliott is hurt again (second time in seven months), Neuvirth is on injured reserve, which is as unsurprising as statement as there are still Thanksgiving leftovers in the fridge three days later, and now Lyon has a minor lower-body injury.

This left the Flyers with Pickard and no one else available to back him up.

The Flyers weren’t about to call on Carter Hart, who can’t stop pucks in the AHL right now (3.61 GAA, .884 save percentage in 12 games) so, by default, Stolarz was all they had left.

Of course, he was just being recalled to hold a seat on the NHL bench and basically be an emergency goalie – no different than, say, Scott Foster. 

OK… maybe it’s a little different, after all, Stolarz is truly under contract. But, he was not expected to play. At all.

Pickard, who shut out the New York Rangers Friday was going to start again. And he was going to do it against the Leafs, who waived him for the Flyers to claim him.

No doubt Pickard was amped for the opportunity to stick it to his old team – especially coming off the emotional high of a shutout the day before.

Except Pickard made only two saves, allowed four goals, and didn’t survive the first period. That’s because the Leafs, knowing him well, exploited his weaknesses – over-committing on plays and being prone to shots aimed for the five hole.

And with that, Stolarz got into the game. He played well in his two-plus periods. He made 32 saves on 34 shots.

But that really doesn’t matter. What matters is the Flyers goaltending situation is such a fetid disaster that they were forced to use five goalies in 23 games, and none of them have fared well. Elliott has been decent – basically a little better than league average (2.59 GAA, .911 save percentage) – despite having a losing record.

But otherwise, the Flyers goaltending has been trash. You can’t win, even occasionally, when you are using five different goalies in 23 games.

2. “Team save percentage is by far league-worst at .877 incl tonight. That’s almost 3 GA every 20 shots.”

The Flyers have allowed 3.57 goals per game. Only two teams in the entire NHL are worse – the Florida Panthers and the Ottawa Senators.

But that save percentage – it’s actually .880 now thanks to Stolarz’ effort against Toronto – is an abomination. It’s 0.24 below league average. Think about that for a second. The Flyers goalies are allowing one more goal for roughly every 40 shots taken against them than the average team. Not the best team but the middle-of-the-road goaltending team. They’re actually 0.45 behind the best team (Boston). That means that Boston goalies stop almost five percent more shots than Flyers goalies do. Woof.

Making matters worse, the Flyers are actually an OK offensive team production wise. Their 68 goals rank 17th in the NHL, which is right in the middle of the pack. And yet, their goal-differential is fourth-worst in the league (minus-14).

3. “Let’s put it another way: #Flyers have allowed 4 or more goals in 12 of 23 games. No chance to win when you need to score 5 every other night.”

No Frank. You can not.

4. “Utterly unacceptable – and you can’t say it snuck up on management.”

5. “A team poised to “take a step forward” needed a bridge to Carter Hart. Instead, Elliott + Neuvirth = Malpractice.”

That’s the word I really wanted to get to – malpractice. Because that’s what this is. Ron Hextall had to know his goaltending situation was shaky at best coming into the season.

Neuvirth was constantly hurt last year.

Elliott played well at times, but he was felled by a serious core muscle injury (nee, hernia) and never looked the same after coming back.

Trading for Peter Mrazek was a disaster and he wasn’t welcomed back.

Although Lyon gave it the old college try, he’s still not really ready for the NHL, and if and when he ever is, it’s likely as a backup at best.

Stolarz was coming off a pretty bad knee injury himself, and it was obvious he wasn’t part of the team’s plans moving forward.

And yet, despite all of these concerns, this issue was not addressed by Hextall in the offseason. Rather than pursue a goalie who could be a bridge to Carter Hart and keep the Flyers competitive, Hextall closed his eyes and hoped for the best.

And it has been the most unmitigated disaster of his tenure as general manager.

People can complain all they want about the coach, or the players not living up to expectations, or the penalty kill being terrible or the power play nose-diving, or any other myriad maladies the Flyers have – and all of them have merit.

But those would be masked a little better if there was even a sense of stability in net, and Hextall ignored it. This is akin to leaving the surgical scissors inside the patient after stitching him back up.

He has to know it. His bosses have to know it. It’s why they’ve been circling the Wells Fargo Center press box more lately than ever before.

Blame whoever you want, and there’s a lot of finger-pointing that is valid at this juncture, but the first target you should have in your sights is the GM.

6. “I’m not a Hakstol defender, but I’d like to see what his team looks like with decent goaltending.”

Again, I agree with Frank – and I’ve been one of the more fervent Hakstol critics out there. But the guy has been a different coach this season. Maybe we’re seeing him react to the pressure that is on him and this organization to finally succeed. Maybe it’s taken him longer than it should to figure this NHL game out, but he is figuring it out.

Or maybe he’s coaching by the seat of his pants and isn’t really good at his job. Who knows for sure. But Frank makes a great point. Hakstol and the Flyers have been the poster child for traditionalists against the analytics boom in hockey.

The Flyers do often have good underlying metrics to their game. The fancy stats usually show that this team is playing better than the results would indicate.

It’s why we heard last season during a 10-game losing streak that the team was playing far better than their record would indicate.

And yet, despite all of these good sub-statistics, the Flyers are still mediocre at best, and well below average at worst.

But maybe, just maybe, this team would be what they think and believe they can be with better goaltending. Maybe it’s mental. Maybe the players lack confidence in who they are trotting out there in the crease game after game – and maybe that confidence is completely shaken after a bad goal or two, or the goalie not bailing out a mistake in front of him.

Maybe that causes the team to play tight, and once you tighten up, the odds of making mistakes increases. Turnovers, penalties. Making plays where you overthink instead of playing instinctively in the moment.

Or maybe, as Scott Laughton said several games back, the Flyers try to cheat too much to create offense because that confidence on the last line of defense isn’t too high, and that more cavalier approach to hockey ends up biting them.

All of these things are possible. And the GM needs to be able to recognize that and rectify that, and he hasn’t been able to do so in his four-plus years at the helm.

Which brings me to this:

7. A conclusion

What if all of the focus by fans and the media have been on Hakstol’s job as the coach, but internally the focus is on Hextall’s job as the GM?

What if Hextall is on the hot seat more than his coach is?

Sound crazy?

Maybe it is. But then again, maybe it’s not.

Maybe the conversations between Senior Vice President Bob Clarke – who is basically a highly paid consultant for the team these days – and President Paul Holmgren – which have been happening regularly with little to know reporting or fanfare – are more about Hexy than Hak.

Tough decisions are coming. It could start with the coaching staff – but not necessarily Hakstol.

I wouldn’t be surprised, for instance, if Ian Laperriere is finally relieved of his assistant coaching position and replaced by Phantoms head coach Scott Gordon. Gordon has a long history of coaching good penalty kill units at all levels of hockey.

And I know the Flyers organization really likes assistant coach Kris Knoblauch as a potential future head coach, but I also know they would want him to gain experience on that front too. So I could see Knoblauch re-assigned to the Phantoms as their new head coach.

I’m not sure the Flyers would add another assistant, or just roll with Gordon and Gord Murphy on the bench with Hakstol. The latter seems more likely, but one can’t be sure.

Those changes would likely come first before Hextall or Hakstol ended up on the chopping block.

A big trade can also happen. And we’ve covered this extensively here, on the Snow The Goalie podcast and during the Press Row Show live on my Twitter feed (Periscope) and the Crossing Broad Facebook  page (FB live) from Flyers home games. Jake Voracek continues to be the name I think would bring the Flyers the most return and have a significant impact on the locker room.

And if Hakstol were to be let go, I think Gordon to close out the season makes the most sense and then evaluate the situation at season’s end with several options like Gordon, Knoblauch or an outside option (Quenneville?)

But the real interesting seat is the GM’s chair. Can Hextall preserve his job by changing his far-too-patient and conservative management style? And if not, who could replace him? Internally Chris Pryor has been a long-time good soldier for the organization, patiently waiting his turn. He’s been with the organization for 20 years, has been director of player personnel for more than five years and was promoted to assistant GM prior to the start of the 2016-17 season.

And then there’s Dean Lombardi, who won a couple Cups as GM of the Kings, who currently serves as a senior advisor to the scouting staff.

Or the Flyers could look outside of the organization, although that’s rarely been the case (Russ Farwell has been the only GM brought in “from the outside” in the history of the franchise.)

Anyway, I get the sense that change is on the horizon in some capacity – and the coach, who has been the target of so much fan-generated ire – might not be the first to go.

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