#coming to the realization that my one pair of ocs is *literally* just a rehashing of Gam<>Kar & I'm kinda mad about it x'D

[scrawlingskribbles]

sighs and smh my head lol

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

The Last Jedi: What I Disliked About One of the Most Fascinating Films Ever Made

The Last Jedi is probably one of the most controversial films ever made for a lot of reasons. This movie did a LOT of shit, a lot of shit that would piss people off. Hell, it even pissed ME off. But when I see people on the internet frothing at the mouth and calling this movie the worst shit pile to ever exist, the most offensive thing Star Wars has ever produced, and threatening the director with death and calling him a soulless piece of shit bastard… I’m pretty inclined to defend the movie. Frankly, anyone who reacts THIS negatively to TLJ is an utter braindead moron; you do realize you can dislike a film without being completely, insanely hyperbolic, yeah? Again, there’s a lot I hate in this movie too, and I’m gonna talk about it shortly, but in a franchise with Jar-Jar, the holiday special, and vast swaths of the Legends continuity, is this seriously the worst this franchise has had to offer? If you answer anything other than “No,” congratulations, I’d say you’re about the same mental capacity as people who think Watto is some sort of offensive Jewish caricature.

But as much as I would love to spend an entire post insulting all the whiny bastards in the Star Wars fandom, I have more pressing matters: criticizing stuff in The Last Jedi. And boy do I have a lot to criticize. I actually did review the movie a while back, and while I stand by my initial thoughts, I gotta go into more detail about what I didn’t like. However, before continuing, I want to make one thing  absolutely clear:

I think The Last Jedi is a genuinely good movie. Maybe not GREAT per se, as I have more criticisms for it than just about any other film in the series, but excellence is just so wholly ingrained into the DNA of Star Wars theatrical films that even at their most divisive they still have some level of charm. And at any rate, this movie is a hell of a lot more interesting than Rogue One. I’d say out of the newer films, this one sits behind Solo. Anyway, let’s get on to the main event… here are all my issues with The Last Jedi, presented alphabetically, and with lots of spoilers:

Canto Bright: This is probably the most annoying waste of time in the entire film, a blatant and obnoxious stretch of padding the runtime. Nothing that happens in the entirety of this subplot is truly important in the grand scheme of things; the only relevant bit of plot is that they find DJ, and this could have been done a lot quicker. This wouldn’t be so bad if they had made Canto Bright a bit more interesting, but it just feels like another attempt to rehash Mos Eisley’s cantina. It also doesn’t help this part of the film has blatant, unsubtle moralizing and cuts away from far more interesting plotlines that get much less development, particularly Rey training with Luke.

Ditching Kylo’s Motivation: In The Force Awakens, Kylo was motivated by a sort of misaimed admiration for his grandfather, where he viewed Vader as someone to emulate and who he looked to as he struggled between the light side and the dark side. All of this helped make him rather intriguing, as well as making him a very intentional Darth Vader clone character; his whole purpose was to emulate Vader, after all. All of this is ditched close to the start of The Last Jedi, and the Kylo in this film feels almost entirely different to the one seen previously. While I did like Kylo Ren  a lot more in this movie, I wish they didn’t completely rewrite his character and ditch everything established in favor of what they did. It could have easily been worked into how he acted in the film.

Finn’s Diminished Importance: After being something of the star of the last film, complete with a noticeable character arc and a lot of focus, Finn kinda gets shafted here, relegated to a shitty, unnecessary sideplot that leads the heroes nowhere. It just seems really weird, though I’m not unhappy Rey got more focus and was fleshed out better.

Holdo: While I tend to view people who write her off as “The purple-haired feminist bitch” or “Captain SJW” as inferior human beings – and they are, seriously, if you unrironically say shit like this you’re a drooling nincompoop – I really can’t deny in the slightest that Holdo was written rather poorly. She really is a poor excuse for a captain, openly lying to her underlings and keeping things secret when explaining the plan would have effected nothing except her entire crew’s compliance. It almost feels like this plot was written so we’d be on Poe’s side, but it works a bit too well by making Holdo far too arrogant, stupid, and haughty to really get behind. If not for her awesome heroic sacrifice  (one that might not have been needed in the first place if she’d been more honest but hey) I’d probably list her as one of the worst Star Wars characters ever… but a heroic sacrifice of this magnitude,  no matter how unearned it may seem, never fails to impress me.

Killing Snoke: I can kinda see what they were going for, seeing as Palpatine as well was killed with very little revealed about him in The Last Jedi… but we have now had several years worth of canonical prequel material to flesh him out, and it’s honestly pretty stupid to assume you can pull off the same trick in a franchise twice and expect it to go off as well. Snoke was unflinchingly cool, creepy, and badass, so his bisection comes across as a waste of a truly intriguing villain. That there may be prequels detailing who he was do little to ease the sting of Andy Serkis being built up as the big bad only to be cut down. At least in Black Panther he got more substantial screentime; here,  he’s s till cool, but it just feels like there is so much more he could have been.

Luke’s Attempted Murder: While overall I loved Luke’s characterization in this film and how it tied excellently into the theme of not deifying your heroes due to the trouble that can cause, it’s hard for me to rationalize Luke’s attempted murder of his own nephew, leading to Kylo Ren’s turn to the dark side. While Luke has always been a bit impulsive, this man believed he could redeem Darth Vader, AND DID SO. Need I remind you what Anakin did to those younglings? And yet his own nephew, he won’t give him the benefit of the doubt. Yes, he did stop himself, but the very fact he went in there lightsaber ready to cut down the child of his sister and his best friend just feels really jarring and out of place, even within his more cynical characterization.

Phasma: Phasma has come across as a forced Boba Fett replacement since The Force Awakens, to the point where in both films she has appeared in she has been completely and utterly outshined by mooks – Nines (AKA TR-8R) in TFA and the Praetorian Guard in this one. Despite her getting a ton of fascinating backstory and depth in  canonical supplementary material, literally none of that is ever showcased even slightly in this film, and after a short, underwhelming fight scene, she apparently falls to her death. Sure, she COULD have survived, but this still feels like a rather big waste of the character. For someone they hyped up so much, the way she is handled really feels undignified.

Rey’s Parents: I’m not gonna lie, this reveal is stupid in and of itself, but the stupider thing is that a lot of people seem to be taking it at face value. When was it collectively decided we should trust the creepy, evil Sith lord who has made it perfectly clear he wants control over Rey? Why are we taking Kylo’s word that Rey’s parents were drunks who sold their kids as FACT? Honestly it just seems like a further ploy to manipulate her more than anything.

Reylo: While it isn’t canon as of yet, this movie really hammers in a bunch of hints for the obnoxiously popular ship between heroine Rey and antagonist Kylo Ren. And, quite frankly, I absolutely fucking hate this ship, but probably for a lot different reasons than most people. Do I think it’s shipping abuse? No, I don’t think it’s that any more than I think any other hero-villain ship is. Do I think Kylo doesn’t deserve to be redeemed by Rey? That’s not it either; the entire premise of this franchise is that any person can be redeemed. Kylo Ren is really no exception, though considering he killed my favorite character I’d be happy to see his ass beat. No, I hate it because I just absolutely hate the trope, if it even is one, of the hero redeeming the villain through romantic love. I feel like it would cheapen Rey’s character, and just turn the entire new trilogy into an overly long romantic drama. All the heavy-handed hints towards this pairing is just gag worthy, and frankly I’m going to be annoyed if they ruin both of these characters by going through with it.

Rose: Rose is without a doubt in my mind the worst character in the entire franchise. This seems like a rather tall order considering her competition, but consider this: her biggest contributions to the plot are the Canto Bright plotline, the absolute worst part of the film… and stopping Finn from performing a badass heroic sacrifice that might have saved the heroes a lot of trouble, delivering the stupidest line  in Star Wars history, kissing Finn, and fainting. She’s just utterly pointless to the point she feels like someone’s OC from a fanfic where they get with Finn was slipped into the script.

Wasting DJ: So you get Benicio Del Toro,  and you put him in your movie. Great so far, good. He does some weird accent and makes the character have a quirky personality, still good. You give him a very morally ambiguous personality and show the shades of grey in this idealistic universe that leans towards black vs. white most of the time, excellent, awesome! AND THEN… he betrays the heroes and vanishes from the film. What. DJ didn’t die, and he could come back… but he just feels shoehorned in and just doesn’t really reach his full potential whatsoever. He was such an interesting idea, and they just did the bare minimum with him.

Despite all of this crap, though… The Last Jedi still manages to be awesome. Holdo’s final sacrifice, the Kylo Ren and Rey fight against the Praetorian Guards, Yoda’s surprise appearance, Luke’s final battle… Hell, I even liked seeing Leia finally use the Force by flying through space with it; as cheesy as it is, it left me floored when I saw it in theaters. Then, of course, there’s that epic opening space battle… there’s just a lot to love here. In particular, my favorite moment is probably Luke becoming one with the Force. Maybe it’s not my MOST favorite moment, but it just feels so poignant and important, with his final moments mirroring the start of his journey, as he gazes into twin suns one last time before joining his teachers and father. It just… it gets to you, you know? I may have a LOT of issues with this movie, and a lot of stuff I didn’t really like in it, but more than any other movie I have so many issues with, I like and even RESPECT this film. You can say a lot of things about this movie, but one thing you can’t say is that it’s dull. It sparks discussion, and debate, and obnoxiously hyperbolic worst-everism. At the end of the day, whether it’s good or bad doesn’t really matter. The only thing that matters is that this film just… IS. And one way or another people will have something to say about it. Just don’t be a hyperbolic douche about it and try and enjoy things, you know?

[3one3]

The Sequel - 805

An Untimely Death

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

“Where’s Chris?” Marco asked his teammate early on Friday evening when he went by the house to see how the move-in was going, and to see his girlfriend who was working on it all day.

“Spain,” André replied flatly. They were in his dressing room, which was much less fussy than Christina’s. His was all deep brown wood and metal, and clean, organic lines. He was unpacking clothes and shoes from boxes.

“Why? I thought you guys made up yesterday.” The Dortmund co-captain referred to the report Zoe gave him on the epic shouting match that went down in the driveway on Thursday, the tear-fest that followed, and the reconciliation that ended it.

“Mata’s grandfather passed away.”

“Oh. That’s too bad.”

“Yeah, too bad that keeping him company is more important to her now than telling the guys where to put the furniture and hang the pictures, and more important than exercising her horses.” André closed a t-shirt drawer a little too aggressively, and it made some of the wardrobe doors open a little and bang shut, plus the acoustics of the room were kind of echo-y thanks to the lack of sound absorbing textiles. He’d only just begun unpacking.

“He went to her dad’s funeral with her,” the other player pointed out. “She probably feels she owes him. And she’s really good at funerals, man. I didn’t know that was a skill until I saw her in action with Jill’s family. She was devastated but took care of everyone else, including me.”

André knew those things. He liked that Christina wanted to be with her friend during a really difficult time, and that she jumped to go do what she could. She told him during the holidays about how close Juan and his grandfather were, and how influential he was in his life and his career. Obviously the Spaniard was devastated. He didn’t ask her to come to him. She just told him she’d be right there. What upset her husband was that it was less than 6 hours after they concluded Round 14 of The Never Ending Fight. They hardly spoke overnight, he went to training in the morning and she went to the barn, and then they had it out in the driveway when he went there after to see how it was going. The themes rehashed were old: she hated that he doubted her, he hated that she acted like she didn’t care about their life, she was afraid that they would fight forever, he was sure they wouldn’t. It ended when he ceded a bit of ground and asked her to just try it out and see if he was right, instead of insisting that he was. He convinced her that it was the only thing she could do if she wanted things to work out. Christina knew that was true. Her choice was to try- to give his way a chance- or to quit before finding out which one of them was right, and that would only offer one outcome- the one she didn’t want. She wanted everything to work out for them, and she couldn’t fathom trying to undo everything happening around them.

“I know, but now when she gets back she’s going to complain that everything is in the wrong place, here and in the stable. And she was supposed to take Stefanie to get a new car this evening. Stef doesn’t know anything about cars except that her old one was a piece of shit and that it will take a little time for the financing and everything when she finds a new one.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re really concerned about Stefanie’s car.”

“Shut up.”

“Can’t Mario help her find a car?”

“What does he know about used cars? He’s had nothing but brand new Mercedes since he was like 16.”

“True, but I’m not buying that you give a fuck about it.”

“Fine, I don’t,” André relented with an eye roll. “Just one time in her life I want Chris to put our family first. Is that so wrong?” He held up two pairs of shoes in his outstretched arms, fed up and sure he was preaching to a friendly audience. Marco said he wasn’t wrong, but he also said he wasn’t interested in the drama.

In Oviedo, Christina was talking to Juan about how important some things he said to her while they were in Mallorca were to her. He told her when riding and showing became more job than passion, and when she got discouraged, that she should remember how she got to that level. It was advice that he got from his grandfather, and the idea was to remember that they each got to the top of their sports because they loved to train and compete, and it brought them joy, and filled a need in their hearts. That, the footballer said, was the key to enjoying the difficult days and being mentally right to do one’s best. His counsel wasn’t very new. He and his ex-girlfriend had discussed it many times, in many forms, and in different contexts, particularly when they were an actual couple, and Christina was struggling to find purpose and feeling in her riding. Apropos of his grandfather, the two friends had literally just gone over that good advice he passed down, while in one of many contemplative conversations over afternoon wine at the beach house. The rider didn’t know what else to talk about to fill the silence outside on the covered patio at Juan’s parents’. They were sharing the wicker couch, and he was the one with his head in her lap for a change. She rubbed his shoulder and his head and tried to talk about good things while the rest of the family was inside, where it wasn’t so cold and damp.

“Are you warm enough?” she questioned, futilely in her opinion, as she pulled their shared knit blanket over more of the disconsolate footballer. Her instinct was to look after him and dote on him, and he didn’t respond all that much. Christina didn’t feel like she was helping, and it was hard to accept what she knew to be true- losing someone close is the worst, and nothing anyone says or does makes it feel less awful. The quickest way to him was to fly from Düsseldorf in the morning, and that still took 5 hours and a stop in Madrid, so she’d been at the house with him for just a little while. The first bit was meeting more of his family and giving her condolences, and letting Mrs. Mata force-feed her some late lunch. Then Juan just wanted to sit outside, away from all those people. He said no one would let him sit alone, so his best girlfriend’s presence was a welcome workaround. Alone with her was okay to his mom and okay by him. Christina wondered where his girlfriend girlfriend was. She didn’t even think to ask on Thursday night when he gave her the news and said he was flying home right away if Taylor was going with him. It didn’t occur to her that the author might be there until she was already on the plane, and she thought it insensitive to even ask, given the history.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Juan assured about the temperature. “How are you doing? You didn’t have a good day yesterday either.”

“I’d take my day over yours, babe. Don’t worry about it. I’m not.” Haven’t even thought of it until now, she realized. It wasn’t a big ask for her to ignore how upset she remained about the fighting with André, and the reluctance of the peace accord and plan for going forward. Juan’s loss was a decent if unfortunate distraction.

“I’m going to the tanatorio in a little while so my dad can come home. You don’t have to come if you don’t want, or you don’t have to stay.”

“The what?” Christina asked carefully.

“It’s like what you know as a funeral home. My grandmother is there. She stays with my grandfather until the service tomorrow- that’s why she’s not here. My dad is with her right now. Family and friends go there to pay respects today. He’s coming home to be with the people here for some time, so I go sit with my grandparents. You don’t have to come with me and sit for hours next to the casket.”

“Do you want me to, or would you rather be alone with them?” Yeah, no, I don’t really want to sit next to a dead guy and his grieving widow all evening, she grimaced inside. He took two flights over the Atlantic in one day to stand next to me by Dad’s casket though, so...

“Up to you, cariña,” the Spaniard sighed. “You can come with me and then leave when you want- take the car- or you can stay here. No one will be offended if you want to sit in my room on your computer or something, or you can do that thing you do and talk to everyone in the kitchen, distracting them from grief with your accidental charm.”

“I think you’re dramatically overestimating my accidental charm offensive,” Christina chuckled. She thought it was just like him to be quietly funny even when he was so down. His grandfather meant so much to him, and she knew that very well. Their relationship was likened in her head to hers with her old trainer, Eddie. No one cared more about steering her in the right direction, encouraging her, and promoting her riding from the beginning like he did. He always taught her more about life and competition than he did literal riding skills. His retirement wasn’t as devastating to her as a death, of course, and it played out over time instead of without warning. He was available to her if she needed him even after he moved someplace sunny, and she regretted not taking advantage of that. She also resented that he didn’t keep in touch with her. She thought she was special to him. She was, but just one of many in a long line. Still, she missed that relationship the way she missed her original relationship with her dad, and the way she assumed Juan would miss his grandpa, only for him it would probably be worse because the relationship was longer and stronger.

“Come with me, just for a little. I’ll set up the GPS in the car so you can find your way back here when you want.”

“Okay. Should I change? Are jeans all right? I brought a nicer outfit for tomorrow...” Like pants that don’t have rips in them, and real shoes.

“Jeans are fine.” Juan knew her pants had intentional holes. He was idly touching her left kneecap through one of the tears while they talked.

In Germany, the arrival of a large and noisy horse trailer got the attention of the two Borussia Dortmund forwards arguing over the principles of closet organization strategies. André at first assumed it was the moving truck in the driveway, leaving. Marco told him it wasn’t even half empty when he walked by it on the way in, and checked the window. The “his” closet had one feature over the carefully designed and silly-expensive “hers” closet- windows. It used to be the master bath, which had windows at the front of the house. André was confused by the horse trailer trundling by on the main drive to the barn. The rest of the horses weren’t supposed to be there until Saturday afternoon. He decided it was a good time to take a break from clothing and accessories and take a walk over to the barn to see who or what was on the truck. Marco went too because the alternative was Zoe trying to get him to help her hang things on walls.

Things were starting to come together in the facelifted stable. Dirk, Socks, Jelly Bean, and Julian were moved in. Deciding on stalls for each of them was a major drama for Christina and her team. They wanted Dirk somewhere in the middle, on the south side so that he’d have what they were calling “patio access”, meaning a second door at the back of his stall. The boxes on the north side of the aisle had windows instead of doors. Middle-area stalls were considered prime real estate because visitors would primarily be in that central zone with the other aisle, the tack room, the grooming stalls, the office, etc. That was like the town square of the stable. The first stall on the west side of the entrance would have been a great spot for the King of The Stable, except that there was a feed room separating it from that entranceway aisle. He was the most aggressive of all the horses at feeding time, and it would drive him crazy to live next door to the room where the food was readied. It also meant he’d have a solid wall on one side, which Christina didn’t like. He deserved more fresh air. Putting him in the first stall on the east side of the entrance meant he’d have too much fresh air, because the wall on that aisle was all bars instead of just half bars like the dividers between the stalls. Dirk could get too cold. Every time someone opened the doors he would get the draft. Then there were his neighbors to consider. He needed to be next to Calvin because he and Calvin were bros. Rio and Goose also needed to be centrally located because they were people horses and got anxious if they were bored, in a non-stimulating environment, perhaps down at the east end of the barn, furthest from the action. But Goose was also not a horse-horse. He wasn’t friendly with other equines. He lived next to Wizzy in London because Wizzy was another gelding, totally nonthreatening, and not interested in interacting with him. The humans decided Goose should live in one of the stalls with the solid wall, like next to the tack room or wash stall.

André never got the explanation for the final stall chart. When he and Marco strolled in from the west end of the aisle, the easiest and most direct access from the house, they found Socks in the first stall on the right, next to Dirk. Julian was in the third stall on the left, and Jelly Bean’s head was hanging over his door on the other side of the cross-aisle, in the second stall on the left. There were no humans around, but the radio was on.

“Anybody home?” the taller of the two Germans called not very loudly as they approached the “town square” zone. Tom whistled from inside the feed room on the right. There were giant plastic bins in there for grain, stacks of small buckets, three plastic muck tubs, and shelves full of supplement packs. There was also a massive whiteboard on the wall with rations for each horse, and a smaller one with a diagram of the available paddocks. The groom was working on filling that one out.

“This is more complicated than the seating chart at my wedding,” he lamented. “I hope when the horse from Stephex gets here it gets on well with Kimi and the little pony, because I have nowhere else to put him.”

“Is that what’s on the trailer?” André asked.

“No that’s Dezzy, coming over from Holger’s. I have to put her out with Jelly Bean in one of the paddocks behind the house, away from the boys with balls. When Chris’ mare gets here she has to go with them too, or I have to move Jelly Bean in with Kimi and the pony, but I can’t because the other new one will be there,” Tom groaned, extremely frustrated and fist clenched tight on his blue marker. “There is room in the stable for 5 more horses after the rest get here. There is no room in the paddocks for even one more.”

“How did that happen?” The player literally scratched his head. He was disappointed to hear about the problem. They worked on a building plan for months. They fenced another few acres of the property behind his backyard to make more paddocks. Everything was supposed to be perfect.

“She won’t let me put more than two in each field. There is room for three, or even four if they get along, but it’s hard on the grass in summer and on the ground in winter. We don’t have any room to rotate and rest some fields the way you have going in London. I might end up putting some horses out for half the day, and the others for the rest. That won’t work in summer since they all go out overnight. Not all the horses are always at home though. I guess we’ll see. I wanted to fence the grass jumping field and use it for turnout when she’s not riding on it.”

“Yeah, I remember,” he nodded. “What happened to that?”

“Now that we made the only other open field into paddocks- the ones behind the house, you know? She has nowhere to gallop for condition. That’s part of the fitness training. It’s huge for the horses. For her training system to work they need open land and changes in elevation. They only have the tiny hill between the barn down to the rings, and the grass jumping area is all that is left for open galloping. It’s not much bigger than the dirt ring. She can try to go between the fences but that’s harder. The horses will hesitate. It’s a different thing. They need to be out in the open, away from barriers. It’s for their brains. We don’t have any wooded trails here either, which the boys are used to.” Tom was patient with his explanation, and he wasn’t even complaining, or accusing his new employer of negligent planning. He was clearly just trying to be informative, or educational even. Still, André was taken aback.

“She didn’t tell me that there would be this problem,” he commented, more to himself than to Tom or Marco, who was scurrying away to give Stefanie and her newly fit mare plenty of room as they rounded the corner from the short aisle toward Dezzy’s new home, the stall next to her longtime stablemate Jelly Bean. They were about to have a great reunion.

“I think she was going to ride on your front yard until there was the idea to put the hedge up to separate the horse part from the house part.”

“She should have said something.” André was still absent in his limited and rueful remarks. He leaned against the doorframe with folded arms and stared at the rudimentary diagram of the paddocks drawn on the board. I wanted this to be perfect for her, so there would be no excuses- so she can’t point to some problem with the property and blame that for a bad result or something, and then say it would be different if she didn’t have to move here, he reminded himself.

It was news to him that there was a deficiency. It was news to him that aspects of their new home were going to fundamentally hinder Christina’s training, or be less ideal for her horses. It was absolutely no secret to anyone in her circle and in the horse show world that her unique training methods and horse management were a big, big part of her success. Not all of her colleagues did the bulk of the exercising and schooling for their horses between competitions. Not all of her colleagues mixed up training routines by riding “cross country”, out in the open, and working on dressage, and going trail riding, to help keep the horses sane and prevent boredom and complacency. Not all of her competitors could use the land to improve condition. She did long rides in the open to build stamina in her animals, and used hills for muscle and strength in the topline and hindquarters. Not all of the show horses on the circuit got so much turnout, which is good for the mind and even better for the body. Christina taught her partner about the benefits of turnout for the digestive system. She said that the horse’s body is designed to be constantly moving and constantly eating forage. She said being still and eating a lot of grain is terrible on the digestive system, which leads to ulcers and other problems, which leads to sourness under saddle and poor performance, and that show horses are already under lots of stress from travel, constantly being in new environments, and being pumped full of “artificial” nutrition in the form of supplements for their performance-specific ailments and considerations. Stress has a direct influence on digestion. She thought the least she could do for her horses was let them go out for every minute possible. And it wasn’t just about their performance and their fitness to her. André’s wife felt she owed that to her animals- that they deserved it, and were entitled.  

“Why? So you could fix it? There is no fix for a property with boundaries,” Tom told him while filling in more names on his chart. The stable manager knew a lot more about the player’s wife than just her horse-related habits and preferences. He seemed unable to resist taking a veiled swipe based on his knowledge of her ongoing frustration with André’s “I can make it perfect if you just trust me” mantra. It made the BVB man defensive.

“Well I could have not paid €10,000 for that hedge.”

“I don’t think it would be that useful to use the yard anyway,” Tom shrugged. “Can’t gallop over the driveway. Chris would have to do small circles on either side, or break to the walk to cross over.”

“Could we make the yard into more paddocks if she needs in the future?”

“Yes, if you want to lose the lawn and have to take out all the plantings. And for the back and front of your house to smell like horse shit in the summer.”

“Fantastic.” Man. I wish she told me about these things. Okay, maybe it wasn’t evident until after we bought the property, but we could have figured something out to give her the things she needs. Instead she just swallows it. André was aware that his girl tried really rather hard not to make waves. For example, if her footing had been even remotely serviceable, she probably wouldn’t have said anything about it. She had to already be in a cranky, bad mood for her to make an issue out of the stall door mistake. He assumed whenever she realized they were going to be very tight on turnout space and that making more paddocks ate up her riding space, she concluded that it was neither fixable nor worth bringing up, so as not to make trouble or extra burden. It was things like that that he couldn’t factor into his analysis when he tried to figure out if or verify that he was being fair to his girl. He thought she was getting another dream facility that met or exceeded all of her needs. If it wasn’t as good as he thought, then it wasn’t properly accounted for. He needed the right “value” for it because he balanced the concessions asked of her against it. Having to move wasn’t so fair if she was forced to accept hindrances to her training and career.  

The balance was something André took seriously, and which Tim and his financial planner helped him analyze comprehensively. They even looked at things like distance to the nearest airport that could accommodate shipping horses, because it mattered to Christina that her horses didn’t have to travel far on a trailer before getting loaded onto a plane, and that the quarantine facility available to receive them after trips abroad had a good reputation. They made sure there were international schools at every level within a reasonable commute in case she really did want Lukas to learn in English forever. They checked zoning laws to ensure that if they ever wanted to build an addition to the house, or put up another barn or any other structure necessary, they wouldn’t run into restrictions. They checked what impact the relocation would have on the cost of the insurance policies for the horses. They researched doctors for Christina and the baby, and André solicited recommendations from his teammates and their partners for everything from farmer’s markets and gourmet shops to hair salons and spas and personal shoppers. The whole concept of moving was transactional to him. He thought he could cancel out inconveniences or dependencies by delivering equivalent goods and services. That way he could feel like Christina wasn’t making undue sacrifice to move and he didn’t indiscriminately inflict damage on his family when he decided to transfer to Borussia Dortmund. His system was proving flawed.