#i see this shit from the blue lock fandom and its hilarious to see people say

[animentality]

sometimes I see homophobes doing "how would this character react to people shipping them" videos and it's funny because it's always just them reflecting the op's prejudice, like.

it's one thing, to ship enemies, because you can wholeheartedly say, they'd be pretty upset about being shipped. it's also one thing, to say yes, siblings would be absolutely disgusted to see themselves being shipped with each other.

but then you got characters who are straight up the gayest people to not exist.

and you really think they wouldn't find it hilarious?

pls.

[tenscupcake]

Kingdom Hearts 3 - An Honest Review

I’d like to preface this review by saying I am an unabashed Kingdom Hearts geek. Like, through and through. I played KH1 when I was just a tween, and have picked up a copy every installment since (in some cases, even bought the entire console just to play that one game). I still have CDs of the game soundtracks, a few discs which have nearly burnt out on replay in my car. Sanctuary After the Battle will forever make me cry, whether or not I’m watching the cutscene that goes along with it. I’ve replayed most of the titles multiple times. Wasted away hours on YouTube watching Story So Far recaps and funny commentaries about the games in preparation for KH3. Like millions of other enthusiasts, I have been eagerly and patiently (all right, sometimes not so patiently) awaiting the arrival of KH3 since the moment I first finished KH2 – 13 very, very long years ago.

At around eight o’clock on premiere night, I took my place in line at my local GameStop wearing my Kingdom Hearts t-shirt and pajama pants, brandishing the miniature Kingdom Key clipped to my lanyard. Finally holding that blue case in my hands was absolutely surreal. One of those natural highs it took me hours to come down from. Tears welled up in my eyes at the first few somber piano keys as the title screen faded into view.

Lots of people asked me, in the weeks and even months leading up to the release (because believe me, at any opportunity, I would not shut up about how excited I was about this game), if I thought it would live up to the hype. Pfft, I thought. People outside the KH fandom never understand. Of course it will. Sure, the series has had its weak links, its hiccups (the battle system in COM and the perpetual re-releases of old games with minor tweaks, to name a couple). But with the compelling cinematic storytelling and uniquely delightful gameplay of the main series’ smash hits - KH1, KH2, and BBS – in their repertoire, I knew the team at Square was capable of pulling this off. To me, it was just a given that it would be epic. That playing it would be worth all the years of waiting. I had absolutely no doubt in my mind this game was going to be lit. As. Hell.

I’m only saying all this so as not to give the impression I went into this game looking to find flaws, to nitpick it. Or with the expectation of being disappointed. In fact, quite the opposite.

I wanted to love this game. To me, loving KH games is one of very few constants in my life. I was supposed to love this game. I needed to love this game.

But the truth is, I didn’t.

That statement has been pretty difficult for me to come to terms with.

In what few early reviews and videos I’ve found of people discussing their thoughts on the game, I’ve found fans to be quite split: with some unreservedly loving, others downright hating the game.

I fall somewhere in the middle of the polarized fandom. I did NOT hate the game. It was actually a good, if not great game. But putting it on a sliding scale of satisfaction and disappointment, I would say it’s tipping toward the latter. And as it’s taken me hours of mulling, reading, and discussing with other players to characterize and articulate precisely why, and because I think I owe it not only to the series and the characters therein, but also my younger self to leave no stone unturned, this review is going to be a long one.

I’m finding it easiest to break it down by category:

Graphics.

This game is beautiful. It was sort of a dream come true to meander around in real time with the gorgeously, smoothly animated versions of Sora and the gang that we’d previously only been able to see in the rare cinematic cutscenes at each game’s beginning and end. Most of the Disney and even Pixar worlds and characters are rendered to nearly the same quality as their film counterparts. I often found myself just standing in place for a while, admiring it all. The vivid green landscapes of Corona, the beaches and sprawling sea in the Caribbean, the towering cityscape of San Fransokyo. And walking on water where the sky meets the sea? Stunning.

Gameplay.

All in all, this game is pretty damn fun to play. It was all I thought about during long days at work: I couldn’t wait to jump back into the action. Pounding on Heartless still brings me back to the good old days. And who doesn’t want to run up the side of buildings as Riku and Roxas demonstrated so epically, so long ago, in the World That Never Was? Soar to sky-high Heartless as easily as you can lock onto them? These new movement aspects brought an almost superhero-esque quality to the game, reminiscent of Spider-man’s wall-crawling or Batman’s grappling hook, that, if a bit unrealistic, I found to be immense fun. And compared to previous games, worlds are no longer cordoned off into many separate areas, and with the sheer scale of them, KH3 experiments with a quasi-open-world style that is rather freeing.

I also really appreciate that the character interactions with your party and with NPCs felt much less clunky. For one thing, they FINALLY did away with the press X-to-progress text-only conversations that were so prevalent in previous games, with all the dialogue left to voice actors. Even minor NPCs that only show up one time were given a voice, making every interaction that much more immersive. Transitions from cutscenes to the action were also much more fluid, and Sora and his current teammates talk to one another as you pow around. Even if it’s just a warning from Goofy you’re going the wrong way, or a heads-up from Donald there’s an ingredient or lucky emblem nearby, it was still a new feature I was glad to have.

Combat-wise, this game has a lot going for it. This installment brings nearly all the combat styles we’ve seen up until this point: magic, combos, form changes, flowmotion, shotlock, companion team-ups, and links. And it even introduces a few new ones on top of all this: the ability to swap between three different keyblades at will, and the new Disney parks-inspired attraction commands, where you can summon roller coasters, tea cups, and spinning carousels to your heart’s content. What this enables is for the player to never get bored during a battle. With so many options to choose from in each new enemy encounter, you never have to stick with the same combat style or get stuck in a rut of just mashing X to hack and slash everything. All things considered, Sora’s got some pretty sick moves this time around. Whipping out Thundaza, watching lightning explode across the screen and zap all the enemies in sight with it? Wicked. Floating above the ground, wreaking ethereal, glowing havoc with the Mirage Staff? Awesome. Surrounded by a sea of Heartless, locking onto 32 different targets at once and unleashing a flurry of lasers to slash through them all? Amazing. Thumbs getting fatigued fighting the third maddening iteration of Xehanort? Give yourself a break from the chaos in a giant, technicolor pirate ship, watching it thwack your adversary on every rock back and forth.

On one hand, the hefty damage most of these combat options deal gives the game an almost Ratchet and Clank-esque ‘blowing shit up’ vibe, which is undeniably fun. But, this array of choices does become a double-edged sword. With grand magic, attraction commands, form changes, and team attacks all fighting for space atop the command deck, they tend to pile up quickly. It’s not at all uncommon to rack up three or four different situation commands after only about 30 seconds of fighting. Sometimes, the constant need to make a choice, especially in a busy battle, can be more of a burden than a blessing. Having to shift between situation command selections on top of attacking, blocking, and accessing your shortcuts can be a bit cumbersome.

Unlike in previous games, there also aren’t many consequences for over-using special attacks. In KH2, your drive gauge ran out and needed to be slowly refilled. You also ran the increasingly high risk of morphing into the near-helpless Anti-Sora by relying too much on drive forms. But here, no matter how many times you’ve used a special attack, your MP will reload in a few seconds, and you can easily just ignore the situation command for Rage Form when it pops up. In BBS, it felt like it took a good while to power up to a form change, whereas in KH3 it seems like you can spend just as much time in a powered-up keyblade form change as in regular combat.

And, because so many of these situation commands are so powerful and frequent, they tend to dominate the entire battle, making the combat in the game much easier than previous games. Bordering on too easy. Where in other entries in the main series, I usually had to die several times on each boss in Proud mode before I devised the right strategy to defeat them, I rarely died at all in this game. On the surface, that isn’t such a bad thing. As I like to say a lot of the time, when I play a game “I’m here for a good time, not a hard time.” But there comes a point when the combat is so easy that it no longer gives you that sense of accomplishment when you progress past a tough batch of heartless or a particularly merciless boss – you know, that punching the air, whooping to yourself sort of pride. I was definitely missing that, at times.

Believe it or not, I think the Disney attraction commands, though powerful, and at first hilarious, were a bit too extra. After only a few hours in they just became annoying, and I was doing my best to ignore them when they popped up, even wishing I could turn them off. Now and then, I’d accidentally trigger the Blaster or the raft ride and just roll my eyes while canceling back out of it. Because it doesn’t really feel like you’re doing any fighting, let alone the real-time keyblade-style fighting uniquely special to this series. And forget trying to effectively aim while you’re in one. After a while the only thing I found them useful for was, as I mentioned earlier, taking a break from a fight when you’re fatigued, as they give your thumbs a break and cause you to take much less damage. While they were cool at first, my final impression of this addition to the combat was all flash, no substance.

I was one of the few who actually liked and took advantage of flowmotion in DDD, and was excited to see it brought back here. But this, too, turned out to be mostly another annoyance. I’m not sure if it’s because the actionable objects are so much more spread out in KH3, or because they actually built in restrictions on combos here, but I was unable to keep a flow going at all. After only one successful strike after leaping off a wall or pole, the blue glow of momentum vanished. It didn’t feel like “flowmotion” at all, just a one-and-done special attack that tended to kill any rhythm I had going moreso than facilitate it. So while conceptually and visually it was promising, I unfortunately no longer found it very useful.

Also, and I realize this is completely subjective, but I found the form changes to be stylistically underwhelming overall. I thought the drive forms in KH2 (especially Master and Final) were visually and stylistically cooler, and seemed to have more finesse.

Worlds.

When I was whisked away from San Fransokyo and landed in the final world of the game, I found myself disappointed by the number of worlds I’d been to, expecting there to be a handful more. Though, when I counted the worlds up, the tally was at nine. So I asked myself why it felt like so little, when nine didn’t seem like a small number. But, tallying up the worlds in previous games, KH1 had 13, KH2 had 15, and BBS had 10. Which does put KH3 on the low end of world count. Also, in all three of these previous games (especially KH2 and BBS), you had to return to these worlds more than once, usually unlocking new content and/or areas each time, leading it to feel like there were more worlds than there actually were. Though KH3 has a comparable length of gameplay to complete the story, it definitely does feel like it comes up short in terms of variety of worlds you get to visit. As a result, some of the worlds where you spend 3 or 4 hours at a time can start to feel like they’re dragging on a little bit. And on the flipside of that, there are certain worlds that you technically do visit in KH3 I did not include in the world count, because you are there for such a fleeting amount of time, or in such a tiny portion of the world – e.g. Land of Departure, the Realm of Darkness. Worlds that would have been awesome to get to actually explore! And perhaps the biggest letdown of all, though you get to visit Destiny Islands and Radiant Garden via cutscenes, there is no play time in either. Serious bummer.

As far as the worlds they did choose to include, the selection admittedly left me ambivalent. I was really glad to see Toy Story, Monsters Inc., and Big Hero 6 included, but wasn’t over the moon about any of the others. I was really counting on having a Wreck-It-Ralph world (I mean, how perfect would that be?), and would love to have seen them tackle Zootopia, Wall-E, Meet the Robinsons, or the Incredibles. I’d even settle for a return to Halloween Town (shameless NBC fangirl, what can I say). The Emperor’s New Groove could have been pretty damn funny. Even A Bug’s Life or Finding Nemo could have offered some unique gameplay opportunities. Certainly better content to work with than Frozen, at any rate.

As far as the plot/experience within the worlds, I also found it to be a mixed bag. I did enjoy all of them, even ones I did not expect to enjoy too much (i.e. Frozen and Pirates). Honestly, though, I found myself a bit bored in worlds where they followed the plot of the films too closely, to the point that it felt like an abridged re-hash of the movies. I know they’ve taken this approach before with earlier Kingdom Hearts games, and I may sound like a hypocrite for only critiquing it now. But I think even in stories where they did do this earlier, like Tarzan or Aladdin, they executed the re-tellings more successfully. The plotline was altered just enough to ensure Sora was a part of the action through and through. After playing those games, Sora was indelibly inserted into those films in my head. To where the next time I watched them, I was jokingly asking myself “Where’s Sora?” But that was not the feeling I got here. In worlds like Corona or the Caribbean, Sora was just sort of jammed into the plot where he didn’t really fit. In many of the longer cutscenes, I actually forgot Sora was even there – even forgot I was playing Kingdom Hearts. Sora didn’t really feel needed. I definitely found it more enjoyable to be part of a new adventure with the characters – like what was done with Toy Story and Big Hero 6, where Sora was able to play more of an active role in progressing the subplot. It was nice to feel like I mattered!

Extras.

These were hit-or-miss for me. I actually screeched with excitement when Sora and the gang ran into Remy, and enjoyed the scavenger hunt for ingredients. And while cooking with little chef was a treat I wouldn’t want to see cut from the game, I found most of the cooking mini-games to be simultaneously too short (less than 10 seconds each!) and needlessly hard to master (especially cracking that egg).

Admittedly a Disney and Disneyland fanatic, I also got a kick out of the lucky emblems (aka hidden mickeys). I thought they were one of the most fun collectibles we’ve seen to date in the franchise.

Which brings me to one of the more controversial extras in the game: the gummiphone! While a lot of people are ragging on the inclusion of this dynamic, I enjoyed it. The Instagram loading screens were a little jarring at first, but they really grew on me. And being able to point the camera at Goofy, Sully, or Hiro and watch them pose for a picture in real-time was nothing short of adorable.

Another thing that surprised me? The game’s occasional self-awareness. I almost included a separate category for this, because I’ve never seen another game do this, and did not see it coming! But the “KINGDOM HEARTS II.9” title screen gave me a good chuckle. It doesn’t make up for all the 1.5, 2.8, 0.2 nonsense we’ve had to put up with, but it’s at least nice to see they can poke fun at their own ridiculousness. And when Sora laments how long it’s been since he’s seen the folks in Twilight Town; then Hayner, confused and even a little creeped out, says “It hasn’t been that long”. Simply acknowledging the vast disconnect between the short time that’s passed in-universe since KH2 and how egregiously long the fans had to wait – well, it had me in stitches. It was morbid laughter, sure, but refreshing nonetheless.

Um, the folk dancing in the square in Corona? Literal funniest thing ever.

One thing that I really missed? Closing keyholes. Finishing worlds wasn’t the same without them.

At this point in the review, I’ve covered basically every aspect I can think of save for one: the story. I’ve purposely saved it for last, because it’s the most important aspect of the series to me, the one that can make or break a Kingdom Hearts game.

From the categories I’ve judged thus far – content, visuals, gameplay, extras – I’d probably give this game a solid 8 or 9/10. I had some issues with the overly cluttered combat, the difficulty level, and the slight disappointment with which worlds were included and the ways they chose to play out the subplots in each. But in the grand scheme of things, all these complaints are minor, and don’t detract from the fact that it’s just plain fun, in a new league with some of the most entertaining and most beautiful titles out there.

But that’s exactly it. Beautiful graphics are the new bare minimum for this generation of console gaming. If a game released for the PS4 or Switch isn’t visually outstanding, it runs a real risk of faltering behind the competition. There is no shortage of beautiful games on the market in 2019.

And if I want a fun game, I can pop back into Mario Odyssey or get a group together to duke it out in Super Smash Ultimate. I can easily download a dozen fun platformers on Steam for less than 50 bucks.

Yes, KH3 is really beautiful, and really fun.

But that’s not why I was so excited to play it.

A legion of kids and teenagers stuck with this series well into their twenties and thirties, never giving up on the release of the next installment. Trudged through handheld games and blocky graphics and clunky battle systems and convoluted plot lines. Why? Well, of course I can’t speak for all KH fans, but for me, and all the ones I know personally, it’s because of the story. It’s always been what, in my mind, sets KH apart from any other video game I’ve ever played. It’s the only game series that’s ever made me cry. The only one I’ve ever owned merchandise for. The only one I’ve ever been so invested in that I can discuss it with friends, even acquaintances, for hours on end. The only one that’s made me care so much about the characters that they feel like my friends. With how much time has passed since I started, maybe even my kids. No pun intended, the series has heart. It contains the same sort of magic that going to Disneyland as a child did. Or, it used to.

Kingdom Hearts 3 didn’t need to just be a great game. It needed to be a Kingdom Hearts game. One that built a wove a compelling story filled with intrigue and emotion from the first hour. One that did justice to all the characters (and by now, there are a lot of them) that we’ve grown to love over the last 17 years. One where a prepubescent kid can yell a speech up at a threatening villain that makes you believe, harder than you’ve ever believed, in the power of friendship. One that instills a childlike optimism that no matter how dark the world gets, as long as someone keeps fighting, good can still triumph over evil. One that tugs on the heartstrings in just the right ways, at just the right moments, to manage to make you cry – repeatedly – over a gang of outspoken, angsty kids with clown feet.

The thing about the story in KH3 is: it’s not inherently a bad story. Sure, it’s a mess, it doesn’t make much sense, it leaves you with more questions than answers, it’s incredibly cheesy, and it retcons a good deal of lore from previous installments. But many of these things could be said of other Kingdom Hearts games. The fact that these descriptors apply to KH3 isn’t what disqualifies it as a worthy entry in the series, in my mind.

For the most part, it’s not the story itself I found disappointing. After all, think about how a summary sounds on paper: reunions with long lost characters, long-awaited battles, conclusions of lengthy character and story arcs. 

The biggest problem wasn’t so much the concept of the story, but rather the execution.

First of all, the pacing. The pacing was terrible. Almost nothing happens the first 20-25 hours of the game. I can think of maybe two scenes that got me on the edge of my seat, gripping my controller in the hopes it would advance the plot further: the scene with Mickey and Riku in the realm of darkness where you get to play as Riku for a few minutes (sadly the only time in the game that you do), and running into Vanitas in Monstropolis. Nothing. Else. Happened. Sure you run into Larxene in Arendelle, and goof around chasing Luxord in the Caribbean, but none of this is actually relevant to the plot we care about. Certainly not the plot the story is telling us to care about from the beginning.

And that leads me to the second issue – how vague your objective actually is. The ultimate objective of the game seems clear enough: rescue Aqua from the realm of darkness, maybe worry about the other two Wayfinder trio once we’ve found her, and defeat Xehanort. But this is not Sora’s given objective. Rather, it’s to find the ‘power of waking.’ Which is not explained, either to Sora or the player. Sora, on the other hand, appoints himself to another mission entirely: contemplating the unfairness of Roxas’ disappearance, he seems to mainly be focused on finding him and restoring him to a physical existence. However, this mission is starkly at odds with the canonical explanation of Nobodies in general and Roxas, specifically. The last time we saw Roxas (chronologically speaking) he reunited with Sora, and as far as we know, he’s still part of Sora. So, the mission to “find” Roxas as if he exists as an entity in the real world is perplexing. Second, lacking hearts, Nobodies can’t exist as a whole on their own. So even assuming we can “find” him in Sora, how far we going to bring him back without splintering Sora into a Heartless and a Nobody again? Even according to the series’ own complex lore, it doesn’t make sense. Therefore, the first half or more of the game seems aimless, not really knowing what we’re meant to be doing, or how. It’s hard to be invested in a story with no clear objective. Not something we can easily get on board with like “Find Riku and Kairi” or “Track down the Organization.” Just “Go find the power of waking.” Okay.

And while a lot (and I mean a lot) happens in the last 4-5 hours of the story to tie up loose ends, it’s crammed together in such a jumbled rush that it’s almost impossible to appreciate any of it.

After collecting Aqua and Ventus, long lost characters reappear on screen one right after another assembly-line style, to the point that none of them feels special or poignant anymore.

Not only that, but the characters who are brought back, many of them beloved protagonists from earlier installments in the series, are not given any time to shine.

It was promising when they let Aqua fight Vanitas in the newly restored Land of Departure. Ven is her friend, her responsibility; it was her fight. But with this taste of getting back a playable character from the franchise, I expected that as the plot progressed, it would open up plenty more chances for past protagonists to take the stage. That we’d be able to step back into the oversized shoes of other playable characters we’d missed. That when (or if) others returned in all their glory, they’d get to strut their stuff.

But that is precisely the opposite of what happened.

I mean, Ventus didn’t get to steal the spotlight for the final clash with Vanitas? By definition, his natural foil?

Terra didn’t get to exact his revenge in an epic showdown with Xehanort, the guy who stole his body and enslaved him for more than a decade?

Roxas and Axel, reunited, couldn’t team up to pound on the Organization members that tormented them? Instead, after his surprise entrance, Roxas got hardly any screen presence at all, and Axel’s epic new flaming keyblade got destroyed, making him sit out most of the fighting after all the build up that he was training to fight?

Oh, and you know who else was utterly useless through the final battles, demoted once again to a damsel in distress despite years of hype that she’d wield a keyblade in this installment, and multiple cutscenes indicating she, too, was training to actually fight? Yup. I don’t even need to say the name.

And to only get one small boss fight as Riku, when in the previous installment he had half the screen time?

The heroes we’ve missed for so long and longed to return to the screen are not resurrected with the dignity and respect they deserve. They are relegated to side characters, who are either completely sidelined for the final battles, or else just hacking away mindlessly in the background as you marathon one ridiculously easy “boss” after another Olympus Coliseum-style.

Speaking of resurrecting characters: the manner in which they brought some of them back was so nebulous it was impossible to understand, let alone experience any sort of emotional reaction.

For one: Roxas. For starters, it’s pretty lazy writing to have Sora be the one pursuing his return (however that was supposed to happen), only to have that pursuit peter out completely, and for Roxas to just appear at the final battle with no resolution or explanation of how. (Nor the satisfaction of fleshing out how Sora achieved it.) But more importantly, where did he come from? There was no scene in which he emerged from Sora’s being. So, where was he? Also, I get that they must have used the replica Demyx/Ansem brought Ienzo as a vessel for him, but how does he have his own heart now? There was no evidence to indicate Sora or Ven lost theirs again. This is a pretty glaring plot hole.

Second? Naminé. This one really came out of left field. No one had even spoken about Naminé the entire game, save one throwaway line. Then all of a sudden, near the very end of the game, everyone cares about bringing her back, too? Even Sora, despite his hours-long obsession with bringing back Roxas without a word about Naminé, sees a newly empty vessel and asks “Oh, is that for Naminé?” All I could do at this point was laugh at the absurdity of it all. 

Even more confusing? Xion. She was a replica, with no heart, no personality... a walking vial for Sora’s memories. How on Earth did she get brought back? What was there to bring back? And what was the point? Xion always felt far more like a plot device than an actual character.

At this point, so little made sense and so many characters had appeared in a row with no regard for continuity or maintaining canon that my heart was really starting to sink. It all felt like it was meant to be fan service. Bring back everyone’s favorite characters: they’ll love that, right? But the issue is they did it no matter what rules they had to break, or canon they had to ignore. Sure, I wanted a lot of these characters back, I think a lot of people did. But not at the expense of good writing.

Even if one completely excuses the hole-filled poor writing that got us there, it didn’t even feel real that we had these awesome characters back. Because they just sort of existed, as high-def cool anime hair and porcelain skin and not much else. Not only did they not get to show us what they’re made of in epic fight sequences, but there was no meaningful dialogue from any of them. Where was Terra giving his friends any sort of recollection of his time as Ansem’s guardian? Riku and Roxas making amends? Aqua thanking Sora for keeping Ven safe? A brofest about protecting their friends between Riku and Terra? Axel saying anything at all meaningful to his best friend when he finally saw him again? For all the reunions we got, it was shocking how little substance there actually was in any of them. 

It was an insanely rushed ending, with stunted, shallow dialogue, and awkward tears that felt forced rather than genuine.

KH3 is to KH1&2 what Moffat Who is to RTD Who. A lot more flash, a lot less substance, and hollowed out characters that no longer provoke deep emotion.

Characters’ emotions were not handled well in this game. Like when Sora, notorious for being a persistent optimist, dissolves to hysterics and claims he’s “nothing” without his friends. But we never get to see this sharp departure from his M.O. (because he has lost his friends over and over throughout the series without reacting this way) really wrestled with. It’s just swept under the rug after a single line from Riku. It’s okay for characters to hit rock bottom: in fact, it’s good for them. But such episodes have to be properly fleshed out, or they won’t have an impact.

Also, just my two cents? Making your characters cry is not a shortcut to get your audience to cry. It’s a lazy way of demonstrating feeling. In the writing world, there’s something called “show, don’t tell.” Making characters cry left and right with hardly any time devoted to the proper dialogue and action is the equivalent of telling, rather than showing. This series is unique to me precisely because it’s the only video game to make me cry (repeatedly). But I didn’t shed a tear in this game. And I think that is so telling. I always think of this behind the scenes video I watched for Doctor Who, in which they filmed different versions of a (very) emotional scene. In one of these versions, the Doctor properly breaks down and cries. David (the actor) upon seeing this version played back to him, said: “I worry if you see him breaking down, it stops you breaking down, as well.” He was onto something there. They didn’t end up using that take in the episode, and I think everyone would agree it was the right call. I’m not saying crying is inherently bad and always to be avoided. In fact, the opposite: it can be very powerful if used sparingly, and at the right moments with the right build-up. But overusing it, with no apparent regard for characterization nuances, basically making it your only method for tell your audience a character is emotional? It’s a little insulting. You also need good dialogue, good acting (or in this case, good animation and voice acting), and proper timing if you want to strike a chord with anyone.

Which, speaking of, I thought both the dialogue and the voice acting in the game as a whole left something to be desired (and seemed almost painfully slow?), and I think a big reason why emotional moments tended to ring hollow.

Onto another aspect of the story: how it ties in to earlier installments in the series. There was a fair amount of speculation going into this game whether or not smaller, handheld-console based installments and extra nuggets from mobile games and re-releases would be relevant in KH3. But regardless of which side of the argument fans fell on, the fact remains that many fans had only played KH1 and KH2, possibly BBS, prior to playing KH3. Many people don’t have the money or the interest in playing on multiple handheld consoles (me being one of them, though I toughed it out in this case) or cell phones, nor the tireless dedication and yes, more money, to purchase games a second time for Final Mix versions and secret endings. This is not a bad thing. It doesn’t mean they are bad fans, or less deserving of playing or enjoying KH3. Someone should not have to be a zealous super-fan to be able to enjoy a video game, or any form of entertainment. If you show up to Avengers: Endgame without having seen some of the previous major installments in the film franchise, you are probably going to be confused. I don’t recommend doing that. But is it necessary to have re-watched them all 20 times, speculated for hours on blogs and message boards, and read decades worth of Avengers comics to be able to understand it? Of course not. Though some insufferable comic book elitists insist they’re better than everyone else because they know more about the Marvel universe, the fact is you don’t have to be a Marvel super-fan to enjoy the films. That’s how it should be. Because it’s okay to be a casual fan of something. Content creators normally recognize this, and respect all of their audience. But here, there was critical information from pretty much every spinoff handheld game that you needed in order to have any idea what was going on. There wasn’t even any recap system like in KH2 (the static memories) to get you up to speed on what had happened in the series up until this point. Not to mention the location of the final boss fight, as well as the very last cutscenes centered around a mobile game/movie that I had never even heard of until I was in the middle of playing KH3. Now I am something of a KH geek as I said, so I’ve sat through Union Cross now and done my best to understand some of the more obscure lore. But, call me crazy, I don’t think it’s fair to expect every single person who plays the game to do that in order to understand it. Games are supposed to be fun, not homework.

Which brings me to my last point: this game was supposed to be the end of the saga as we know it. Whether it’s the end of the series or simply the end of this story arc and subsequent games will follow a villain besides the many iterations of Xehanort is yet to be seen (as of me writing this), but it was established this game would be the end to the main trilogy so far. And, to have that end be the main character swanning off on his own (as some have speculated, possibly to his death)? With everyone else from the series partying on the beach like someone important isn’t missing? As someone who came into this game expecting closure, I felt completely blindsided by this ending. After all he’s been through and all the sacrifices he’s made, Sora deserves better.

Kingdom Hearts 3 was visually and mechanically a blast, and credit should go to the developers, artists, and designers where credit is due. But as a fan who plays this series not for graphics or flashy gameplay, but to immerse myself in the story, I’m left feeling cheated. The way the plot unfolded and the way the characters were handled did a disservice to both long-time fans of the saga and to the characters themselves.

I always have a hard time with this, but if I had to put a number to it? I’d say maybe 6/10.

It hurt just to type that.

I’m not giving up hope in the franchise. If there’s ever a KH4 (which still seems unclear right now), I’ll probably still play it. I’m trying to give the creators the benefit of the doubt: they were under a lot of pressure to create a great game, and had too much time in development on their hands and too many sprawling ideas and tried to do too much at once. I’m all for second chances. But if they want the trust of fans like me back, they’re going to have to earn it.

Over the last couple months as I’ve put together this review, I’ve found myself in doubt. Even, dare I say it, like a bad fan, though in principle I vehemently reject the notion someone is a bad fan for disliking an installment of any franchise they love. Am I just too old for Kingdom Hearts now? I wondered. Was I romanticizing the series the whole time, and it’s not as good as I’ve built it up to be in my head? After all my time spent waiting, am I being too critical? I tortured myself over it. So, a couple of weeks after finishing KH3, I popped in the 1.5/2.5 HD compilation into the PS4 and restarted KH2. I had to see if it even came close to the hype I’d built in my head in the 8 or 9 years since I played it last. Almost 60 hours of gameplay later, I can say with confidence that I had not romanticized it at all. This game is amazing. I didn’t mind watching 30 minutes of cutscenes at a time because everything is so compelling. So the graphics are dated, but who cares? The combat is FUN without ever being cumbersome. It’s just the right level of difficulty that there are still some battles and bosses that require multiple attempts and the journey continuously instills a sense of pride and accomplishment. It has so much heart. I still teared up in the same places I used to as a teenager.

KH2 is still a perfect 10/10, and playing it again with fresh eyes only made me realize just how disappointing KH3 actually was.

There’s an old adage that it’s the things we love most that hurt us the most. I wouldn’t feel so let down, or compelled to write 6800 words why, if I didn’t love this series with all my heart. I’ve seen a lot of fans insulting and belittling anyone who dares to criticize the game online, and frankly I’m baffled by that. I critique and discuss all forms of entertainment I enjoy: and that includes both the strengths and weaknesses, the successes and flaws. And I guess I tend to associate with people who do the same. It doesn’t make us bad fans, but passionate ones. I’m not sending hate mail to Square telling them the game unequivocally sucks. I don’t have any ill will towards them or think they’re irredeemable writers or developers. I’m simply recording and posting my honest thoughts to help myself process how I’m feeling, and perhaps others if they choose to read them.

I’m genuinely happy for the fans who loved the game and felt it worth the wait – I don’t want to pick any fights with them (so please don’t pick any fights with me, either). I’m sadly - believe me, no one is sadder than me to admit this - just not one of them.

[ieroween1031]

Bev/Richie BrOTP Headcanons:

(These are really long; like I’ve said before, I have absolutely no idea how to convey ideas in less than like, seven thousand words, so headcanons are new to me. But if you have any requests, send me a prompt, and I’ll do some more because I actually really like doing them! Open to other fandoms, too, like Shameless, TWD or Stranger Things!)

Bev and Richie are best friends.

Like, BEST best friends.

They’re are always the ones with the bad ideas

And they’re always supporting the other’s bad ideas

Like how Bev is the only one cheering when Richie finally lays into Huggins for pushing Eddie in the hall, while all the other Losers try to pry him off

And Richie is all for Bev’s cousin making them fake IDs

They sneak out of their different classes at the same time to share a smoke in the girls’ bathrooms

They have English together, and their English teacher is NOT happy about it. She sat them next to each other once and has never immediately regretted a decision more in her life because they would NOT. SHUT. UP.

Not only that, but Richie would make dick jokes (out loud, of course; he’s no pussy) about EVERYTHING the class read, and Bev would laugh her ass off every time.

“Of course Juliet killed herself. Couldn’t live without that dick!”

“Why is it that when she does it, she just has to wear an A on her tits, but when I do it, I get detention for ‘inappropriately propositioning the music teacher’?”

“Call me Ponyboy, cuz I’ll let you ride it.”

“TOZIER!”

Meanwhile, Bev is hanging out of her desk, one hand on the floor literally crying with laughter.

After that, the teacher moves them completely across the room from each other

But do you think that stops them? Oh, no.

They try to sneak it and sit together anyway, since the seat next to Bev is empty, but they always get caught.

So they just literally shout across the room while the teacher’s talking

Or they stand and throw notes back and forth like football players, not even trying to hide it

It’s so bad that the teacher finally relents and lets them sit together, because then at least the ruckus is contained to one corner of the room

Richie drives Bev to school, since they live the closest, AKA they both live in ‘poor town’.

Richie has a thing for climbing houses and sneaking in windows (For real, though, I’ve never met anyone that disagrees, so if it wasn’t actually canon, it is now)

So when he has a bad day, or when Bev and her father argue, she’ll lock her door so her father can’t get in and sit on the roof with him and smoke.

This is where they got high for the first time, just the two of them.

If Richie’s having a really bad night, he’ll let himself into her room while she’s sleeping and just sleep on the floor (sometimes he goes to Eddie’s instead; it just depends on how he’s feeling that night).

Until one winter night. Bev woke up when Richie was closing the window. He wasn’t wearing a coat, so she told him to just lay in the bed with her to warm up.

He only meant to stay for a minute, but he was hella tired so he crashed. The next morning, he woke up with his head on Bev’s chest and her arms around him.

When she woke up, she just kissed the top of his head and left to go to the bathroom.

Now every time Richie spends the night, they sleep in Bev’s bed and cuddle.

Bev is the big spoon

Richie goes with Bev to get her belly button pierced when she’s sixteen. He holds her hand the whole time

He kinda wants his done too, but the piercer snorts and says it’s a girl thing (which upsets Richie even though he tries to hide it, and Bev is so angry at the guy that she ‘accidentally’ knocks over an entire case of jewelry on her way out)

In the end, he gets his nose pierced, and Bev tells him how sexy he looks the whole way home (Eddie agrees by nearly attacking him with kisses in the middle of his living room when Richie comes over to show him)

Richie has really small feet for a guy (which bothers him for some reason) so he’s always stealing borrowing Bev’s Doc Martens

Bev gets revenge by taking all his favorite Hawaiian shirts

He pretends to be mad, but Bev slays in them, and even his gay ass can’t deny that she looks better in them than he does

Everyone assumes that Richie is this player, because he flirts with literally everyone. Guy, girl, gay, straight, undecided, it doesn’t matter; Trashmouth Tozier will make kissy faces and wink at you

But only Bev knows that he’s a scared virgin, and that he’s only ever been intimate with Eddie

She and Ben have sex first, so she shares everything she knows with Richie. She even lifts him some condoms and a bottle of lube from the pharmacy since he can’t go buy them himself because people can see me, Beverly!

Richie helps Bev shop for lingerie, and she always models it for him at home.

He insists that she could wear a burlap bag and Ben would bust a nut, but she likes the way she feels knowing she’s dressed in leather or lace under her clothes and nobody else (but Richie) knows, so it’s as much for her as it is for Ben.

In that case, Richie wholeheartedly supports this, because he is all for his best friend feeling powerful and sexy, like Yaas, slay, my Queen!

Richie has absolutely no problem buying Bev tampons if she’s on her period and cramping so bad that she can’t get out of bed

And she gets killer periods, so when she’s on the rag, they’ll watch movies and pig out on ice cream together

Richie is a touch slut with everybody, always wanting physical contact, like hand holding, or playing with someone’s hair, or sitting on their lap, or kissing their cheeks

Bev (even more so than the rest of the Losers) lets him be as touchy as he wants, and never calls him out on it because she knows that aside from the Losers, he’s never been shown any other affection, so it’s normal for him to want it so badly

(Which she knows because she asked Ben to do the research on why kids from broken homes are sometimes more affectionate)

People always assume they’re a couple, since Richie is so handsy with her, and they never correct anyone

They always down to play the part when one of them is getting hit on, so much so that Richie has kissed Bev almost as much as Eddie

Richie knows when Ben and Bev do anything sexual for the first time, as Bev always tells him about it immediately afterward

Richie returns the favor, knocking on her window one Wednesday night in the middle of the summer of their Junior year, explaining that they’d finally done it. Eddie and Richie have finally lost their virginity to each other.

Bev cries and gives him the biggest hug

She cries even harder when Richie tells her that they used the condoms and lube she stole for him

She paints the nails on his middle fingers black for him every week, but just the middle fingers, because he says that’s the one he uses most often

They talk about serious things when they’re cuddled in bed together

Bev tells Richie that she knows in her heart that she’s gonna marry Ben, and that one day, Richie will be the godfather to their children

Richie doesn’t say anything, but Bev hears him sniffle happily

Richie admits that he plans to follow Eddie to whatever college he gets into, (since he was never planning on going to college, anyway) no matter where in the country it is

Even Alaska, even though Richie hates the cold

That’s when Bev knows he’s serious about Eddie, even though he’s never been serious about anything else in the world

He also confesses that he’s terrified when he thinks about how hard their life will be, and how much it fucking sucks that they’ll always live in constant fear, simply because they’re two guys in love

Bev agrees, and kisses Richie’s shoulder

But he also tells her that even with all the bullshit, teasing, violence and fear, he doesn’t ever wish he was straight, because Eddie was the best thing that has ever happened to him

They agree that no matter where they go, and how long they’re apart for, that they will always be there for each other

Fast forward ten years:

Richie stands up by the altar in a tux and a vest that’s the same shade of tiffany blue as the bridesmaid dresses

He gasps when he sees Bev, even though he and Eddie were with her when she found her dress. He even cries as she walks down the aisle

He holds her bouquet, keeps Ben’s ring safe during the ceremony, holds her dress when she has to pee, makes an inappropriate and hilarious speech, and basically just nails this whole Maid of Honor thing (Bev was fine with calling him her Man of Honor, but he insisted that he was not missing out on anything that came with the job, and that includes the title Maid of Honor)

He DJ’s a lot of the reception, until Bev pulls him onto the dance floor for a slow dance

He tells her how much he loves her while they’re dancing, how happy he is and how beautiful she looks. How proud he is of what she’s overcome, and how honored he is to have such an amazing woman for a best friend

And now she’s crying

Fast forward two more years:

Bev beams from her spot as Best Man, looking sharp as shit in a tailored black tuxedo and a pastel pink bow tie (Picking the colors was a process. Eddie loved pastels, but argued that light pink was too ‘girly’ and obvious for a queer wedding. Richie, however, was not having it, and insisted that Eddie’s favorite color be showcased in all its grandeur, no matter how gay it was)

She got to hold Ben’s and Richie’s hands (After much deliberation about who was going where, they put Ben and Stan on Richie’s side, while Eddie had snatched up Bill and Mike for his party) while Eddie walked down the aisle, alone but confident

She cries like a baby when Richie mentions her in his vows

“I told Beverly years ago that I was gonna follow you no matter where you went, and she never doubted me for a second. She’s always encouraged me to chase my dreams, and that’s you.”

Bev helped them decide what song should be their first dance song

Spoiler Alert: It’s Everything I Do (I Do It For You) by Bryan Adams

Afterwards, all the Losers storm the floor for their own special dance (they dance to St. Elmo’s Fire)

They all hold hands and dance and sing at the top of their lungs, even though Bill still stutters a little, Eddie’s tone-deaf, Ben is usually too embarrassed to sing, and Stan has two left feet

Beverly is the last person to kiss the boys before they leave for their honeymoon, and she watches the limo drive off with eyeliner streaming down her face

[rax-writes]

Title: Doubt Fandom: X-Men Word Count: 1,220 Characters: Kurt Wagner x Reader, Warren Worthington III, Jubilation Lee Reader Gender: Not specified Warnings: Assumptions of infidelity, a bit of self-deprecation Notes: Request from @multipotens for “idk if I already sent you this (if I did oops) but could you maybe write a Kurt X reader where he's jealous of warren cause the reader and him are best friends (both the badass leather jacket people at Xavier's) and when people hear that Kurt is crying in his room the reader comforts him and flufffff? ugh nervous and insecure Kurt is my life! thank you so so much I love ur account!!!!” // Thank you!!

When you know someone extremely well, it’s easy to tell when something is bothering them. They may never intentionally give any indication that something’s wrong, but nevertheless, you can still tell. And that was how you knew that something was up with Kurt.

Every time you were around your friends, he became more affectionate than usual. He had always been the type to stay close to you, maybe linking arms or holding your hand once in a while, but recently, it seemed that his actions were needier than before. Not that you minded, you loved when he was cuddly, but it was peculiar. It contrasted with the way he was becoming more silent during social gatherings, opting to trace patterns on your hand rather than be a part of the conversations. Yet every time you asked him what was wrong, he would kiss your temple and tell you that it was nothing at all.

You had been having a conversation with Warren about it when you became certain that it was, in fact, not ‘nothing.’

“I don’t know what his problem is – and he won’t tell me. He always tells me everything,” you explained, leaning on the pool table as you watched Warren line up a shot, lowering down so that he was eye-level with wooden rim as he adjusted the pool stick. You weren’t entirely sure he had even heard you, he looked so concentrated on the shot.

“Has anyone been fucking with him? Bullying him or something?” Warren inquired, right as the cue ball hit one of the striped ones with a loud clack. He straightened up, adjusting his jacket, then scoffed. “Never mind, I already know the answer to that: no, because if you were aware of it, you’d have kicked their asses already.”

You smiled softly, but didn’t bother attempting to deny his truth.

“Seriously, I don’t know what’s wrong with him, and it’s worrying the hell out of me.”

“Worrying the hell out of you might not be a bad thing – ‘cause, you know, he’s Catholic.”

“Now is not the time for terrible puns, Worthington.”

“Just trying to lighten the mood,” Warren defended, snickering a bit at his own joke. He set his pool stick back in its rack and came to lean next to you, careful to not allow his wings to touch any of the balls and alter the game. Then his demeanor changed to one of sincerity, and he slung an arm over your shoulders and leaned down towards you a bit. “Now, I’m gonna ask you a serious question, and I need a serious answer.”

“Okay.”

“Have you been giving him blue balls?”

For a very brief moment, you were about to tell him that no, lack of sex is not the issue – then you saw the grin threatening to appear on his lips, and realized the humor in his ‘serious question.’ You shoved him as hard as you could, and he immediately burst into a fit of laughter.

“Oh c’mon, that was fucking hilarious!”

The familiar bamf sound of Kurt’s mutation filled your ears, and you turned, only to find Jubilee staring at the vacant spot next to her, then you, with a concerned look on her face. She walked quickly over to you, and you felt knots form in your stomach.

“Was that Kurt?” you asked, and she nodded. “Where’d he go?”

“I don’t know, but he…. We were just having a conversation about the fact that he’s jealous of you spending so much time with Warren, then when we walked in here, he had his arm around you and was leaned down near your face, and Kurt… he just disappeared.”

A groan was the first thing to leave your mouth, and you ran a hand through your hair in exasperation. Warren looked dumbfounded.

“Fucking hell, he does know that neither of us would ever do anything like that, right?” he asked to no one in particular, then gaped at you. “For shit’s sake, doing anything to you would be like fucking my sibling or something. I thought he knew that.”

“I told Kurt that you love him way too much to even consider having feelings for Warren, but he’s convinced himself otherwise,” Jubilee explained, but you barely heard her. You were already heading towards the door.

“I’ve got to go, I’ll see you guys later.”

When you reached Kurt’s room, you were surprised to find that the door was locked. He had told you a few months ago that he’d always leave his door unlocked, so that you could come in whenever you wanted, and it hadn’t been locked since.

“Kurt? Honey, are you in there?” you asked softly, giving the door a few light taps. You waited a few moments, but there was no response. You were about to go look somewhere else, then you heard the faint click of the lock turning.

The room looked as it usually did: a poster from his days in the circus on the wall, a crucifix hanging next to it, a caricature drawing of himself that you got for him from the local fair (he had absolutely adored it), a stuffed toy blueberry laying on the bed, which Peter had gotten him that same day, a bible on his nightstand, and a framed photo of you two sitting beside it. The only differences were that the curtains were shut, compared to their usually open position, and an upset Kurt laid on the bed with his face in the pillow.

You shut and locked the door once more, then went to lay next to him on the bed, rubbing his back soothingly.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? And don’t you dare tell me ‘nothing’ this time,” you said, although your voice held no true malice. Kurt sniffled loudly, then abruptly moved to bury his face in your neck, wrapping his arms tightly around your waist. He was silent for a few moments, likely choosing his words carefully as he attempted to relax.

“You are vith him all of the time, and it makes me jealous, but I know zhat I shouldn’t be. But no matter how much I try to forget it, I can’t.”

“Why does it make you jealous? You know that I love you more than anything.”

“I know zhat you do, I just… he is far more attractive than me – more normal –”

“Stop right there,” you said sternly, and Kurt fell silent. “Okay, first of all, he has giant wings. He’s not normal – and he’s definitely not more attractive than you, either. You’re absolutely gorgeous – and I know you don’t believe me, but I’m going to remind you every day for the rest of our lives.”

Kurt sniffled and looked up at you hesitantly. You wiped the tears from his eyes with your thumbs, and kissed his forehead.

“I love you, Kurt. Please don’t ever forget that.”

“I von’t, and I love you, too,” Kurt replied, smiling brightly, then nuzzled into your neck again, his arms tightening around your waist once more.

The next day, Kurt found a jar on his nightstand. It held countless, folded up blue slips of paper, and each had one reason why you loved him. The smile it put on his face lasted for weeks, and he never again doubted your love for him.

thank you to @v-writings, my Kurt expert, for helping me a bit with some details for this ♥ // @emmcfrxst @brownvalerie @raypclmer @koricndr @harringtonmaximoff @alexsunmners @skywalkingdixon @xxlil-miss-tricksterxx

[agentmarymargaretskitz]

The Glorious Escape

Happy birthday to the fantastic, amazing, Carrie Fisher-loving Legendary Heroine @hanorganaas. I always enjoy chatting and rambling over all sorts of fandoms with you and denying the deaths of our favs, and it helps make my day. As much as I wish that I could resurrect Han Solo or the Rogue One crew or Trip or any other dead characters you miss, I don’t have that power (unless the Guggenplot takes hold and the various writers rooms at the CW get stormed). However, I did end up writing a fic based on that one idea you once had of Han being inside the Waverider and landing into Stein’s room.

AO3

               Being held captive really sucked. Somehow, being locked in a dark pit was worse than getting frozen in carbonite. You actually could be awake as time passed by. Han absolutely hated it.

               He really should have been dead. The scar on his chest was a reminder of how close he had come. As he’d been falling, he remembered something catching him right before he blacked out. When he came to again, Han had found himself restrained inside a medical pod with bandages wrapped over his chest. There had been a lot of drifting in and out of consciousness for the next few weeks before he found himself waking up the dark hole he’d been in ever since.

               For a long time, he sat in the darkness, alone save for his thoughts. Light came through only when they brought him food. Then one day, two guards entered through the door in a sort of modified Stormtrooper armor. They were dragging with them a man in a dark blue jacket who looked like he had gone a couple of rounds with something nasty. Han had attempted to slip out then, but had been caught before he could get through. They’d dragged him back, and he’d stared at the unconscious man before the doors closed and plunged the room into darkness once more.

               It was a while before the other man awoke. Han had absolutely no idea whether he was friendly or not, but kept his distance just to be safe. When he heard the man groan and start to stir, Han stayed quiet. Once the other guy stopped moving around, then he would speak up. Hopefully, he was a friendly and it wouldn’t end in an altercation.

“I know I’m not alone,” the other man’s voice drawled out to interrupt the pitch black silence. “I can hear you moving, breathing. Why don’t you show yourself?”

“No light to do that, genius,” Han growled, making his presence known. “But you’re right. You aren’t alone in this pit.”

“Great,” the other man muttered. “I try to be a hero and end up in a dark hole.”

“Probably why I’m stuck in here too,” Han agreed with a shrug, running his hand down his face and over the beard that had started to grow during his captivity. “You with the Resistance?”

“No,” the other man said. “The name for us is the Legends.”

“Pretentious,” Han rolled his eyes. “What’s your name anyway?”

“Leonard Snart. Who the hell are you?”

“Han Solo.”

A snort came from the other side of the room. “Hilarious.”

               Time continued to drag on out. Han estimated they received food at least once a day, which he used to mark time. Snart started to use the same method too. With nothing else to really do, they either talked or stayed in silence. There was common ground between them in the fact that they were supposed to be dead and neither of them had a spotless record. Han gave stories of Leia and the Rebellion and the Resistance. Snart shared adventures of a speedster, the Legends, and two of those people he was close to among them.

               One day, Snart got into a fight with one of the guards who was trying to bring them food. It was over before Han could step in to help him. He could make out a bleeding cut over one of Snart’s piercing blue eyes before the doors slammed closed. After a while, Han asked what had made Snart go after the guard out of the blue like that. The reply he’d gotten was that it was necessary in order to lift something for their escape.

“If there was a way out of here, I think I would have found it by now,” he’d said.

“Don’t feel too bad,” Snart replied. “You didn’t have me before.”

               Together, they worked to find a way out of the door and how to get out wherever they were being held. Snart mentioned that he recollected seeing space when he was awake during his transport to the prison they were in. Han told him that if that was the case, he could fly them out of there if they were able to find a ship. Snart might be able to get them out, but Han would be able to get them far away from this place. Both men were starting to trust each other, so they agreed to stick together until they were in the clear from their captors.

               Eventually, over a month after Snart had attacked the guard, a way had been figured out to get their door opened. It had required Snart to lose shoelaces and socks while Han had sacrificed his jacket and a good part of his shirt. He was hoping that the crazy idea of Snart’s would work, and it did. The door opened, sending light streaming into their cell. After living in the dark for so long, it was harsh on their eyes and took a while for them to adjust. Once they did, they realized they were a fortress of some kind.

Snart turned to him and the smirk dropped from his face as his eyes widened. “Holy shit.”

“What?” Han frowned. He probably looked like a crazy person with his beard and hair having grown so long, but Snart wasn’t much better.

“I’ve been in the same cell as Han Solo,” Snart said, shaking his head in disbelief. “You weren’t lying.”

               Han let out a sigh and shook his own head just as the alarms started to blare loudly around them. Not long after they started, he heard someone shouting out orders and the sound of running. It snapped Snart out of the daze he had been in. He took off down the hallway and Han didn’t waste any time in following after him. After being stuck in that hole for who knew how long, he was ready to get out and find Leia.

Leia, Chewie, Rey, Finn, Ben. They probably thought he was dead.

               It took a while before they found an exit out of the fortress. They seemed to be on a planet based on a look out the window, but it wasn’t one that Han recognized. There was a craft not too far away from the fortress that Snart seemed to recognize. The other man was so focused on it that he didn’t see the soldier coming until Han yanked him out of the way. Even so, Snart still got hit in the shoulder with a shot before the soldier was taken out.

“You’ve got to get to the ship,” Snart ordered him as they heard more running that was steadily growing in volume. “Get inside and they can probably find a way to get you home. Most of them are as annoying as hell, but I trust them.”

“What about you?

Snart looked at the blaster he had stolen from the guard. “I’ll hold them off so you make it.”

Han shook his head. “You’re really asking me to leave you here?”

“You’ve got more people who need you than I do,” Snart chuckled. “Now go.”

“Good luck then,” Han nodded. “And if you survive, get your ass on that ship too.”

               With those final words, he left Snart and made it out of the base without any more incidents. Once he was out, Han hurried towards the ship. Wiring the doors open wasn’t easy and took time with this craft, but in the end he succeeded. After he got inside, he made sure the door was shut behind him and took in the interior of the vessel.

               It was definitely different from the Falcon or any other ship he had been on. It was all gleaming metal and sleekness. No one else seemed to be aboard the ship at the moment, which worked to his advantage. He wasn’t familiar with the layout of the flight systems when he finally found the cockpit, although it was more of a massive room than a cockpit. With a little trial and error, he could surely get the hang of it quickly and fly off this rock.

               Unfortunately, he didn’t even get the chance to sit down before voices started to draw near him. Being stuck in a dark hole with hostile guards and a snarky companion who he put an escape together with had made him become suspicious of any noise. Acting fast, Han slipped out into an empty hallway and then into another room. From there, he found a way into the system of air ducts and hid within there. When he got the chance, he would take over the controls and pilot to the nearest planet he actually knew.

               The ship began to shudder. Han could hear the engines starting up from where he was hiding above and braced himself against the walls. Soon, he would be far away from this place. Had Snart made it aboard too? Or had the guards overpowered him?

               The thoughts swirled around lazily in Han’s head. It was comfortably warm where he was laying. He stripped out of his pants and bunched them up to prop his head on. It wasn’t like anyone would actively be looking for him up here, so he wouldn’t have to worry about intruder. Right now, he was going to rest and plan his takeover.

Too bad that he shifted around when he slept.

               Something had been banging over top of Martin’s room for a while. At the beginning, he had ignored it in hopes that it would go away. It was starting to get on his nerves now though. If it was somehow that rat of Mr. Rory’s again, he was going to have to talk to the man about keeping the vermin in its cage.

               Jax walked by just as it started up again. It wasn’t a consistent pattern, changing every time it occurred. The younger man frowned when he heard it, and watched as Martin stood up to walk over to the noise.

“Something up there, Gray?” he asked, entering the room.

“I do believe so,” the older man said, staring up at the vent that ran across his ceiling. “I’ve got no idea what though.”

“Maybe try taking a look?” Jax suggested.

               He made his way over to where Martin was standing, grabbing a chair on his way. Jax set it beneath the vent and climbed up on it. He could just reach the surface of the vent. Running his hands across it, he managed to find the panel that would open up to it. With a frown, Jax pried the cover off and prepared to stick his head inside.

               What happened next had to be the last thing he expected. As soon as the cover was off, a man toppled headfirst out of the vent to land on Martin’s bed. Jax fell backwards in the chair and landed hard on the floor. Martin let out a scream at what had happened, one loud enough to alert everyone to the room.

               Jax climbed to his feet and stared at the man. Since his tumble onto Martin’s bed, the man had sat upright. He started to look around him in confusion. His hair and beard were long and unkempt, and it seemed to have been a while since he had a bath. In addition to all of that, there was not a scrap of clothing on him, aside from a dirty bundle of cloth that must have once been clothing.

“Damn, Gray,” he said as the other Legends joined them. “What have you been hiding?”

Martin’s face was utterly priceless. The other Legends were staring in varied degrees of surprise and shock. In the end, Sara was the first to school her face into a neutral expression and took a step forward. One of her knives was visibly in her hand.

“Who the hell are you?” she asked as the man focused on her. “And how the hell did you get on this ship?”

“That’s actually quite a story,” the man had a bit of a cocky grin on his face. “See-”

“Name.”

The man sighed. “Han Solo-”

“What?” Ray squawked.

The other Legends studied the man’s face again. Despite the hair and beard, it was a dead ringer for Harrison Ford’s character. But Star Wars, as beautiful as it was, was fictional. There was no way that this could actually be legitimately be Han Solo.

“Gideon?” Sara asked slowly, flicking her eyes upwards. “Is he telling the truth?”

“I can confirm that despite being in the wrong galaxy, he is indeed General Han Solo.”

A large, giddy grin split across Ray’s face. “It’s an honor to meet you. A big one.”

“Yup,” Mick added.

Amaya and Ray stared at him. Mick simply shrugged. “He’s a thief. Besides, he was cool.”

“Okay, Han Solo,” Sara still looked like she was trying to wrap her head around the reality that Star Wars was somehow real. “How are you on board?”

“And what happened to your clothes?” Nate added.

Han grabbed the dirty bundle and unfurled it, revealing it to be a pair of pants. He pulled them on before looking back at the group.

“I was stuck in a fortress for a long time,” he explained to them. “Finally got out with the other guy in my cell recently. I had to give up some of my clothes so he could use them to rig us a way out. He told me to run ahead and get on this ship, so I did. I’m guessing he didn’t make it since I’m not seeing him with the rest of you.”

“You had someone with you?” Jax asked. “We didn’t see anyone else there other than the soldiers.”

“They probably got him,” Han sighed. “He was a good guy. Snart was his name. Leonard Snart.”

Mick looked like someone had hit him with a two by four. “Impossible.”

“He’s dead,” Ray added. “He sacrificed himself for all of us.”

“Did say that he tried to be a hero and ended up in the hole because of it,” Han shrugged. “But the last time I saw him, he was alive.”

Sara looked back at the other members of the team. “That’s the Snart we lost at the Vanishing Point.”

“Are you thinking we should go back for him?” Martin asked hesitantly.

“He gave himself up for us, and stayed back to let Han Solo get away,” Ray said. “Sounds like he deserves a rescue to me.”

“He’s always deserved one,” Mick told him.

Sara smiled. “Well, I’m in.”

“Me too,” Jax agreed.

The others soon expressed their agreement in rescuing Leonard Snart. Sara then turned back to Han.

“We can drop you off anywhere you want in any time you want,” she told him. “But Snart…”

“He made sure I got out,” Han cut her off. “I’m coming with you.”

“We’re going on a rescue mission with Han Solo,” Ray whispered in awe.

“I know,” Nate added with a grin.

Amaya shook her head at them.

Jax pointed down the hall. “There’s bathrooms down at the end if you want to clean up, and a room where you can replicate clothing around the corner from those.”

Han nodded. “I’m gonna go clean up then.”

He walked out of the room. Ray started to follow after him, but Mick grabbed his shoulder. “What are you doing, Haircut?”

“I was going to ask him about-”

Mick shook his head. “Let him put clothes on. Then you can fanboy over him.”

Ray nodded compliantly. “Snart was stuck in a cell with him for so long. How much more lucky can you get?”

“Wonder if he kept his cool,” Mick chuckled. “He always was a sucker for those movies, especially Han Solo.”