#howard han is a freaking menace

[blazinghotfoggynights]

I'm supposed to be doing something else

But it's boring, so this happened.

Bobby, after he is placed back in his rightful role as Captain of the 118, bragging about his kids:

Bobby: Hen Wilson was accepted to med school while working full-time and being an amazing wife, mother, and foster mother. She's brilliant.

Some other Captain: Wow.

Bobby, pointing to Buck and Eddie fawning over the new equipment: On the right, Evan Buckley. One of the best. Damn near got fired his probie year, but has become one of LAFD's finest and remained that through almost losing his leg and dying.

Some other Captain: Impressive team you have here.

Bobby, puffing out his chest: On the left, Eddie Diaz, Silver Star recipient, former army medic. Survived being shot four times in two incidents. Graduated top of his class.

Chimney, walking by, absentmindedly: *snorts* That was the last time Eddie was a top. *snickers* Just ask Buck.

Bobby, turning red with embarrassment: *sigh* He's an excellent paramedic and an expert in dealing with people. He has no filter and can't behave. That is the soon to be late Howard Han.

Bobby, narrowing eyes and turning to follow a suddenly running Chimney: My office! Now!

[zareleonis]

My Star Wars Top 10 of 2018

This year I fell massively in love with Star Wars, learned more about a galaxy far, far away that I ever expected and started this blog, first to liveblog Star Wars Rebels, and later to share my thoughts on whatever new (and old!) Star Wars media I came across. In honor of what, in my mind, was a really fun year for Star Wars, I wanted to share my top 10 list of my favorite Star Wars things that came out this year, across different kinds of media. Read more because it’s really long :P

Honorable Mention: Flight of the Falcon multimedia series (by multiple authors and artists)

Okay, if I’m honest, this gets honorable mention spot, mostly because I felt like putting it in top 10 when it’s really a BUNCH of comics and books would be totally cheating :P One of the more fun things to come out of Solo: A Star Wars Story, this series of loosely connected books and comics whose main connecting factor is the Millennium Falcon (and Bazine Netal’s hunt for it!) is an absolute joy. Cavan Scott knocks it out of the park with the ridiculously fun Choose Your Destiny: A Luke and Leia Adventure. IDW Comics does what’s it does best by bringing together some exciting and unexpected pairs of characters for the last couple months of Star Wars Adventures. In Lando’s Luck Justina Ireland gave us the coolest darn Princess in Star Wars since Leia, Rinetta Gan. And they’re not even done yet, with 2 more comics and Pirate’s Price left to go!

10. Star Wars: Scum and Villainy: Case Files on the Galaxy’s Most Notorious by Pablo Hidalgo

What an awesome and fun book! So much great art, and Pablo Hidalgo always gives 100% with his work. It’s such a creative concept, following Tan Divo and and his descendants, as they report on the criminals and rebels of their day. I completely geeked out over how it gave soooo much neat new information about characters and organizations from ALL OVER the Star Wars universe. It’s an absolute blast!

9. Solo: A Star Wars Story: Tales from Vandor by Jason Fry

This book is AMAZING. Even among the “replica journal” style books that Studio Fun puts out, it stands out as super unique, written from the point of view of the Midnight, the bartender at The Lodge on Vandor (where Han meets Lando), as if he is telling the story to a guest. It’s such a fun outsider’s point of view of Han and the other characters of Solo. The best part though, is the parts of the book that are just a shameless love letter to Star Wars Legends, with nods to stuff like The Wookiee Storybook, LEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace and several novels. Jason Fry’s love for the franchise really shines through.

8. Star Wars: Poe Dameron by Charles Soule and penciller Angel Unzueta

This year we said a bittersweet goodbye to Marvel’s monthly Star Wars: Poe Dameron and goodness gracious it was good. Between the Legend Found arc that was to be the original ending and the final The Awakening arc, where Black Squadron is reunited after The Last Jedi, this comic really touched my heart. The last couple pages of issues 25 and 31 still make me cry. :’)

7. Solo: A Star Wars Story directed by Ron Howard and screenplay by Lawrence and Jon Kasdan

THIS MOVIE IS CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED AND I’M MAD AT EVERYONE WHO LET IT FLOP. I’ll admit I wasn’t exactly desperate for a Han Solo Backstory Movie, but Solo was just AWESOME. Just some good, raw, Star Wars-y fun that you can’t help but smile the whole way through. It might not be groundbreaking, but it introduced some super cool characters in L3-37, Qi’ra and Enfys Nest, gave us Maul’s grand triumphant return to the public at large and has INCREDIBLY charming performances by Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover as the Han and Lando we all come to love.

6. The Mighty Chewbacca in the Forest of Fear! by Tom Angleberger

If Solo, is good, this kid’s book written to accompany it is even better. I mean, Chewbacca meets K-2SO meets Tooka cats meets teenage bounty hunter/librarian?? On a planet with scary monsters and a spooky evil Force user? Also Cassian is there?? And the daughter of This Funny Hat Dude from Return of the Jedi? Hell yeah!!!!!

The book is hysterical, ridiculously fun and I can’t recommend it enough. I just have to say if you do get it, try and grab the audiobook it’s got a full cast of voices for the main characters including Marc Thompson giving his best Shyriiwook as Chewbacca. I laughed so hard I cried at the narration and a K-2SO’s lines done out loud. You won’t regret it!

5. Star Wars: Women of the Galaxy by Amy Ratcliffe and eighteen awesome artists!

THIS is one of the coolest Star Wars books out there and a celebration of all the women we know and love (and sometimes hate) in a galaxy far, far away. It’s such a wonderful collaboration, created by all women (& non-binary) artists and author. I love that it’s got characters from practically everything—movies, books, comics, video games, you name it! We even got to see characters like Jas Emari for the first time which makes me SO HAPPY. it’s one of the books I come back to all the time just to flip through it and enjoy the illustrations.

4. Star Wars Resistance created by Dave Filoni and executive produced by Athena Yvette Portillo, Justin Ridge, and Brandon Auman

I LOVE RESISTANCE SO MUCH!! I didn’t quiiite know what to expect with the new animated series, but was super excited and it hasn’t disappointed one bit. It’s such a fun show and really enjoyable to have a Star Wars show that is almost just ‘slice of life’ compared to the others. The animation is so cool to me and the characters really cute. I’m ridiculously charmed by all of them, especially our main man Kazuda Xiono and really hyped to see where these characters go. It’s more happy and fun than anything, but I know it will break my heart to pieces soon enough (KAZUDA XIONO. HOME PLANET: HOSNIAN PRIME). I hope more people give it a chance because it really is awesome!

3. Star Wars Adventures: Tales from Vader's Castle by Cavan Scott and various artists

LET THIS BE MY LOVE LETTER TO CAVAN SCOTT AND ALL THE COOL AND AWESOME STUFF HE’S DONE WITH THE STAR WARS UNIVERSE!! I was soooo excited when these came out because it’s such an AWESOME idea, I mean? Star Wars Horror story one-shots connected by a wider plot??? YES PLEASE AND THANK YOU. Doubly so when they star Lina Graf, of the Adventures in Wild Space series by Cavan Scott and Tom Huddleston. I was soooo excited to see her again and it’s amazing to see how she’s grown from a young kid to a brave and capable pilot and Commander in the Rebellion.

Then the individual stories are just awesome. It was a joy to see Kanan and Hera back together again after Rebels (or, well, pre-Rebels). The Dooku story was just amazing and such an enthusiastic tribute to Christopher Lee as Dracula. The Frozen inspired Han and Chewie story was also pretty great and I LOVE that it referenced the events of The Mighty Chewbacca in the Forest of Fear! And, my personal favorite story, the spooky ewok story featuring a young Chief Chirpa and Logray was brilliant and I enjoyed getting a closer first-hand look at ewoks (something we don’t have much of, at least in canon!). All in all just an absolute masterpiece in my book and a great reminder of why IDW Comics’ Star Wars stuff has been so freaking awesome.

2. Join the Resistance: Attack on Starkiller Base by Ben Blacker and Ben Acker and illustrated by Annie Wu

I’M BACK AT IT YELLING ABOUT WHY MORE PEOPLE NEED TO CARE ABOUT THESE WONDERFUL, CHARMING LITTLE KIDS’ BOOKS!! This was such a perfect end to the J-Squadron kids’ story. To me, this series is such a hidden gem and I really hope more people give it a chance. It was wonderful how all the characters’ stories closed out. I loved seeing Jo finally openly defy his parents, Mattis putting his faith in the Force and his friends, the return of Klimo, AG-90 and Dec fighting as brothers but growing stronger for it, and Lorica becoming the hero everybody thought she was. There’s so many fun cameos, from Rey, to Hux to Poe and Black Squadron, with the backdrop of the actual climactic battle in The Force Awakens.

And, one thing I really want to talk about that I love, is how the book (in tandem with the first two) give us the first gay character in a Star Wars kids book, with Dec Hansen. I wish they could’ve said it a bit more explicitly, but we actually got the kid and his friends talking about it in the books? And, with most of the LGBT characters falling more on the “scum and villainy” circles of the galaxy, it’s so refreshing to see a brave and unambiguously heroic gay teenage starfighter pilot trainee. Like, holy shit that actually happened!!!! ANYWAYS READ THIS SERIES I LOVE THEM AND YOU SHOULD TOO.

Oh, also, Annie Wu’s illustrations are AWESOME and I hope she does more Star Wars stuff (Pirate’s Price, out in a week!)

1. Star Wars Rebels created by Dave Filoni, Simon Kinberg and Carrie Beck

I don’t think there’s way I could place anything but Rebels at #1. This show changed my life in so many ways and I’m just. ridiculously thankful it exists. without Rebels, I wouldn’t have this blog, I wouldn’t be up to my ears obsessed with Star Wars and I there’s so many friends I wouldn’t have either. It’s touched my heart in a way that.... gosh I don’t know if I can even think about anything that resonates with me quite in the way Star Wars Rebels has. Pretty sure most if not all of my followers have seen Rebels, haha, but if you haven’t. You won’t regret it. Well, you might. It hurts. I hate to say, but it does. But even if the end destination leaves you heartbroken and uh prone to randomly bursting into tears about it, you will never regret the journey. Everything I learned and experienced with Ezra, Kanan, Hera, Sabine, Zeb and Chopper is beyond precious to me and I’m thankful it exists because it made my year in so many ways.

[glompcat]

I love how when people were freaked about Ron Howard stepping in on the Han Solo movie, they were all forgetting the true reason to be scared, as a very close friend of Lucas’ he saw rough cuts of The Phantom Menace and offered Lucas advice on how to edit some things, according to the movie’s commentary track.