#most exciting thing to happen to this franchise probably in my lifetime

[spicysucculentz]

every pic I see of Aaron Rodgers with the jets gets me exponentially more excited😮‍💨 I was an avid Aaron Rodgers hater for years but now that he’s a jet??? And he got rid of that stupid ass haircut??? I’m excited ngl! He’s fucking weird but one of the best QBs to ever play the game so I’ll take it !!!! Best win now option by far oh my god I’m so excited

[asphyxiateher]

Only Monsters Come Out at Night

A/N: Debating on whether or not I should put this on AO3. Thoughts? Do I need to edit what I have before posting on my favorite website? Anyways, I’m really into horror and I’d like to try my hand at focusing on MC’s descent into madness while falling for her captors. Dimitrescu Sisters x OFC (Desdemona) Summary: Desdemona, her twin brother and best friend are on vacation in Romania when things go horribly wrong the moment they run out of gas. Desdemona has the misfortune of enchanting the monsters that decided to terrorize her group. 

        It was a cold, pitch black night in the northeastern mountainous region of Romania, a heavy fog enveloping the roads which made it nearly impossible for any source of light to pierce through the gloom. This did not bode well for Desdemona and her friends as they dared to venture through the treacherous weather in order to reach their destination. The humble village of Bran should have been a welcome sight by now although from where the unlucky travelers were currently stranded, Desdemona had her doubts. To make matters worse, her best friend, Veronica, shoved a crumpled map of Brasov, Romania into her boyfriend’s hands and demanded answers. Her hot-headed friend was teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

“Desmond, are you sure we’re headed in the right direction? None of this seems to make sense!”, Veronica exclaimed as she nervously rummaged through her shoulder bag for yet another cigarette. She struggled to light her cigarette this time, the harsh winter’s wind blowing hard against her bare hands caused them to shake violently.

 Desmond sighed in exasperation and ran his fingers through his messy chestnut brown hair, pushing wild dark curls away from his eyes.

“You think the shopkeeper gave us the wrong directions to fuck with us because we’re tourists? I knew we were gonna get shit signal out here in the bum fuck middle of nowhere but come on, the old guy looked knowledgeable. Can’t blame me for trustin’ him.” Desmond casually replied with a shrug. He then took a moment to straighten the map again before folding it neatly and tucking it into his pocket.

Desdemona was of the same mind as her twin. It seemed likely that the locals would be completely burnt out from the flocks of American tourists invading their hometown just to squawk about the castle that inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula. How exhausting it must be to constantly point out where to go to book a tour or who to call to arrange such things when the internet exists. In hindsight, Desdemona should have known better than to bug the polite yet obviously impatient shopkeeper about their vacation plans.

“Think about it, V, Desmond has a point. The guy probably gave us the run around for shits and giggles. You know, it would have been fine taking a wrong turn and then having to backtrack all the way back into town, but we should have just stayed the night at the Inn. Now we’re outta gas and it’s fucking freezing out here.” Desdemona added, now hugging herself tightly and occasionally rubbing her arms to keep warm for as much as possible.

Veronica growled but relented as she took a long drag of her cigarette, her foot resting against their rented vehicle. She took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. Snowflakes began to drift downwards, and it only fueled Veronica’s anxiety about being stranded in the middle of nowhere in the dark. “Alright, alright, we can either freeze to death in this piece of shit,” Veronica began as she kicks the van for good measure, “or we can freeze to death out there looking for shelter. I think I see a path over there that we can take to find what we need. It might lead us to people who can help us, or it might lead us to certain death. All I know is that we need to make a decision now, it’s starting to snow.” Desmond grins and wraps his arm around Veronica’s waist, pulling her close and pecking her on the cheek. “To certain death it is! Des, grab the essentials and let’s head out. According to the map, there are a few small villages in the surrounding area. Chances are we’ll stumble into one of them eventually and find shelter. We’ll get this mess sorted out.” Desmond eagerly stepped away from Veronica’s embrace and stepped towards the beaten van.

After a few moments of scrounging around for what they deemed important, Desdemona ended up with a backpack full of snacks, water, spare clothes, and the first aid kid. Veronica settled for an entire carton of cigarettes and a few spare lighters because you know, it was “absolutely essential” to her survival in a foreign land. Desmond found a flashlight and decided that going light would be preferable to him in case they ran into any trouble. They paved the way forward, following the path that strayed away from the lonely sliver of road. Turning back to get a final look at the abandoned van, Desdemona swallowed the surge of fear that was beginning to creep up on her. She had seen enough horror movies in her lifetime knowing that this probably wasn’t going to end up well for her little group. The logical side of her brain, what little rational thoughts she had left, gnawed their way through her brain begging to be voiced out and heard.

‘Turn back around, it’s safer to stay put and wait until morning! This is dangerous and you know it!’

Desdemona reluctantly glanced back at her brother walking ahead with Veronica hand in hand and the younger twin suddenly stopped in her tracks. Maybe she should stay behind just in case while her gregarious brother searched for help in these mountains; after all, he was far more easygoing and could easily charm the most stubborn of fools into helping him.

“Des, what’s wrong? I thought we all agreed that we should stick together.” Veronica called out to her, uncertainty lacing her tone as her eyes flicked back and forth between the van and a terrified looking Desdemona.

Nervously fidgeting in place, Desdemona struggles to settle the conflicted thoughts warring in her mind. She knows that staying behind and waiting for help would be the wisest course of action, but there was safety in numbers. There’s danger lurking beyond the vast expanse of mountains that surrounded them and she would be utterly defenseless if left alone. Desdemona’s instincts were begging her to go back to the van but the connection she shared with her twin demanded that she follow him through the sketchy path that would most likely lead to their demise. She couldn’t let anything happen to Desmond, she would never forgive herself if something happened to him out here.

With a shaky resolve, Desdemona straightened up and gazed back at Veronica with a small smile on her face. “I’m just nervous, you know. Desmond and I binge watched all the Wrong Turn movies last Saturday so being out here alone in the dark is uh, freaking me out a little. I’ll be fine, though, let’s just keep going.” Desdemona lied as she rushed over to her best friend who rolled her eyes at the revelation.

“No wonder you’re acting all sketch, Des. First of all, binge watching horror movies the weekend before your vacation was stupid as hell so now you’re all hyped up over nothing. Secondly, Wrong Turn sucks. Y’all should have binged Hatchet, Danielle Harris is so hot!” Veronica declared, eager to get conversation going as the three of them trekked through a rocky and narrow trail that led to who knows where.

Desmond was quick to reply in defense of his favorite horror movie franchise and Desdemona was thankful to hear them bicker back and forth. The conversation drowned out the sound of cold whispers tickling naked branches in the distance, the loud crunching of their footsteps on the snow-covered ground, and ravens crying out above them. It was so eerie and something about it all didn’t sit right with Desdemona. She hooked an arm around Veronica’s free arm and together they discussed their favorite horror movies. Veronica could tell her best friend was still a little spooked, so she pulled her closer until she was pressed against her side to provide as much comfort as she could give.

The trail continued to narrow the further they moved along but nothing they observed thus far gave the impression that that anything was out of the ordinary. When they reached a clearing, Desmond sighed with relief. His breath steaming the frigid air was nearly the only thing they could see ahead if it weren’t for the flashlight providing what little comforting light source they had. The snow fall began to pick up the pace but it wasn’t blinding, thankfully. Desmond brushed aside large shrubs and stepped further into the winding path, coming to a full stop when he realized what lay ahead of the weary travelers.

The trio stared in awe at the overpowering sight of a 15th century castle looming over a quiet village sheltering underneath a blanket of darkness, or what Desdemona assumed was its shadow. No amount of fog could hide the monstrosity that was the architectural brilliance of this castle that Desdemona saw before her very eyes.

“Desmond, honey, where the hell do you think you’re going? Don’t leave Dezzy and I behind!” Veronica suddenly shrieked as she sprinted after her overly excited boyfriend down the hill that led into the village. Desmond turned around and could only offer a sheepish smile with a shrug before eagerly running into the unknown. Desdemona tore her gaze away from the castle and spurred into action, jumping and running as fast as she could in order to catch up with her twin.

Desmond was energized by both the cool crisp air and the promising sight of civilization, but that energy was quickly drained out of him when he encountered something wholly unexpected. Veronica reached the eldest Hawthorne sibling and was about to admonish him for leaving the two frightened girls behind, but she was quickly shushed by Desmond. Desdemona quietly approached the scene, her eyes widening when she realized that this was not the village of Bran at all.

They had indeed reached a small village but it looked completely obliterated. The houses looked shattered and broken, as if something gigantic and menacing had come through and picked away at the people that once inhabited this community one by one. Desmond cautiously led the group forward, calling out for any signs of survivors. This wasn’t on the itinerary…

Veronica was on the verge of tears, her hands covering her mouth as she observed the tragic scene before her. Every now and then, she would step into a broken home and call out to somebody – anybody- only to step back out with a grim look on her face. She pulled out her cell phone and attempted to dial emergency services only to be met with disappointment.

“There’s blood.” Desmond says quietly. His eyes peer over the trail of fresh blood and fear grips him the moment the flashlight scans over the corpse of a rotting horse. “Fuck, that stench – we need to get the fuck out of here now!” Veronica cries, gagging and turning away from the horrific view.

Desdemona would have expressed an equally strong reaction had she not felt a sense of…wrongness abruptly assaulting the atmosphere. The moment they stepped foot into the village, the environment reacted to their presence and that did not sit right with Desdemona at all.

“Desmond, do you hear that?” Desdemona asked, her voice laced with terror. Desmond Hawthorne heard the fear in his sister’s quivering voice and it made him feel uneasy. “I don’t hear anything, Des.” He replies as he reaches for Veronica’s hand and squeezes it tight. The couple began to frantically look around them as they slowly backed into Desdemona. As soon as they grouped up again, both Veronica and Desmond wrapped themselves around the youngest sister. The oppressive silence sent a whole new wave of fear over the group before something insidious could be heard approaching them in the distance. Desdemona gasped when she heard maniacal giggling and it was getting louder. A fluttering of what sounds like wings -bats, ravens, perhaps- advancing towards the group sent chills down Desdemona’s spine. What the hell was coming after them?

Desmond flashed his light from side to side before it settled on the massive black ball of insects that instantly appeared before him. The insects dissipated and somehow revealed the shape of a human being wearing a dark robe and hood. The only thing he could truly make out was the color of a red pendant wrapped around dainty, pale skin and a blood smeared smirk. Desmond’s heart dropped in absolute horror and panic immediately set in.

“RUN!” He screamed, taking off with a terrified Veronica in tow. Neither of them looked back to make sure Desdemona was following. The flashlight dropped, and it briefly circled the ground. The flickering light revealed two other black masses of insects approaching the younger Hawthorne sibling who was paralyzed with fear. All she could hear in that moment was delirious laughter coming from the women that revealed themselves two seconds later, the insects dissolving into thin air right before her very eyes.

The crazed woman standing directly in front of Desdemona leaned forward and took her time sniffing her pretty prey who stared at her with petrified gray eyes. Desdemona found it alarming that despite the lunatic’s appearance, dried blood caked on her lips and unruly red hair and a wild, untamed look in her eyes, she found her quite…striking. Perhaps she was going mad. None of this made sense, how could this be happening right now?

“Mmm, sisters, look at what I found. Such a pretty young thing all for me and she smells oh so delicious.” The woman with the green pendant spoke, giggling madly at the profound effect she had on Desdemona.

 “Daniela, you’re delusional, she’s mine; I’m the one who picked up on her tasty scent!” The one with the red pendant spoke after she turned her attention to the only human who didn’t run from them.

The brunette with the yellow pendant reached over and yanked on Desdemona’s hair so hard back, Desdemona thought her life was over. She bared her teeth as she skimmed her nose across the young woman’s neck. Her tongue darted out between blood smeared lips and left a wet trail, causing the smaller woman’s breath to hitch at the unwelcome contact.

“Mmm, she smells so utterly divine. Bela, by the way, it wasn’t you who found MY new pet, it was me! You ungrateful wretches always want to touch what’s mine!” The hooded figure’s grip on her hair tightened and Desdemona whined, causing all three women to delight in her torment.

What Desdemona couldn’t figure out was what they wanted to do with her exactly and why they were fighting over her like three starved wild dogs fighting over a piece of meat. She needed to get out of there fast. “LET GO OF MY SISTER, YOU UGLY CUNTS!” Desmond’s angry voice broke through in the distance and all three creatures turned their attention on the young man who dared interrupt dinner time.

Desdemona decided this was the time to take advantage of their distraction and she quickly slipped away, sprinting as fast as she could to the nearest unoccupied house. Desmond, relieved that his sister broke free from whatever those things were, spun on his heel and ran the opposite direction. He could only hope that all three of them would make it out of this godforsaken village alive.

All three women threw their heads back and laughed wildly into the air as they knew catching their prey would be much more satisfying when they caught them alone in isolated surroundings. It added to their fear and it made the blood taste that much sweeter.

“The hunt is on, sisters. Leave the pretty plaything alive, but the others, we will present to our dear mother as gifts. We’ll make the new pet watch mother undo their very lives; it’ll only make her that much more delicious when we have our fill.” The one with the yellow pendant stated as she sniffed at the air, shuddering when Desdemona’s irresistible scent filled her nostrils once more.

Desdemona found refuge in a large house a few yards away and slammed the front door shut when she ran inside. She quickly assessed what she assumed was the living room, she found a bookcase and summoned whatever strength she had and brought it down in front of the door. She heard something clawing at the door the instant she blocked the entrance, the door shaking violently and mad laughter filling her ears once more.

Desdemona shakily reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, turning on the flashlight and began to look for another way out.

‘Jesus fucking Christ, Jesus Christ! What the fuck are those things!? Where’s Desmond? Is Veronica alright? How the hell do I get out of here? I just want to go home!’ Desdemona’s mind was running through a million thoughts per second but she couldn’t for the life of her settle on anything that would give her a moment’s peace. She was sobbing uncontrollably as she explored the dark home, her hands stretched out in front of her as she searched for anything that would provide answers to her problems. When she found a door near the kitchen, she cautiously opened it and cursed the eerie creaking sound that followed. It was discovered that the door led to a cellar of some kind and Desdemona rushed down the stairs without closing the door behind her. She slowly scanned the large open space and saw that this home had been recently ransacked or rummaged through. Clothes were scattered across the floor, furniture had been broken in half and tossed carelessly to the side but Desdemona found a hallway beyond the room she was in. ‘That must be the way out. Hurry up and grab something to protect yourself with!’

Desdemona carefully tip toed around the clutter, her phone flashing from side to side but to no avail, she couldn’t find anything that would prove harmful to whatever those monsters were outside. The woman nearly tripped over and fell when her foot stepped in something thick and wet, causing her foot to slip forward. Desdemona quickly steadied herself on a cabinet but it didn’t make her feel any better when she realized her fingers were covered in a thick, red substance.

Her breathing growing heavier, Desdemona flashed her phone light over to the cabinet only to find that it was covered in blood – a lot of it, to be exact and it was still dripping on the floor as though it were fresh.

All color drained from Desdemona’s face when she heard pained howling coming from the village; it was Desmond and he was screaming for help. Her twin was in danger and here she was selfishly trying to find a way to preserve her own life.

She quickly twisted around to run towards the howling but she stopped dead in her tracks when a black mass of insects appeared before her. The cloaked figure could only be identified by the color of her green pendant and a delirious smile plastered on her face. Fresh blood dripped down her chin and Desdemona’s eyes reluctantly followed the pool of blood forming at their feet. There was a sickle in her right hand and it was covered in blood, much to Desdemona’s dismay.

Desdemona began to tremble, overpowered by the frightening sight and the implications that followed a bloodied sickle carried by a madwoman. “The sound of your heart hammering against your chest is like music to my ears, pretty thing. Do not fret, my beauty, the moment we met I knew you were special. You’re meant to be mine, we’re meant to be!” She whispers madly, her tongue wetting her lips as her eyes rake over Desdemona’s body slowly and deliberately.

Desdemona doesn’t know what she’s talking about and she doesn’t want to know. Before she could form any kind of response, she’s pinned against the bloody cabinet behind her. She gasps in surprise and that seems to trigger the creature into action.

Desdemona screams as the hooded woman lunges at her collarbone and pierces through her skin with her razor sharp teeth. Desdemona weakly clutches at the woman’s shoulders, growing lightheaded from the sudden blood loss that was occurring. Feeling the woman about to collapse in her arms, Daniela pulls back and savors the taste of her blood. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head as she sloppily licks the blood off her mouth and regains what little self-control she had left to preserve her pretty plaything for a little while longer.

When dazed gray eyes meet hers, Daniela’s cold, black heart skips a beat. She had never seen anything more beautiful. So she raises her sickle, causing Desdemona’s eyes to widen in panic and Daniela can’t help but giggle a little.

“Don’t worry, my beauty, I’ll be gentle with you. The hideous man-thing and his bitch aren’t going to be as lucky as you, I hope. You deserve special treatment.” Daniela whispers, her fingers caressing her prey’s tear-stained cheek before swinging the sickle with full forced into the back of Desdemona’s thigh.

Desdemona remembers a high-pitched shriek escaping her but nothing else seems to come to mind after that. She remembers her vision blurring and a creeping darkness soothing her to sleep but what happened after, nothing. She enters the haunting abyss that welcomes her with black tendrils pulling her from reality, sleep coming to her easily. With better luck, she’ll never have to wake up again.

Only fools believe in luck as the nightmare has only just begun.

[misiwrites]

Beyblade Week Day 4

i'm sorry i'm out here still posting things so late but here's my fourth and final 4kingdoms-verse oneshot for @beybladeweek2021, mostly this is late because i was out of town last week but these prompts were also the hardest to make a oneshot about, somehow i managed to make a quirky little story about max anyway.

this takes place probably somewhere right before the beginning of the main fic, or close to it anyways. and i feel like this needs the small explanation that 4kingdoms max looks a bit different because the north has no sunlight (don’t ask me how that works. it’s fantasy)

~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~

Fears / Animals / Winter

“Aaugh!”

As patient as Max is, the strange sound of Giancarlo’s sudden scream followed by a soft, barely audible thump of something hitting the floor in the walk-in closet is enough to snap his attention from the game console in his hands. He casts a curious look across his bedroom to witness the striped leg of a plush toy sticking out through the narrow crack of the closet door.

Now he can already tell what has happened. Regardless, he drops the game on the couch and jumps to his feet to see what his knight has gotten himself into in the closet.

“You opened the forbidden door!” Max gloats at Giancarlo, now standing ankle-deep in a sea of plush toys. “I told you the games are in the second from left, not from right.”

“Is this why you call that door ‘forbidden’?” Giancarlo asks, one hand still on the handle of the closet door that the avalanche of toys descended on him from. “I expected something more... I don’t know... scandalous... or personal.”

“This is personal. They’re all mine.” Max crouches over to pick one of the plush toys up, the yellow mascot character of a popular Eastern children’s game franchise. “Oh man, these take me back. I haven’t really seen them since Mama ordered them to be put away. She said I was too old to keep them in my bed. But I refused to have them taken out, so I got this closet for them instead.”

“Aha. I don’t mean to judge your decisions, but I think there’s a few too many for a closet of this size.”

“Well, they fit in just fine before you opened the door like an idiot.”

Max lets his eyes scan the colourful blast on the floor, admiring the chaos of all the scattered shapes of different stuffed creatures, some more nostalgic than others but each and every one so familiar to him; some expensive and store-bought, some hand-made by his father or someone else, he hardly even remembers at this point; it’s been so long since he was gifted these toys, and at least a couple of years since Judy wanted them sealed away.

And then one of them catches his eye over the rest, one that makes his heart skip a beat of bittersweet joy and longing. He tramples and kicks his way past other toys to get to the middle.

It’s a plush dog, one whose tattered, worn-out shape isn’t particularly distinguishable as a dog. It has an elongated body and small stubs for legs, folded ears – well, one ear, as the other has come off and been lost to time – and a small, thin tail that’s also on its way to come off its stitches but is barely hanging on, miserably drooping down from the back of the caramel brown animal that’s so thoroughly covered in dirt and dust that it looks grey. The dog’s black button eyes are intact, at least, and it still has a red little tongue sticking out of its mouth.

Max is momentarily frozen in place staring at the dog. This toy brings back so many memories, some of which threaten to turn his stomach as the long-forgotten anxiety rushes back in one tidal wave, it climbs up the ladder of his spine like an unwelcome visitor from the past; but at the same time, he loves this little dog so very dearly, his childhood favourite.

“Look at these, Your Highness!” Giancarlo suddenly yells, snapping Max out of his thoughts. “Really fitting, aren’t they? Doesn’t it make you think of something?”

Max turns to see his knight holding three plush animals on his arms: a snake, a fox, and a miniature horse. Max does remember all of them, but none were his favourites. They must have been gifts from his earlier childhood, he has no memory of actually getting them or ever feeling particularly attached to them.

“Umm,” he says, “no, not really.”

“Don’t you remember? The fairytale? A guy talks to a fox, a serpent, and a horse...”

“No, can’t say that rings any bells.”

“Really?” An idiotic grin spreads on Giancarlo’s face, the same one he flashes every time he gets to feel smarter than his young king. “It’s a traditional Northern folktale! Each animal represents one fear that the dude has, and he has to face them one by one. Well, I don’t really remember the details, but it was something like that.” He lifts the tiny horse closer to his face, as if to study it more closely – or to face it, to stay true to his own words, Max assumes. “Was the third one really a horse? I think it was. I guess horses can be scary to some people. They’re big animals and all.”

Max rolls his eyes, truly wishing that Giancarlo would shut up for once and clean up the mess he’s caused in the walk-in closet – or just do anything else and leave Max be, to sort out the sudden, fairly uncomfortable onslaught of memories caused by the discovery of his old stuffed dog toy.

Instead, Giancarlo keeps talking, as he always does.

“If there was a story about my fears, it would probably be... hmm... never eating cannoli ever again... and never going on another date...”

“Some incredible fears you have,” Max comments. “Tells a lot about your psyche.”

“And what are you scared of, Your Highness? What would you face if you met this guy? Nei-i-i-igh.” Giancarlo waves the tiny horse at Max, truthfully not the embodiment of terror by any stretch.

“Me? Well, nothing, really.”

“Come on, now, no need to be shy. You can tell the good old Gianni.”

“I mean it – I have my magic, so there’s no reason for me to be scared of anything.” There’s nothing that Max can think of that he wouldn’t be able to shield himself from with his magic powers, especially his ability to turn invisible. If nothing can catch him or do as much as touch him, what reason would he have to be afraid? If anything, he loves the thrill of almost being caught but disappearing out of sight on the last second. Max prides himself in being bold and resourceful, the master of stealth, and the youngest Genbu-ou with the ability to summon the holy beast of Genbu in the known history of his kingdom.

As long as he has his magic and the golden locket of Genbu around his neck, he cannot think of anything that could cause him fear; and as the king, he can have all the materia he could ever want, so he never needs to worry about running out of cannoli pastries or whatever else.

“Okay then, tough guy,” Giancarlo snorts. “And what’s that you got there?”

Max’s gaze returns to the dog on his arms. It stares back at him with its pitiful button eyes, black and lifeless.

“This used to be my favourite,” he replies, finding the words coming out of his mouth with slight hesitation. “Papa made it for me...”

“Oh? Prince Tarou knows how to sew stuffed animals? Well, I guess that makes sense, since he’s such a talented craftsman – but still... It’s hard to imagine a burly man like him making something like... that thing.” Giancarlo forces down an obvious cackle, raising a hand to his mouth to hide his amusement. “I mean...”

Max knows what he means, the puppy with a hot dog-like physique is a pathetic sight, but he cannot help feeling just a little insulted by Giancarlo laughing at it. This puppy brought him so much comfort during a time of turmoil, and it was specifically made by his father for that very purpose. Tarou most likely stitched it together over a single night all those years ago.

“You mean what?” he challenges the royal knight, his tone arrogant.

“Uh... Well, you know... Oh, never mind.”

* * * * * *

When he was younger, Max had no objections over his sheltered life in the Snow Glory Palace, as it never even occurred to his child’s mind that it could be anything but; and the thought only came to him as he entered the rebellious years of puberty and by the questionable ideas that his whimsical knight planted in his head, the thought that it would be exciting to sneak out of the palace every once in a while and wander around the royal capital out of sight.

Max has always been adored by commoners, as the only son of their beloved (by now former) king, the strong yet beautiful and hauntingly intelligent Mizuhara Judy, the only female Genbu-ou of their lifetime; and as much as Max loves the attention and savours the constant awareness of his status of importance that doesn’t escape anybody in his kingdom, he’s equally entertained by the idea of walking among all these people on a lower social ladder without their knowledge, freely entering spaces where his appearance would normally cause a considerable brouhaha. The complete control over whether he’s perceived or not gives him a great amount of satisfaction.

And, most importantly, his ever-so-predominant mother has no idea about it happening right under her nose. As much as Max loves his parents, like any teenager, he has an innate need to break free and seek independence from them, do as he pleases without their scrutiny, without any adult paying attention to him...

at least sometimes.

How many times has he traversed the narrow streets of the ancient royal capital, heard the snow crunch under his shoes without anyone seeing it’s the young king leaving a trail of footprints on the ground covered in white? And when the snow is quietly falling from the sky, the shield of magic around him reflects his surroundings, camouflaging him from other people’s line of sight, he blends perfectly into the arbitrary dance of the snowflakes in the dark.

Then, sometimes, when he finds a suitable corner or shade or hideout for himself, he plans a delicious little display of seemingly appearing out of nowhere into the spotlight. And all the attention is once again drawn to him.

It’s borderline addicting, that calculated spectacle, the thrill of a surprise and act of rebellion that Max is perfectly aware he’s not allowed to do. That his ice queen of a mother would be absolutely furious if she knew.

Now he’s again walking down a cobblestone street, the stone fence of a cemetery on his right-hand side. There’s a layer of powdery snow on the stone, like the icing of a sugar cake.

A cake, oh, a cake sounds excellent to him; and he’s now across a bridge, and the familiar sight of a cosy little coffee shop greets him some feet away. It has a sign outside, a metallic one, shaped like a kettle that’s hanging above the entrance, the shop’s name written on it in cursive.

Max walks over to one of the shop windows and takes a peek inside, bathes in the golden light coming from the other side of the glass. As expected, nobody pays him any attention, none of the people sitting around the lovely little tables inside see him.

He’s ready to be seen, however, and decides to step inside, greeted by the ring of a bell attached to the coffee shop’s door.

“Good evening!” he says cheerfully upon his entrance, flashing a wide grin to everyone in the shop.

People turn to stare at him. Nobody is smiling back at him.

“Er, good evening,” replies the person working behind the counter. Their voice is polite but wary, they stare at Max like everyone else in the shop, with an expression of wide-eyed confusion.

This is not what Max expected. Where are all the delightful gasps, all the “Oh, Your Highness!” and “It’s the young king!” and “This is such an honour!” – all the surprised smiles and the rush to be the first to shake hands with him? He darts some quizzical glances around the shop, eyebrows raised, but his grin remains.

Maybe he’s come here a few too many times. He should have gone somewhere new instead, not the closest place he could think of.

A bristly feeling that he’s very much not used to suddenly spreads all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes: embarrassment. He’s embarrassed that his magic trick failed, the trick he was so confident in, so proud of.

He needs to get out of here.

And the next moment, he’s walking down a different street, this time in the heart of the city of Resting Palace. The lights here are so bright that they illuminate the black sky and give it a hue of light purple instead, almost a dirty tone, it looks dusty and devours the stars and even the Moon.

He’s walking past numerous people, but nobody turns to look at him. Nobody does as much as grant him a smile of acknowledgment, no faces light up with recognition when he passes by.

He stops to stand in the middle of the street. Someone immediately bumps into him from behind.

“Oh, sorry,” the stranger says and hurries away without looking at him. He doesn’t even have the time to say it was his fault for stopping so abruptly.

Max turns on his heels, lets his eyes wander aimlessly in the scenery. There’s a hotel to his left. There are people everywhere, but none of them are looking his way.

Now another person bumps into him. This is an older man, staggering on his feet and visibly losing his balance for a moment, and he turns to stare at Max with a sullen face.

“Hey, kiddo,” the man groans, “stop blocking the walkway, will ya?”

Max only stares back, not knowing what to say or think. Kiddo? What is this? Why is this person talking to him like this? He’s so dumbfounded by this behaviour that he simply hangs his mouth open without making a sound. Nobody in his entire life has acted this way towards him, and it’s making his blood run cold under his heavy cloak.

On a bewildered whim, he suddenly turns to whoever is passing by his left-hand side on that very moment. “Did you hear how that person talked to me just now?” he asks the passer-by. “How dare he?”

The person he’s talking to casts him a look of utter confusion. He can immediately tell this person doesn’t recognise him, either.

“No, I’m sorry,” the person mumbles hastily and hurries away. Max stares after their disappearing back.

What is happening? What is happening? How could this possibly be happening to him? Now panic is seeping into his heart, he arbitrarily grabs the sleeve of whoever happens to pass by him next.

“Excuse me,” he says breathlessly, “you know who I am, right? Right?”

Another astonished stare, but at least this passer-by is polite. “No, I’m afraid I don’t. Are you perhaps lost?”

“No!” Max’s words now escape as a desperate eruption of discomfort, “I’m the king! The Genbu-ou! Don’t you recognise your king?!”

The stranger’s expression changes slightly – to that of pity, to Max’s horror.

“I’m sorry, boy, I don’t have time to play around with you,” the person says, and the next moment he’s gone.

Max spins around, glancing wildly in every direction, looking for anybody who recognises him. This is the royal capital, isn’t it? It definitely is, he knows the exact street he’s on, but for some reason nobody knows him, he’s only a mile away from the Snow Glory Palace and nobody knows that he’s the king, how could such a bizarre thing ever happen?

“I look like the Genbu-ou, don’t I?” he asks yet another stranger, this time a younger person, a teenager just like him.

The person stops to stare at him, evaluates him with her eyes for a moment, as if she has to think about it first.

“I guess you do,” she finally says, “a little. But Genbu-ousama has spots of black in his hair and skin as clear as snow.”

What? What?

Max drops down to his knees into the snow and now he’s on the riverbank; he hauls his shaking self closer to the aquamarine glow of the water, and he crouches over to look down at his own reflection on the surface.

His hair is yellow like the Sun, bare, the splashes of black brush strokes gone. But his face – his face is covered in something – small dots everywhere, his skin is infested with them, they spread from the centre, the bridge of his nose, in every direction on his skin, he lifts his hands to his face and—

* * *

He opens his eyes. The ceiling of his bedroom is covered in cotton candy clouds of pink and purple, they rotate ever so slowly around the axel of the chandelier in the middle, with stars blinking in and out through the veil.

He rolls over in the four-poster bed that feels like an entire ocean to him. The pillow under his head is wet, it feels gross and he grabs it with two tiny hands, tosses it away as hard as he can and it lands on the edge of the bed. It knocks a couple of his plush toys to the floor.

He can hear voices from behind the bedroom door. It’s Mama and Papa, they are yelling at each other again.

Max rubs his tear-stained eyes and crawls out of bed, wrapping his enormous blanket around him like a cape, he drags it along across the carpet as he makes his way to the door. He stands on tiptoes and opens the door as softly as he can.

He makes his way to the hallway’s railing just in time to see his parents walk into his view downstairs. They’re not yelling anymore but still arguing, in quiet voices now, Max can tell they are spewing arrows of poison at each other even if he can’t make out the words.

He’s staring through the narrow hole in the railing as Papa spots him, it’s probably a subtle sniffle that gives him away up there.

Seconds later, Papa has climbed the stairs and has knelt down to talk to Max in a voice that’s meant to be soothing but is seeping with recently suffocated agitation, and it makes him uneasy.

“Are you having trouble sleeping again, buddy?”

“I don’t want Papa to go away,” Max says, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his orange sleeping gown.

Papa gives him a lopsided smile, pats the top of his head. “I’ll come visit you often, I promise. And – this is only temporary, okay? I will keep talking to Mama, and maybe I’ll be back home in a couple of moons. Papa will bring you lots of presents then, but for starters...”

Now something appears from behind Papa’s back, he’s holding a plush toy dog that has a silly face with a tongue drooping out, its body so long that it nearly matches Max’s height. Papa hands it over to him.

“I made this for you, to help you sleep better. I call it Sleepy, but you can call it whatever you want.”

Max stares down at the dog’s face. It has plain black buttons for eyes, and a third one for a nose.

He presses his own little nose against the button, immediately smearing the dog in the snot and tears of a six-year-old.

“Take me with you, Papa,” he says, the words muffled against the dog’s snout. “Don’t leave me alone.”

“You won’t be alone, Max, Mama will be here.”

“She’s always working, she never pays attention to me.”

“That’s not true...”

“I don’t want to be alone, Papa.”

* * *

He opens his eyes. The ceiling of his bedroom is velvet blue, with the silver sickle of a crescent Moon glowing faintly in the night’s silence.

His heart is beating in an anxious rhythm inside his chest. He quickly sits up in the bed, driven by the panic of the lingering terror of his nightmare that makes his fingertips tingle and his stomach turn, and he gasps for air.

It was just a dream. Just a dream.

The momentary urge to rush to his feet, to check that he actually is who he’s supposed to be in the mirror, recedes quickly upon the realisation that he’s in his own bed, in the royal palace, exactly where he should be. He’s covered in sweat, the blankets feel uncomfortably sticky against his skin, he tosses them aside.

Then he notices three shapes in the darkness, sitting at the end of his bed. A row of three plush animals is staring at him from a distance.

A fox, a serpent, and a horse.

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #437

Top Ten Predictions for the Xbox Games Showcase

So I wasn’t going to do this. I had my “Games Month” in June; that was supposed to be me getting it out of my system whilst the various publishers and platform holders held their Not-E3 video livestreams. That was supposed to take the place of my usual semi-serious lists of E3 predictions; a variety of more generalised run-downs of Stuff To Do With Videogames rather than me saying “A New Perfect Dark” ten times.

But then Microsoft’s “Showcase” event turned out to be the back-end of July, the videos and livestreams kept on pouring in, and I found myself ever devouring more salacious rumours of what games were upcoming, especially for the Xbox Series X. I have even found myself reading – shudder – Reddit.

I know.

Anyway, from being a simple thought experiment of “I wonder what games will be out when the Series X launches?” through to me imagining a blow-by-blow runthrough of the July 23rd event, I guess you could say that I am excited despite my better judgement. I think my problem with videogaming as a hobby is that I retain my fanboy enthusiasm from when I was a ten-year-old eagerly awaiting the next issue of The One Amiga, frantically swapping all eleven disks of Monkey Island 2, but I’m a grown-ass man with a mortgage and two kids and I just don’t have the time. I love reading websites like Eurogamer, and going on forums and checking out Twitter threads and all that, devouring news and titbits about all manner of gaming ephemera, and I often think when do these people have the time?!

Now look, I know hobbies, if you commit to them, can be expensive in terms of money and time. I have friends who collect Transformers toys, and let me tell you, that shit ain’t cheap. But daisy-chaining triple-A RPGs together feels like a lifetime commitment. I’m still playing Mass Effect Andromeda and Titanfall 2. I’ve just started Breath of the Wild and I’m waiting to kick off The Witcher III once I complete something else. I operate about two to three years behind the curve, and with work and kids and other commitments I struggle to find space for the oodles of games I do have, especially because most of the time I just end up on Civilization VI again. And yet…

The lure of the new still excites me. I really want to play all those Sony games on a Sony console that I don’t even own. I’m fascinated by the divergent next-gen philosophies of the big three platform holders. I can’t wait to see what the games I already own will look like embiggened on a 4K TV thanks to a suitable next-gen console. And so I keep consuming this stuff, keep wanting to try the latest thing, keep wanting to be part of the narrative. I’m still excited.

Therefore I’ve decided, against my better judgement, to offer up a prediction list like I usually do at E3 time. This one is just focussed on the upcoming Xbox Showcase on July 23rd. I doubt I’ll do one for the two remaining big showcases in August – I believe both Sony and Microsoft are doing one apiece, where we might finally hear prices of these damn things – because I think by the end of the month all the big game news might finally be out there. Aside from guessing how far off £500 both machines land, I think we’ve probably heard all the major announcements. Maybe I’m wrong! I’m wrong quite a lot! But that’s part of the fun.

So here we go: ten things that probably aren’t going to be announced next Thursday!

Halo Infinite opens the show – and is playable: we know that Halo Infinite will debut some campaign gameplay. As more-or-less a known quantity (even if we don’t know exactly what it’ll look like or how it’ll play), kicking things off with Xbox’s biggest star makes sense and won’t deflate any surprises. What I think might happen, though, is the announcement of some kind of multiplayer demo or closed beta, maybe only for Game Pass subscribers or something. They’ve done it before with Halo, so it’d be nice to get a chance to play one of the year’s biggest games early.  

Hellblade 2 in-engine trailer: Senua’s Saga looks amazing so far, with a phenomenal launch trailer that displayed vast landscapes, intense detail, and some truly awesome facial animation. There’s a lot of speculation that, whilst the trailer was apparently in-engine and running in realtime, it was a fancy cut-scene with “hero assets”. I might have missed a memo somewhere, but I don’t think Hellblade 2 has been confirmed as a “launch window” title; as such, I think it will end up a Series X exclusive (as in, not appearing on Xbox One) and be out Christmas 2021. As such we won’t see a considerable gameplay chunk as with Halo, but we will see some proper in-engine footage – not a cutscene – running on Series X hardware.

Fable IV is out next year: is it an open secret at this point that Playground Games is making a Fable game? I guess maybe they’re not. Maybe there’s not even a new Fable at all. But I think there is, and I think Playground are making it, and I think we’ll see it next week. I guess it probably won’t be coming too soon; maybe Christmas 2021? So I think there’ll be a launch trailer of some kind – hopefully a Hellblade-style in-engine one rather than a rendered movie – but it’ll be a pretty big to-do to close out the show (unless there’s some other surprise “…and one more thing”).

Minecraft ray-tracing: we’ve seen it before, and I’m not sure how much time it’ll take up in the run of things, but I think Microsoft will confirm that there will be a ray-tracing graphics update for Minecraft on Series X. It’ll be part of some other line-wide update, of course – maybe the fabled “Super Duper Graphics” update that was cancelled once before – but Series X owners (or PC owners with the right hardware) will get lots of lovely rays to trace.

Gears Tactics on Xbox this Christmas: the Coalition said their piece about Gears 5 on Series X this week, so I don’t expect them to have a huge presence on Thursday (Gears 6 presumably being too far off), but I think we’ll get a trailer for the excellent Gears Tactics running on Xbox, and confirmation of a Christmas release for one of my favourite PC games of 2020.

Cyberpunk 2077 on Series X: all the footage we’ve seen of Cyberpunk thus far has been – I do believe – running on high-end PCs. CD Projekt Red should have a presence on Thursday, and I think they’ll debut footage – actual proper gameplay – of Cyberpunk running on a Series X. I think we’ll also see further evidence of a cosy relationship with Microsoft, as they announce something – maybe exclusive DLC – as well as just maybe some Cyberpunk-themed Series X hardware. I also think they’ll announce a Series X update for The Witcher III: Wild Hunt.

Big Double Fine blowout: Microsoft’s purchase of Double Fine really excited me, because I’ve been a big Tim Schafer fan for decades. Aside from Psychonauts 2, we don’t know a great deal about what they’re up to. So I think we’ll see a lot of Psychonauts, as well as confirmation of a Christmas release. We’ll also get confirmation of classic LucasArts remasters – Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango – as well as something else. I’m not sure what. A remaster of the first Psychonauts? Brütal Legend 2? Scurvy Scallywags Series X? what I don’t think it’ll be, however, is any kind of Banjo Kazooie game, because I don’t really think Microsoft bought them to work on existing IP. I think we’ll see something new.

Third-party shenanigans: aside from Cyberpunk, I think we’ll get at least one other extended third-party trailer. Maybe Destiny 2, given the first game’s apparent preference for PlayStation? Maybe one of those military shooters everybody likes but me? Splinter Cell, which is becoming the perennial white elephant during Ubisoft presentations (and obviously has prior as an OG Xbox exclusive)? Or maybe we’ll see something like the announcement of Red Dead Redemption 2 as a Smart Delivery title. That would be pretty cool.

Japanese presence: I’m not sure what exactly, but I think Microsoft will make moves to entice the Japanese market. Perhaps it’ll be like the early days of the Xbox 360, when they published the likes of Blue Dragon. Maybe we’ll see a Western release of some venerated Japanese franchise. Or maybe some other sequel or reboot. Maybe it’ll even be the rumoured announcement of some kind of exclusive partnership with Sega? Who knows? Regardless I think we’ll see evidence of Microsoft making more of an effort in Japan; I think this will be part of a strategy to encourage Japanese gamers to subscribe to Game Pass/xCloud rather than buy more consoles.

One last thing: there’ll be a surprise. Everyone’s predicting everything, but I still think there’ll be a surprise. After the dust settles, good old Phil Spencer (t-shirt prediction: Viva Pinata) will leave us with a little something… a tease, a subtle tease, maybe even just a logo or character reveal. It could be a returning franchise, it could be The Initiative’s debut game, but I’d wager it’s something unexpected, something we’ve never heard anything about. It’s something that’s a long way off, but it’ll have a style or a hook or a brand that instantly makes everyone excited, and will bring the curtain down. Microsoft has largely done a good job establishing itself as a solid platform the last three or four years, but it’s sorely been lacking in mic-drop moments as hardware news is teased and studio acquisitions have taken time to bed in. So whether it’s Joanna Dark, a Mech, Banjo, or something I can’t fathom, we’ll leave on a high.

There we go: ten relatively reasonable, moderately level-headed predictions. I don’t think there’s anything too crazy there. I’ve not gone all-in on a huge Perfect Dark blowout, or Viva Pinata returning, or Microsoft buying Sega or Warner Bros or whatever else could be dreamed up. I’m sure there’s other stuff too; probably some gameplay from previously-announced titles like The Medium or (hopefully) Scorn, that really show off Series X capabilities; no doubt a montage or two, probably of some ID@Xbox games; Forza Motorsport 8, I guess, and I’d wager some info on Flight Simulator on Xbox. I do hope they make the whole presentation look nice though; Sony’s one, where they finally revealed the PS5 hardware, was excellent, with just enough talking-head developer stuff and those lovely idents that served to whet the appetite and tease the eventual look of the machine. We know there’ll be no new hardware or discussion about evolving services, so really all we’ve got to look forward to are games, games, games, which makes a nice change from the reveal of the Xbox One all those moons ago.

Okay, so my absolute crazy just-for-me wish? Well, things are getting thin on the ground now, as the big things I always want from Microsoft – Fable, Crackdown, Perfect Dark – have either happened or are strongly rumoured. Viva Pinata is next on that list, but beyond that? How does Black and White Infinite sound? That’s right, baby, next on my list – Lionhead rebooted!

[rebelsofshield]

Nic’s Episode IX Treatment

So in 2018, I started a very short lived project where I asked Star Wars fans what their dream Episode IX script would be. It didn’t really end up taking off due to my own busy schedule, but I had a lot of fun doing it and it was a blast hearing other fan’s theories and wishes.

I wrote a Star Wars Episode IX treatment of my own for fun. I figured with The Rise of Skywalker out now, it might be fun to see where I envisioned the franchise going in the future. I wrote this in 2018 before in any of the casting was announced and before the Palpatine reveal, so it’s very different from the finished film. Happy to hear thoughts and feel free to message me your Episode IX ideas as well! What would your dream version of this movie have been!

Episode IX -Once and For All

Opening Crawl:

A galaxy divided! Lead by the Supreme Leader Kylo Ren and his mysterious knights, The First Order tears across the galaxy. No world is safe. Planets burn. Standing in opposition, General Poe Dameron leads a sprawling Resistance with the help of Commander Finn and Rey, the last of the Jedi. Together, they hope to free the galaxy from falling once again into tyranny. In an act of evil, The First Order has attacked the neutral world of Mornio. To save its innocent people, the Resistance rushes to its aid…

Synopsis: The Skywalker legacy comes to a close as a galaxy in the midst of a massive civil war heads towards a climactic final battle. Rey, Finn, Poe, Rose, and Kylo Ren are forced to face their pasts and destinies.

We are six years after the events of The Last Jedi.

Central Cast at the start of the Film:

Main Cast: Rey- As the new final bastion of the Jedi, Rey must not only fight for the freedom of the galaxy but the preservation of the Order itself. Rey has fashioned the traditional lightsaber into a Pike-Saber and has been studying for years the texts taken from the last Jedi temple. She fights on the front lines of the war and finds herself becoming a legend in a way she never anticipated. Rey finds herself drawn to individuals who are powerful in the Force and finds herself trying to take on the teacher role while she is still learning. Finn- Finn is now a key figure in the ground corps for the Resistance. With his familiarity with the First Order and experience in infantry, Finn has quickly become one of the most important members of the Resistance. However, he soon finds that he is also a legendary figure to the First Order as well and it becomes clear that he may be the secret weapon that may win the war. Poe Dameron- Having given up his days of being a pilot for a life of military leadership, Poe is now a general in the Resistance military, carrying on Leia’s legacy. Poe still struggles with a need to have his feet on the ground and with his emotions. He also finds himself head over heels for Finn and having trouble figuring out how to balance his emotions for Finn while carrying out the mission. Kylo Ren- Now the Supreme Leader of the First Order, Kylo Ren balances his own newfound power with his still volatile emotional and mental state. Having found that his new absolute power leaves him wanting, Kylo has become obsessed with ancient Dark Side secrets in the hopes of discovering something that justify his actions in life. He is joined for the first time in the series by the remainder of the Knights of Ren, Luke’s former pupils. He has taken up residence in Darth Vader’s palace from Rogue One. Think a sort of Gothic Romance character. Overwhelmed with secrets and emotions and held up in a castle.

Supporting Cast:

Rose Tico- Rose is now the leading engineer and ship designer for the Resistance. She has become good friends with Rey and leads active recruitment efforts for the Resistance for rescued planets. Lando Calrissian-Lando meets up with the main crew at Leia’s funeral. He has a deep regret for having sat out the war, claiming that one war was enough for one lifetime, but that he should have been there for Han and Leia. Tyla Calrissian –Lando’s daughter and current head of the Mining Guild. Tyla is one of the most powerful individuals in the galaxy in that she controls all of the mining companies. Her profits help steer the war.

Ichon- An alien that Rey meets after the opening battle. He is Force-Sensitive and unsure of how to take care of himself and this new power within him. He looks up to Rey and see her as a potential teacher and mentor. General Hux- Hux is vying for power to usurp Kylo Ren as the ruler of the First Order. He has begun to see Kylo and Force-Users in general as being antithetical to galactic order and not worthy of their place in the galaxy.

Ambro Ren- The second most powerful/senior member of the Knights of Ren. Has a long standing rivalry/mentorship with Kylo. More of a Snoke loyalist. Sees Kylo as being a detriment to Snoke’s longterm vision. Played by Michael Mando (?)

FN-4928-A young Stormtrooper that Finn befriends while undercover

  Act I: Discoveries (45 minutes)

We open up in the midst of a climactic battle between the First Order and the Resistance above and on the surface of a tropical planet, Morneo, with a diverse alien population and large coral like plants. Poe, Connix, and Rose are leading the orbital battle against the Resistance fleet while Finn and Rey head up the ground battle. Rey makes a dramatic reveal, maybe kind of like Wonder Woman, of her new staffsaber and it becomes clear that she’s an icon to the Resistance as she saves a platoon of soldiers and locals lead by Finn. Poe and Rose organize an attack in which a hidden portion of the Resistance fleet slingshots around Morneo using the planet’s gravity to their advantage. This sends the First Order fleet into retreat and the Stormtroopers on the ground are forced to surrender. After the battle Finn encounters a dying Stormtrooper that recognizes him and speaks his name. This forces Finn to realize that his reputation has grown amongst the First Order and he may be instrumental to their defeat. Rey makes a connection with a local alien, Ichon, who approaches her after the battle. He may be Force sensitive and is unsure how to approach the situation. Rey is overwhelmed by this and retreats. Rose recruits new warriors from the planet to join them in the fight. One of the aliens shows Rose a stockpile of old Imperial technology including a gravity well. This excites Poe as he realizes that it may be key in helping to trap the First Order fleet. As Poe excitedly begin to explain this to Rey and Finn he receives a communication from command. Leia has passed away. We skip to Leia’s funeral which is held on a planet that has grown to double as both a refuge for people displaced by the war and for the Resistance. Chewbacca and 3PO give a respectful but humorous eulogy, but Poe and Connix deliver the final lines. At the funeral, 3PO introduces Poe and Rey to Lando. Lando, who is remorseful that he has stayed out of the conflict for this long, offers his assistance in joining the Resistance and mentions that his daughter Tyla, who is currently the leader of the Mining Guild, may be able to be won over as an ally. We cut to Kylo Ren having taken up residence in Darth Vader’s former palace on Mustafar. Kylo having sensed that his mother has passed and growing frustrated with his position as supreme leader has become obsessed with attempting to find purpose in his life and finding where Vader’s rule failed. He spends much of his time attempting to commune with old artifacts. Here we learn more about the Knights of Ren and their relationship to Kylo and Snoke. One Knight of Ren in particular, Ambro Ren, a Snoke loyalist, begins to piece together what really happened to the former Supreme Leader. Hux and Kylo fight via hologram. Hux wants him to take a more active stance in the war effort, which is a sentiment echoed by some of the Knights, who were off fighting the war during the events of The Last Jedi. Ambro Ren, who sees Kylo’s inaction and instability dangerous to the goals of the Knights and the First Order, begins to speak with Hux about potentially overthrowing Kylo.

Finn lets Poe, Rey, and Rose know that he is leaving to attempt a revolt in the First Order. This is hotly debated by the team especially Poe, but Finn convinces them that it is what he needs to do. Rose talks to Poe about letting Finn go. She tells him that Finn will always do what he thinks is right and that you can’t hold him back from doing it. She also tells Poe that she knows how he feels about him, but she’s known for a while that Finn only has his eyes on one person. Finn packs his things and Poe wishes him off. He gives Poe a one way encrypted commlink to communicate with the Resistance if needed. Poe warns him that he knows that this will be tough and that it’ll probably bring about a lot of old experiences and bad memories. Poe kisses a surprised Finn as he leaves. Finn isn’t sure of what to make of it.

Ichon, who joined up with the Resistance, approaches Rey in her chambers to try and discuss what just happened to him. He feels something inside him he doesn’t recognize. Rey isn’t sure how to teach him. She tries her best to talk to him but finds that she is lost in her words and is just as new at this as he is. Maz Kanata leads Finn to the First Order world enslaved world of Onderon. Finn convinces Maz to speak to her allies in the outer rim and to bring help for whatever battle may lie ahead. Finn slips into the ranks of the Stormtroopers using a stolen suit of armor and is quickly deployed.

Act II: Where are We and Where are We Going (50 minutes) Lando organizes a meeting between Rey, Rose, Poe and Tyla. It doesn’t go well. Lando and Tyla don’t have the best relationship in the world. We learn that Tyla more or less won control of the Mining Guild after Lando bungled control of it for so long. Tyla doesn’t see the benefit in taking sides in the war if the Mining Guild can profit off both sides and feed customers on Canto Bight and elsewhere. Rose makes a plea for Tyla to see the damage that remaining neutral to the war is doing to the galaxy, but she is mostly brushed off. During the conversation, Rey sees Tyla move a datapad subtly without touching it and senses that Tyla may be Force-Sensitive and approaches her after the meeting. Tyla brushes her off. Kylo is plagued by visions in the Force he does not recognize and begins to suspect that they may be from Vader. He becomes obsessed with the visions to the point where he begins to shirk his duties as Supreme Leader leaving the Knights to host meetings with Hux and the remainder of the ruling council on their own. Ambro proposes his plan to assassinate Kylo. The Knights are beholden to Snoke’s vision, not that of Kylo. Rey and Poe share their frustrations with one another about the state of the war. Poe pulls up a map of the galaxy and talks to her about how the war is going, which isn’t well. The First Order is still running off momentum from the initial attack all those years ago and the Resistance is just too unorganized and scattered to mount a single attack. He worries that without Leia they may be lost. He wishes he could be more like Finn or Rey and be a symbol people could rally behind.

Finn is deployed with a large amount of Stormtroopers into a battle on the fungal world of Felucia. They land into a massive D-Day like conflict between the First Order and the Resistance/local milita. We follow Finn in the battle almost exclusively and his struggles to keep his cover while not actively killing members of the Resistance. He ends up using his energy to save wounded soldiers and protect Stormtroopers. This ends up earning him a reputation with the other soldiers. One, FN-4928, takes a liking to Finn and sticks close to him once the fighting has calmed down. After the battle, Captain Phasma, now a cyborg, arrives to oversee the rest of the campaign. Rey returns to her chambers and is visited by the Force Ghost of Luke who helps guide her in her worries about training new Jedi in Ichon and Tyla. Luke apologizes for not being able to be the teacher she needed, but he sees within her the ability to be something he could not: the future of the Jedi Order.

Emboldened Rey approaches Tyla at night. She finds her in a combat training session with several sparring droids. Tyla is a real bad ass and knows how to handle herself with a blaster pretty damn well. Tyla explains that when she was younger the other members of the Mining Guild were always jockeying for power. Assassinations weren’t uncommon so she trained herself from a young age to defend herself. Rey mentions how the Mining Guild may bring her life power and stability, but there is a yearning in her that Rey recognizes. Rey mentions how she used to be lost and alone, but the Force guided her and has given her a purpose in life. Part of that purpose may be teaching people like Tyla. Tyla is convinced and leaves the Mining Guild decision to a vote with a bewildered Lando acting in her stead and decides to train with Rey and Ichon. Poe leaves a flustered 3P0 in charge of rigging the vote in their favor. Rose and Rey have an emotional goodbye as they wish each other luck on their missions. Rey says that Rose’s hope inspires her.

Finn marches through the jungles of Felucia with the rest of his squadron. One night, Finn sneaks away from camp to send a message to Poe confirming his survival and status. FN-4928 finds him and quickly learns his identity. Instead of turning him in, he swears loyalty to his cause, which makes Finn feel uncomfortable.

Rey takes Tyla and Ichon to Ach-To. She tells them of the legend of Luke Skywalker and how he was both just a man and something much more. Together she helps them center themselves and commune with the planet. Rey reads to them from the ancient Jedi texts and helps the two of them tap into the Force and their potential.

Finn and his squadron participate in an assault lead by Phasma on a Resistance bunker. The troopers make short work of the defenses. Inside, they discover that the crew were in the midst of sending a distress signal to the Refugee planet. Believing they have found the Resistance’s base, Phasma informs the Knights of Ren. Kylo is finally visited by the ghost of Anakin Skywalker. Anakin tells Kylo that he has failed to learn from his past and that he walks a path not unlike his own. It was a path that brought him nothing but pain and suffering, but the Light still found him in the end. Kylo rejects this and claims that Anakin was weak and he sees through his lies. Anakin attempts to reason with him but Kylo pulls some unforeseen Force whosawatsit and banishes Anakin’s spirit. Kylo storms off. We see illuminated in silhouette the Force Ghosts of Anakin, Leia, and Luke. They hold hands. Anakin tells them he tried. Luke says he knows and he’s sorry. Leia says that they’ve done all they could. The fate of their family is in the hands of another. Kylo approaches the Knights of Ren. Infuriated, he demands action. They are to attack the refugee planet with their entire fleet and banish hope from the galaxy.

Act III: The War to End All Wars  (45 minutes) Finn sends a warning to the Refugee Planet that the First Order knows their location and is prepping an assault. He confides in FN-4928 that he isn’t sure of what to do and that he had hoped that he would be farther along in his plans to free his fellow troopers by now. 4928 tells him that he believes in Finn and he knows other troopers will follow him if he were tell them to. Knowing that the First Order is on its way, the Resistance preps for what could be the climactic battle of the war. Rose and Poe prep the team for their plan. Rose will deploy the salvaged Imperial gravity wells to trap the First Order fleet in transit so that the Resistance can ambush them. Rey, who is still on Ach-To, calls Poe about what they should do about getting Finn out of the fleet. Poe says that they have to prioritize taking out Hux, Phasma, and the First Order leadership, but that he can’t stop Rey from conducting “Jedi business.” Rey, Tyla, and Ichon depart Ach-To.

On the refugee planet, word has spread that the First Order is about to attack. These people, who have already lost their homes and loved ones, begin to panic. Poe sees the fear in the people around them and with encouragement from Rose gives a rousing speech about the importance of what is occurring here. The people on this planet represent everything the First Order does not: chaos, freedom, diversity, ingenuity, and hope. They have a chance to bring that back to the galaxy and make the losses of those that came before mean something. R2 and BB-8 broadcast this around the planet. Poe leaves unsure if his speech worked at all. Rose gives him a pat on the back. She’s proud of him. She leaves for the gravity wells. Poe leaves with what little military he has, but he is soon joined by hundreds of ships from the planet. The fleet, which is made up with a wide array of diverse and crazy looking ships (alliance, alien, Maz’s pirates, even some prequel ships, feel free to load up with cameos), preps for launch. The attack begins and both fleets engage. It’s easily the biggest space battle ever done in the franchise. The First Order seems to have the upper hand but Lando arrives on the Millenium Falcon co-piloted by Chewbacca and Nien Nunb and accompanied by Tyla’s Mining Guild forces. In the midst of the chaos, Rey slips her ship into the star destroyer Finn is on. Finn and 4928 begin their own broadcast on First Order frequencies, but they are attacked by Phasma and her men shortly into it. In the middle of the fight Phasma is about to stab Finn with her spear, but 4928 pushes Finn out of the way and is impaled instead. The image of a trooper sacrificing himself for Finn is broadcast across the fleet by Finn’s holorecorder. It causes general chaos throughout the troopers and infighting. Ships erupts into mutinies and TIES switch sides. Finn and Phasma duke it out once and for all. Kylo leads his men, who are preparing to betray him, into battle in the hopes of stopping the Stormtrooper uprising. Just as the Knights of Ren are about to go all Julius Caesar on Kylo, Rey and her team enter. A massive battle breaks out between them with each team leaning into their respective skills. Ichon uses some neat ass weaponry kinda like a yo-yo from his native planet that he combines with limited force abilities. Tyla is like a John Wick-Jedi with a blaster. The duel is a claustrophobic and brutal battle that travels through the corridors of the ship. We flash back and forth between the space battle and the duels. Rey and Kylo have a very intense battle as their respective teams clash. We allow for some dialogue here about who should carry the future of the Force and about the darkness and light in each of them. Ichon is killed by the one Knights of Ren. Horrified Rey leaves herself open and has her arm cut off by Ambro. Kylo holds her at saberpoint and asks for her to surrender.   Hux sees the battle collapsing around him and decides to take things into his own hands. He seals himself inside his command chamber and begins barking direct orders. First he has every First Order ship prioritize fire on the gravity wells. The First Order loses multiple ships but they manage to succeed in destroying the wells and killing Rose in the process. Several Resistance pilots, such as Snap Wexley, are killed as well. It looks for a second that the First Order may retake the battle. Next Hux turns his guns to the star destroyer containing all of our heroes. After the first blast the entire ship turns into chaos. The battle continues in a ship that’s clearly about to fall apart. Kylo calls Hux and demands answers. Hux claims that Kylo and Force-Users in general are a danger to the First Order and galactic stability and that he is taking charge for the good of the new Empire. Ambro shouts that this wasn’t the plan. Realizing that he has been betrayed, Kylo uses the Force to snap all the necks of the surviving Knights at once. Kylo leaves for the bridge. Rey tries to stop him and tells him to try and leave the ship and that Leia’s son does not deserve to die like this. Kylo tells her that she was wrong about him and he leaves. Finn defeats Phasma and takes her captive. The surviving members of Rey’s team make their way to the hanger bay. They along with Finn are rescued by Lando and company aboard the Millenium Falcon. They escape. Kylo cuts his way to the bridge and collides the collapsing star destroyer with Hux’s command cruiser killing Hux. The battle swings to the Resistance’s side. Phasma, the current highest ranking member of the First Order, is ordered to call a surrender of their forces. Some of the ships turn tail and run but most prepare themselves for surrender. A few days have passed. A massive memorial wall has been erected on the refugee planet. It is inscribed with hundreds of names of those who have been lost in the battle and war. The names when pressed reveal a short hologram. Rey presses Rose’s name and an image of her with Paige appears. She inscribes Ichon’s name. She regrets that she doesn’t have a holo to add to the wall for him. She wonders if she failed him and if she’s cut out for this. Tyla arrives and assures her that without Rey, she would still be sitting behind a desk somewhere, not aware of the power that’s inside her. Rey awakened the Force in her and can do it for countless others. The two embrace knowing that they have a long path ahead of them. As they leave, Lando touches the wall and sees a brief hologram of the party on Endor. He smiles. Finn welcomes several Stormtroopers to the ranks of the refugees. They feel awkward and Finn helps to find ways for them to feel at home and useful to their former enemies. One of them tells him he’s sorry about his friend that died, and Finn says that Rose was like her sister and died like a hero so others could live. Poe approaches him and says that he’s proud of him. He keeps finding hope where there is none. Finn goes to mention the kiss to Poe, but he stops him. Poe says that he’s known for a while where Finn’s heart lies, and that he should follow it. Finn goes to Rey and kisses her. She returns it. We pan out of a world that is slowly coming back to peace. We cut to: A cloaked figure walks across a barren world. He is burned and walks with a cane. He has a robotic leg. He removes his cloak and takes a drink of water. He sits down and looks at the desert sky. A glowing hand reaches out and touches Kylo’s shoulder. He reaches for it. The End.

[welllpthisishappening]

Hi! So, I have a promt for u, but first a little backstory: I’m from Spain, and I remember when I worked at my parents shop and there were this bracelets everybody was CRAZY about one summer, as in every day ten people would come in asking for them, because Sara Carbonero -sports reporter and Iker Casillas, goalie for the football national team, gf - wore them. It was after Spain son the word cup in 2010. Look into them, there was a very cute kiss. So, prompt: Emma starts a trend with her laces?

Hey, hi, hello there! This has been sitting in my inbox for a millennia and I am so, so sorry for that. I am also so, so sorry because this is not exactly the prompt you asked for. There are laces involved and some dad!Killian feels and, like, New Year’s Eve somehow? It’s a mess of fluff, honestly. 

Anyway, 2018 has been some kind of something for just about everyone and I can’t say I’m not excited to see it go. I’ve spent a lot of time stress-writing fic, particularly, hockey fic and I know that there are other hockey stories out there and other Rangers stories out there, but it genuinely warms the cockles of my entire soul that you guys continue to have thoughts and feelings about these Rangers and this ridiculous hockey team. This is (clearly) my favorite ‘verse to write in and it’s kind of my spot to write when everything else is nonsense. 

It is a joy to write these stories and a thrill that anyone wants to read them. I wish you guys nothing but the absolute best in 2019 and maybe the Rangers can keep winning in regulation. 

“Hit him, hit him, hit him.”

Killian leaned back, resting his head against the door as it closed behind him and the voice on the other side of the apartment was barely audible. It was, however, fairly determined.

Or as determined as a voice could be when, presumably, watching a replay of the game he’d finished playing in a few hours before.

“C’mon, hit him,” Emma hissed, and he liked to imagine that there was some hand flailing going on as well. Of course, he’d be able to confirm that if he moved, but every single inch of him was sore and tired and he had, in fact, played a hockey game a few hours before. “Oh my God,” Emma continued, a thump that might have been most of her body weight dropping back onto the couch. She’d been pacing.

Killian moved.

The floor creaked underneath him, toeing out of his shoes and kicking his equipment bag further into the corner. He didn’t take his jacket off.

And Emma was slumped in the middle of the couch, hair splayed out behind her and a distinct lack of pants on.

He felt his eyes bug.

She didn’t stop watching the game.

“Why do you not know how to get the puck out of the zone?”

Killian tilted his head. “Me specifically?”

“You in the general sense of the entire New York Rangers franchise,” she amended. “But mostly Phillip. Especially Phillip—God, get it out.”

“They don’t score here, you know.”

“Hey, c’mon, don’t spoil it.”

He scoffed, loosening the tie around his neck and glancing at the rather impressive arrangement of only recently-built baby furniture in the corner of the room. “Sleeping,” Emma mumbled, answering a question he hadn’t asked. “Only just. Which is why I don’t want you to spoil the game for me. We didn’t see, well, much of any of it, honestly.”

“Wasn’t interested in watching in real time, huh?”

Emma made a noise – not quite dismissive, but slightly exhausted and it may have had more to do with the Rangers inability to clear the puck in the opening minutes of the first period than the sleeping habits of Margaret. Who, it seemed, in her first few days of existence was bound and determined to drive both of her parents crazy.

And, maybe, terrify them just a bit. That may have just been Killian. Because he’d been the one who’d spent most of the night pacing in a hospital hallway and they’d only just gotten back from D.C. and he wasn’t sure he’d taken a deep breath the entire time, several medical terms bouncing between his ears and around his heart and—

“Shoot!”

His eyes flickered back towards the screen, the puck on his stick and he didn’t shoot. Emma mumbled several rather impressive curses under her breath.

“Where did you expect me to shoot there?” Killian asked, and Emma rolled her eyes. And shrugged. And made that noise again.

“I really have no idea,” she admitted, nodding towards the few inches of space to her left. And it only took a moment for the metaphorical light bulb to go off over her head, a few blinks and a quirk of her lips that never failed to make his heart sputter just a bit against his rib cage and it was fine.

She was fine.

Margaret was fine.

They were fine.

It was New Year’s Eve. He wasn’t sure how that factored into it, but he was certain it had to mean something good.

They’d won the game.

Killian didn’t say that. Spoilers or something.

“You don’t have to watch this, love,” Killian said, another laugh when Emma mumbled something that sounded distinctly like take your coat off, God under her breath. He nudged her up slightly with his shoulder, shifting until he was almost comfortable and he wasn’t really surprised when she curled against his side, head on his thigh and arm draped across him.

He let his fingers move through her hair. She sighed.

“I want to. I’m just—when’s the last time I showered?”

It would have been absolutely impossible to kiss her – a ridiculous twist of his body that would have infuriated Ariel when it inevitably did something drastic to his back, but Killian made an effort and Emma burrowed further against him, a solid weight of warmth and certainty and fine that he kept reminding himself of.

Even when he was on the ice.

Maybe that’s why he hadn’t taken the shot.

“You can do that now, Swan,” Killian muttered, fingers still moving as his gaze darted from the game to the somehow-still sleeping infant on the other side of the room. “I promise I’ll be able to tell you what happened in the game.”

She laughed softly, the sound pressed into his pants and, like, his entire soul. He knew he couldn’t actually feel her smile, but it was comforting to imagine, particularly when Emma tugged her legs up under her, a bundle of limbs and that distinct lack of pants.

“How’d you get out of post?”

“Where are your pants?”

“I promise, your story is way more interesting,” Emma said, and he could hear the smile. “Seriously though, did Phillip just—forget how to pass?”

“Arthur broke a whiteboard on that one.”

“Maybe you’re too fast, honestly.”

“I think that’s a compliment,” Killian pointed out. “Don’t put pants on, ok?”

Her answering laugh had a distinct air of exhaustion to it, but there was a hint of something that may have been happiness and two kids and he did eventually take a shot that went into the back of the net. He kind of wanted to watch Emma watch that.

What a weirdo.

Margaret made a noise in the crib – both Killian and Emma’s head snapping towards the sound. He dug his teeth into his lip, barely daring to blink, let alone breathe and—

“Nothing,” Emma mumbled after five seconds that felt like five impossibly long lifetimes. “You going to answer the question though?”

“About Phillip’s inability to pass in the neutral zone?”

“And the board work. God, tell Arthur to practice that tomorrow. There are drills for that, right?”

Killian nodded. “Several thousand, I’d imagine. Was that honestly the question?”

“How’d you get out of post?”

“I did not totally get out of post,” he said, clicking his tongue when Scarlet was whistled for slashing. “They score here.”

Emma groaned. “Oh my God. What did we say about spoilers?”

“I’m really not sure you’re going to make it to the end of the game, Swan.”

“You doing are an absolutely horrible job of deflecting this conversation, you know. I’m going to tell Rubes.”

“I think she’s a little preoccupied with some other things.”

Emma lifted her head, an awkward twist to her neck that Killian would have mentioned if he wasn’t admittedly distracted by the pull of her eyebrows and whatever she was doing with her mouth. Twisting it or something. It was probably because of the pants thing, honestly. And the baby. He was a mess of human emotions and feelings and come-from-behind victories.

And blowing off post.

Kind of.

“Did Ruby sneak you out of post?”

“There was no sneaking involved,” Killian promised, groaning softly when Emma swung her legs over his. She kissed his cheek. “Ask Lucas. We just walked out.”

“Sticking it to the system and the NHL’s player policy, huh? Did you see Mattie?”

“That was part of the reason for leaving.”

“Ah, you can’t say stuff like that, I’m definitely still all hormonal.”

“I mean if you’re going to swoon over my paternal tendencies, I’m not going to stop you.”

“Did he go in the locker room?”

“Nearly ran me over to get in there,” Killian grinned, and it was easier to press a kiss to her temple now. “Told me I played really fast—“

“—I told you!”

Killian hummed. “Wait until the second period,” he murmured against Emma’s hair, laughing slightly when she swore again. “Anyway, he ran me over, nearly broke several sticks, charmed the whole place and presumably left with Locksley, according to the plan.”

“Presumably.”

“I’d imagine it took some time to get out of there. He had several thoughts about Phillip as well. Although yours are a little more coarse, love.”

“Yeah, well, if the three-year-old starts swearing in Norwegian, we might have bigger problems on our hands than whatever fine you’re going to get.”

“I’m not going to get fined.”

“No?”

Killian shook his head. “Lucas was certain it’d work. Plus, I didn’t even score the game-winner.”

“The spoilers,” Emma growled, swatting at his chest and scrunching her nose when he wrapped his fingers around her wrist. She exhaled when he kissed her knuckles, quick presses of his lips across the back of her hand and towards her wrist and that was part of the reason too.

Her very bare wrist.

“It’s almost the second period,” Killian reasoned, nodding back towards the TV.

“There are ten minutes left in the first.”

He groaned when Emma dug the hell of her hand into his stomach again, snapping up as soon as the announcer’s voices picked up and it was ridiculous. The whole goddamn thing – because there was a three-year-old with incredibly pointed hockey opinions and a baby that he’d been calling Peggy when they were by themselves and he’d been so goddamn nervous, terrified, a pacing, frustrated mess who’d only sat down because Regina had told him, somewhere in the realm of four in the morning, that he was going to do permanent damage to both of your hamstrings. But there had been so many machines and everything kept beeping and—

“Hey,” Emma muttered, tugging lightly on the tie he’d forgotten he was still wearing. “What just happened?”

“What?”

“You got all distant. Were you also thinking about how shitty Phillip is playing in this game.”

“No.”

“Oh, that was a much quicker objection than I was expecting,” Emma said, one side of her mouth tilting up into something that was almost a smile. It probably would have been if the bags under her eyes weren’t quite so obvious and there wasn’t still a slight tinge to her skin, not quite grey, but not quite flushed and Killian pressed his lips to her forehead before he considered all the reasons he didn’t have to.

“I really love that you think that,” Killian mumbled. He didn’t move his head. He was totally going to keep calling the baby Peggy.

“Think what? Are you speaking in tongues? Because I really can’t remember when I showered last and the pants thing was this whole disaster, so it’s not—“

“You really don’t have to put pants back on.”

It was a real smile that time. “Noted. What do you love? And seriously why did you walk out of post?”

“You.”

He hadn’t meant for it to sound quite like a promise or a pledge or several thousand statements on the record that would spark several more thousand internet clicks, but that’s what it was and what it always had been and Emma’s tongue darted between her lips.

“Always,” Killian added softly, brushing his thumb over the curve of her jaw. “And on both fronts. I, well—it’s a little late, but…”

It wasn’t easy to shift both of them – exhaustion and post-game bumps and bruises, but Emma moved as soon as she realized what was going on, a hint of curiosity in the pinch between her eyebrows. “We were kind of busy around Christmas,” he added, tugging the laces out of his pocket and Emma might have gasped.

Her hand flew to her mouth, so it was kind of hard to tell.

“No way,” Emma mumbled into her palm, and Killian had to blink so he didn’t feel as if every single human emotion he was currently feeling overwhelmed him entirely. “Oh that is so…stupid.”

Killian’s whole body moved when he laughed, loud enough that his eyes darted towards the crib again. Nothing. “Stupid?” he echoed, Emma nodding before he’d even finished the word.

“So stupid. It’s—I can’t believe…no, that’s totally a lie. I knew you were going to do it, as soon as Mattie broke the last ones.”

“That’s kind of disappointing, honestly. I don’t want my game to be so one-dimensional.”

“Far too confident in your own humor.”

“That was funny, Swan, admit it,” Killian said, nosing at her cheek until he felt the end of her lips tick up. “And I didn’t really think about it after Mattie broke ‘em.”

“No?”

“No.”

It had been an accident – a few months before and a very enthusiastic kid who was very excited at the prospect of camp and trying to get on the ice and Emma had lunged, doing her best to keep him off that very same ice when there was an actual practice going on and the second pair of laces snapped in rather dramatic fashion in Tarrytown.

She’d promised there was some kind of relationship irony to that.

But then there’d been a season and Emma had been pregnant and there’d been games and skates and the thought of replacing laces hadn’t even occurred to Killian until he was pacing out a small semicircle in a hospital room, a dozing infant in his arms and mumbled words falling out of his lips and he stopped as soon as he saw the distinct lack of anything on his wife’s left wrist.

So a plan was formed.

Kind of.

There were still games, after all. And a baby.

“I wanted to have it for Christmas,” Killian said, voice dropping of its own accord and the first period was over. “But that got—“

The words caught in his throat, lips suddenly dry and eyes far too wide to be healthy. Emma shifted, twisting until she had either one of her legs on the side of his hips and he refused to be held accountable for whatever sound he made as soon as her fingers moved through his hair.

He closed his eyes.

“You know you keep calling her Peggy when you think I can’t hear you.”

He smiled. “Are you stalking me, Swan?”

“Only because I’m super attracted to your paternal tendencies. It’s almost getting ridiculous.”

“Seriously, do not put pants on for the rest of the night.”

“I don’t think any of them are clean, so…”

Killian laughed, some of the inexplicable tension that had been lingering between his shoulder blades for the last ten days dissipating. He ducked his head, catching Emma’s lips with his own and it wasn’t anything more than a bit cautious and a little hopeful, but it felt like coming home and scoring the game winner and settling back into a skating rhythm that could maybe make some kind of playoff run this season.

“I really like Peggy,” Emma whispered against his mouth. “Did Rubes help you steal laces too?”

“Nah, that was all Banana.”

“Naturally. Are they from—“

“Yeah,” Killian nodded when she trailed off, and the tears on her cheeks were somehow almost, kind of, sort of nice. “It was a very impressive goal. Lots of speed up the side of the ice and a ridiculous angle.”

“You sound very confident, Cap.”

“Got me a star.”

Emma beamed. “Yeah?”

“Second, but you know it wasn’t the game-winner, so…”

“I don’t care. I—“ She took a deep breath, tongue flashing between her lips again and shoulders shifting slightly and he wasn’t really surprised by the kiss that time either. Or the way her hand cupped the side of his face, like she was trying to memorize him or keep him and he would have willingly sat there in the corner of the couch for the rest of his goddamn life.

Fines be damned.

“I love you,” Emma said, no trace of anything except honest and a slightly distracting lack of pants. She twisted again, moving her arm in between them and flipping her hand over. “And I know—well, it was kind of terrifying there for a second, huh?”

“A little.”

“A lot. I…I know if I try and apologize you’re going to tell me—“

“—You don’t have anything to apologize for, Swan.”

“See, this is the interrupting I was prefacing,” she grumbled, another quick kiss that left his stomach slightly knotted. “But, well, it was…God, I’m so tired, I can’t come up with another word except terrifying. I just—I knew, I hoped it would be fine and I was fairly confident in modern medicine, but I started thinking about not being here for you and the kids and—“

Emma sighed again, more tears and lips pressed together tightly. “I love you,” she shrugged, as if that weren’t the single most important sentence the world. “And that angle is ridiculous. It’s…I don’t even understand how it works.”

“I’m a very talented hockey player.”

“And a really, really good dad.”

“I hope.”

“I know,” Emma promised, wiggling her fingers. “Plus, it’s stupid attractive when you score.”

“That so?”

“Like every single time. It’s good Peggy’s asleep, I don’t want to scar her for life this early.”

“She’ll get used to it.”

Killian didn’t mention that Emma used the nickname either, but the glint in her eye made it almost too obvious she knew. “That’s definitely the right approach,” she laughed. “You going to give me my laces or, like, what’s your plan here?”

He slid the laces on her wrist.

And Emma did, actually, see the goal, mumbling ridiculously fast against him as soon as he crossed the blue line, but it only took a few more moments for her eyelashes to flutter and her breathing to even out and Killian tried not to wake her when Peggy fussed midway through the third period – a few minutes before midnight.

“Hey little love,” he whispered, pulling her out of the crib and rocking back and forth, a quiet rhythm that felt a little bit like being back in skates. “You missed the goal, you know. That’s ok. We’ll get some more later this week.”

She didn’t answer, just squirmed against him and twisted towards the TV and that was hardly playing fair.

“Yeah,” Killian continued. “Tie game. It’s gets very dramatic at the end.”

More squirming. And blinking. And a rather impressive attempt to yank on his shirt.

“C’mon, let’s at least be comfortable when Phillip makes up for all those turnovers from before.”

And Killian barely noticed the clock ticking past midnight, far too preoccupied with the baby in his arms and the feeling in his chest and Peggy did, eventually, stop squirming – enough for a few more moments of sleep that ensured neither one of them saw the game-winner.

They watched it in the morning, Emma’s hair still damp from the shower and the laces on her wrist sticking to her skin.

[fangirants]

that new robin hood movie

I need to rant a bit about the Robin Hood-movie that came out last year. So I’m doing my bachelor’s project on Robin Hood, and Robin Hood is like one of my favourite heroes of all time and I love Taron Egerton and Jamie Foxx and Ben Mendelsohn, so I was quite excited for this movie alright. So understandably I was a bit disappointed. We all know it’s not that great. Let’s be honest. That’s not what I want to rant about. Like, I wouldn’t even say it’s bad. I’ve seen MUCH worse films in my lifetime. It was an okay action movie. There was nothing really special about it, I understand the bad review, but I don’t hate it. There were actually a few things I really liked.... and that is why I want to rant So first off, I’d like to disclose that I had the displeasure of having to watch this movie no less than 10 times. I might have watched it more, I actually lost count. I’ve watched it a lot. I had to as I am using it in my BA. It grows on you and then it grows mouldy. But I could probably watch it again when it comes out now that I have gotten a break from it.. My favourite thing about this movie was the timelessness-- which coincidently was what many people didn’t like. They didn’t feel that the modern costumes, etc. was welcome in the medieval setting. BUT WAS IT MEDIEVAL? Just... hear me out... the narrator (I think it’s tuck?) starts out by saying “don’t ask me what year it was because I can’t actually remember”. Already then we are placed in an undefinable time. Like it is almost medieval but not quite. It is almost like Disney’s Aladdin; where it looks like it is way back in the days of yore, but it is actually in a post-apocalyptic future where we have gone back to something that is reminiscent of something way back in the past. Now what if this is the same here? No one says Robin has to operate in the time of King Richard and Prince John, in fact in the beginning he didn’t! Most often than not, there were no mention of a king of England, or which king it might be. The same is happening with this movie, and I quite like that. I don’t know if it was intentional, but if it was it is brilliant. By placing Robin’s story in this undefinable time he is also much more flexible. He doesn’t have to be a medieval figure, he doesn’t have to be a modern action hero either, he can be something in between.

Now I also quite like Guy Ritchie’s way of making movies, and there has been quite a lot of comparisons of Robin Hood and Ritchie’s King Arthur-movie from a few years back. I quite liked that one as well, but I just really like Guy Ritchie. This had quite a similar feel. It was almost as if Guy Ritchie and Baz Luhrmann had a lovechild. That would be this movie. I quite like Baz Luhrmann’s movies as well, so I don’t mind the similarities, but I think what this movie lacked was a true sense of direction. It is clear that this is the director’s first feature film, like he doesn’t have his own style like many others.  The script didn’t really help matters. But back to what I did like. I did like how this movie had a sort of return to the original ballads. I am quite a Robin Hood nerd, so I understand why many might also find this version “wrong” in a sense. I liked that about it. I also realise that this is an origin story and was meant to be the first in a new Robin Hood franchise, which might not happen with how it flopped at the box office. What I think is interesting to look at with this movie is why? Why is it brought back now? There are hundreds of adaptations of Robin Hood, so why bring the character up again? Why is he relevant? So as I said the character is quite flexible in terms of time, place, etc. He is quite universal. It is not very hard to see what this movie wants from the hero though. I found the film VERY political, and I haven’t decided yet if I like it or not. The modern costumes makes the fight scenes, both at the beginning and at the movie’s climax, very transparent. The scenes look almost identical with pictures from demonstrations with police violence, as well as troops in the middle east. When Robin returns to Nottingham the people he sees sitting around the mines look like pictures show in the news of refugees and/or migrants trying to cross borders. The movie is also very clearly taking a distance from this and making it clear that it is this kind of oppression and corruption from the leaders, even those who supposedly has our best interest at heart (read: Will Scarlet you power-lusting bastard) that we need to fight and stand up against. I like that it has an opinion, and I do like when movies has an agenda or get political, but I just don’t know if I think this one went too far. Like, is it too much? I really don’t know. I can’t decide. I think I’m done ranting now. If you haven’t seen the movie, and you like action and/or political agendas then go watch it. I think this is the kind of movie where people have to watch it to decide if they like it. I will say this though: If you liked King Arthur: the Legend of the Sword, then you will definitely like Robin Hood. And if you’re like me, a Robin Hood-nerd, this will be fun to analyse.

[bainhardt]

#RibbonQuest2019 - Part 7: (Con)Test of Patience

“I’m not worried about the Super Contests in the slightest,” said the idiot me of the past. But oh, how I have learned my lesson. I hate Super Contests. I can’t dive into this post without making that clear at the beginning - I hate Super Contests so bad.

The evolution of accessory spam.

First off, the Visual performance. I wasn’t very thorough about gathering accessories while clearing Platinum during the prep phase (although I did have more than I expected), so this came down to pure RNG. I would just reset outright if the theme wasn’t favorable, which probably saved me a lot of grief in the short term. Unless you can stack mostly max-score accessories, don’t even bother with the rest of the contest.

Additionally, the Scarves don’t carry here as much as they do in Emerald; their contribution is based on a percentage of your condition instead of a flat value, meaning any of your scores that might be imbalanced are going to give you a harder time. I wasn’t working with the best berries, so my Smart and Tough were a little lacking, and it really showed in practice.

I don’t have any relevant photos to share for the dances because my hands were glued to my DSi, so have this proof I beat Johanna once. Then my DSi shut off for no reason, and I had to beat this contest again. Fun.

Next, the Dance portion. I don’t think this game is as broken mechanically as most of the guides I’ve referenced seem to, but it is hard to get the hang of. You have to sort of lead your button presses, and in most cases, the song barely matches the timing very well at all. It’s honestly better to try to copy the “rhythm” of the portion where the AI is leading the dance.

Some of the songs that could show up (mostly slower ones) were nightmares to dance to, so this section is pretty heavily RNG, too. Noticing a theme?

I’m not sure why, but I had a harder time locking down movesets to use in gen 4 than in gen 3. I even had to send Jin back to Johto to fill out his Tough selection. I wish he could stay in Johto forever...

Just like in Emerald, the different categories required I build different move pools for the Acting performance, and each one took me a varying number of attempts to win... although the variance was much higher than in good ol’ Hoenn.

And it wouldn’t be a Super Contest without RNG! The AI never seems to follow any sort of pattern when selecting a judge, so good luck trying to figure out who’s the best choice each round. It seemed to come down entirely to luck in my experience, just like the rest of these sorry ordeals.

Cool and Beauty Masters, astonishingly, only required two attempts each. Those are Hoenn numbers, Jin! Good job!

Cute Master was second hardest at seven tries. I’m not sure why, but again, there’s so much RNG it’s not easy pinpointing what went wrong. Smart was a modest five attempts, and the last one I got around to due to it being Jin’s weakest condition.

Rounding us off, Tough Master was the most difficult contest at a whopping nine tries. I ditched Thief, which seems like a good choice, because I learned pretty quickly it was not going to help me at all - I never once saw a single voltage meter fill all the way.

So, I’m definitely glad to have this nightmare behind me, but I have one more thing to share. After I finished the first three categories and began to hit a brick wall with my Tough contests, I decided to take a break.

When in Sinnoh, do as the Sinn... Sinnohmans? Do...? Needs work.

Yes, the idea settled in my mind to add “encounter a wild Shiny” to my list of memories with Jin. I’ve never been very lucky with Shinies, and I can only remember three legitimate Shiny encounters in my entire lifetime with the franchise (Paras in Gold, Gastly in Pearl, and Azurill in X), so this was the perfect choice of something special I could do both for me and my Ribbon Master.

The 40-streak in second place was lost immediately to the rookiest mistake imaginable: walking up into a shaking tile I hadn’t noticed behind my player...

It didn’t take much preparation besides watching some tutorials and buying a lot of repels, and I selected Zigzagoon as my target because it just happened to be the Swarm when I started. Chaining took some practice, but once I had the hang of it I was already becoming hooked. The exactness, the attention to every conceivable detail. I could see myself doing this once in a while even outside of Ribbon Quest.

With some persistence, I was eventually able to secure my prize!! I don’t particularly need a Shiny Zigzagoon for anything, but Shiny hunting isn’t just about the prize - it’s about the journey, the effort put towards a goal and the satisfaction of success. Also, it’s cute.

パークの危機なのだ！

The only thing left for me in Sinnoh is, once again, the Battle Tower. I’m dreading being stuck there for god knows how long, but with Pokeradar chaining as an option when I need a break, I think I’ll survive. It’s also possible I’ll need to breed or raise more Pokemon to use, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

After all, just thinking about what comes next has me excited beyond belief... As soon as I finish these ribbons, I can leave the DS behind and launch into the final phase of the journey on the 3DS!

[xiiishadesofgrey]

Kingdom Hearts III: A Long Time Coming

As we’re about a month after the release of KH3, I wanted to get out my thoughts on the game (there are spoilers below). I might be talking into the void, but hey, that’s what fandom’s all about. Anyway, let’s rock.

First things first: I loved the game. I’m biased, because I’ve been in love with this series ever since I saw the first trailer on tv all those years ago. I have some criticisms, but please never take those to mean that I don’t love this game because I do.

Story

My main issue with the plot of KH3 is that I think pacing was a weak point in this one. Now, I’m used to playing through mostly irrelevant Disney worlds the whole time and then getting a plot dump at the end. I know how this series works; that’s not my issue. The problem is that there are a lot of characters who would pop in to do something pivotal, and then make an equally swift exit without any real closure. Demyx and Vexen come to mind, but even the non-benched OrgXIII members didn’t do much besides serve in the boss rush and make their goodbyes (while the other fighters politely waited before continuing to rough you up).  We knew there was going to be a huge cast of characters, but for the ones that served to move the plot forward, in a lot of cases I was left feeling like I didn’t have an answer for why the roles had to be filled by them in particular. (Connections to KHUX were blurry at best, though that’s more of an issue with series planning than with this game on its own. I’m okay with using Luxu as a cliffhanger, though, since that’s more of an intentional setup.) Motivations weren’t explored and many of the characters ended up just where they were before: lost, floating in the void.

I was also a little put out with the game’s treatment of the main heroes.  Riku and Mickey spend 5/6 of the game throwing themselves against a wall, staunchly refusing Sora’s help.  Meanwhile Sora (aka the player) is supposed to just wander around until the Power of Waking comes to him all deus ex machina style? That’s not a plan, and it makes for a meandering plot. And when you finally do get to the Realm of Darkness, lo and behold, the power was in him all along, meaning that we’ve all wasted a lot of time in what we’re supposed to believe is a pretty urgent situation. If I’m considering this within the framework of the KH universe, it means we should probably never take direction from Yen Sid again.  If I look at if from a real world perspective, it’s a rather poor excuse for the player to visit the obligatory worlds while the main plot gets compressed to a cutscene movie at the end of the game.  Either way, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

And finally, I was truly disappointed with KH3′s treatment of Kairi. I try to be understanding. I get it, she’s not the main character. But here’s the thing: the writers set Kairi up to be in a position of agency, if not power. She has a keyblade, she has the benefit of legitimate training in no less than a genuine hyperbolic time chamber (more than Sora has ever had the benefit of, mind you), and she has a history of being eager to pull her weight as a Guardian of Light.  Plus, she’s a Princess of Heart.  You’d think this would lead to her being able to contribute to the fight in more ways than just believing in Sora enough to keep him from keeling over when he loses his cool (another thing I took a bit of issue with, but I won’t digress here).  But no, Kairi is demoted very solidly to damsel in distress when the plot finally sees fit to release her and Lea from their bubble. To be blunt, I call bullshit. I think she deserved better as a character, and I think if they weren’t going to do anything with her having a keyblade, they shouldn’t have wasted all that time making it happen. In the last fight, she and Lea were more liabilities than anything. I think they both deserved better than that.

End(?)

Obviously, the end of the game contains a culmination of the complaints I’ve mentioned.  I’m overjoyed that my favorite characters get their lives back, but a lot of that takes place without direct player contribution (for example, Roxas showing up by himself, having melded with a replica body offscreen, or Namine being a footnote in the closing scenes). I acknowledge that the player character doesn’t need to (and shouldn’t) be the sole instigator of action in a game, but for some of these instances, having these points basically narrated to me felt like things were coming together because they had to for the plot to resolve, and not because our own actions had led to an optimal outcome. I didn’t feel like we had earned all of the pieces falling into place the way they did.

I mentioned unclear motivations before. All I will say about Xehanort is that I don’t quite see the connection between the story they’ve been selling us for him literally this entire time and the story he painted for his motivations at the very end. I don’t feel one way or the other about them trying to redeem him, but I don’t feel that that was a well-established path to try to take with the character they’d built. It’s important to give evidence throughout if that’s the final claim you’re going to stand on, and nothing in any previous game has ever hinted at the “noble reset” MO.

And then, there’s Sora. My precious sunshine child. They damseled Kairi so hard that Sora died got lost in an alternate universe. I had two problems with this: 1) it just made me sad, and 2) it was like...completely unaddressed. I get it, you’re leading into the next saga, and that’s admittedly an excellent hook. But like, I feel like a plot point as pivotal as the main character functionally disappearing warrants some sort of ... visible reaction from his friends and comrades??? To have that emotional fallout completely unaddressed makes me feel like the story wasn’t complete. And not to make a somewhat unrelated gripe, but I feel like if they had space to make us watch the entire Let It Go song, they had space to let the audience know that Sora’s disappearance actually had some effect on the people he’d saved.

Experience

So, given all that grumbling, what did I feel about the overall experience of the game? I actually thought it was very positive. The gameplay - both exploration and combat - was very smooth and exciting. The worlds we visited were well-executed and fun (though San Fransokyo felt deceptively small, somehow). The graphics were awesome. (I’d been concerned that the new engine would lose some of the Kingdom Hearts feel, but I think they really nailed it.) Yoko Shimomura triumphed as always with a stellar soundtrack. (I found myself humming along to the Arendelle and Corona themes for hours.) The plot, obviously, was great despite my issues with the execution in this particular chapter. I think that most of the problems that I mentioned earlier with pacing and details stem from there being what I consider to be too many plotlines to handle in one ~40 hour game. I wouldn’t want another side game of course, but I think that the telling of the story might have benefited from the Dark Seeker saga continuing into a KH4. The plot is sprawling, as we all know, and it just needed a little more space to resolve everything cleanly.

(Side note: I missed my FF friends, but I understand why they weren’t present. Like I said, there was too much going on as it is.)

Aside from that, I personally got to spend a lot more time with my brother than I have ... probably since KH2 came out, to be honest. We promised to only play together, and we took turns with the controller just like we had to do in the good ol’ days when we were kids. And we’ve always played the main games together, so this was a really nice throwback. Closing this chapter of the story was impactful for us as individuals, but sharing the experience was just as great. After several years of being pretty closed off, I feel like this reminded me how to be a kinder sister. So, I thank the KH franchise from the bottom of my heart for that.

All things said, I really enjoyed the hell out of playing this game. At the end of the day, I think that’s all you can ask of a game, really. This one did much more than that, though. It largely followed through on my hopes for the characters, and definitely fulfilled my technical expectations. Most importantly, it felt like it came through on my immense emotional investment in the series. I cried (a lot), like I knew I would. Heck, I might even play it again sometime. lol  ...Maybe not right away, since I still have to heal emotionally. But yeah. Thank you for the ride, KH. I won’t make this sound like a goodbye because you still owe me some closure. But thanks.

Here’s to the next half a lifetime. :)

[sammyjs-ponies]

My Thoughts on MLP G5 Rumors (Potential Spoilers)

So you've probably heard about the massive MLP leaks lately. Among those have been a supposed plan for a Generation 5.

Below the Read More is my detailed opinion on the rumored direction of G5, and the things that I would like to see in a new generation.

The leaked concept art and information is highly debated on if it's real or not. I'm not going to share the images since it's a touchy subject for a lot of people, but by now if you want to see them, it's easy to find if you google "My Little Pony G5".

So, while the images are convincing, to me they look more like a really nice quality fanart than something a show would produce. From an animator's point of view, while the designs are pretty to look at, they are very complex and not practical at all to animate. I've heard rumors that it will be done in 3D instead of 2D (which is a huge disappointment), but even then, the designs have a LOT going on that would be distracting as an animated character.

It gives the impression that the show will:

Cut corners on animation quality to make up for the time it takes to work with that much detail.

Cut corners on story quality to make up for the time and effort it would take to animate that much detail nicely.

Become a more toy-focused generation and not have much of a show at all.

Judging how they've made a lot of smart decisions with G4 business-wise (not saying all the decisions were smart), it seems unlikely they would make a lot of these changes. But then again, the staff has changed a lot since the "good seasons" of G4. There's also looking back at how we all thought things like the Pokemon Sun & Moon starter concept art was fake, but it turned out to be real.

Assuming it is true, the plans/rumors I've heard so far are as follows:

(POTENTIAL SPOILER WARNING)

The same "Mane Six" characters are staying, and their designs (as in their colors and hairstyles) are staying the same. However, their species' are changing. Twilight to an Earth Pony, Fluttershy to a Unicorn, Pinkie to a Pegasus, etc. They will also be living in somewhat of an alternate universe.

Right away, this sounds more like a 0.5 generation. A completely new generation would have all NEW characters in an all NEW world. They might borrow a few names (Like Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy all came from G3), and their designs and personalities might nod to their past incarnations, but they would be completely different characters. While a 0.5 generation will instead keep all the same characters, maybe change a few designs or personality traits (like what happened to Toola Roola and Cheerilee in G3.5/Core 7) and make a dramatic change in the art and animation style.

It will be CGI/3D.

This one is argued on whether or not it's true. Like I said above regarding how difficult the leaked designs would be to animate, 3D would certainly make the most sense if they want to animate this much detail efficiently. But if this is the case, I am severely disappointed. I was proud of MLP for going so long without falling into the generic, cheap, 3D animation route.

It will cater to an older demographic and have more mature elements.

This I am skeptical of, but not doubting. The MLP franchise knows all too well what they can get from an adult fanbase, but they could also face a lot of backlash from angry parents who might feel like they can't let their little girls watch MLP anymore because it's suddenly become violent (or God forbid, sexual). I'm curious to see what they mean by this. It could be fantastic and enjoyable, or it could be a massive failure.

They are changing some of the characters' personalities. In particular, they are changing Applejack to something more generic to promote diversity.

Am I the only one who sees a HUGE contradiction here? To create a more diverse cast, they're getting rid of the most unique main character, the only one with an accent and a tie to a specific culture? Do they know what diversity means? Removing a race is the opposite of diversity. Diversity is to have a lot of unique and different things. Diversity is NOT simply removing everything that is white or tied to whiteness. If this is what they plan to do, it says a lot about the direction the show is going to go. We may be bracing for a propaganda-fest of progressive racism and who knows what other Leftist and Social Justice ideals being shoved down our throats. The fear of this once pure show tiptoeing into sexual content doesn't sound so farfetched now...

They want the ponies to act even less like horses, because even now, they think they're too much like horses.

In a leaked email, McCarthy was recorded expressing worry that the ponies are too horse-like. THEY ARE HORSES for crying out loud! That was the appeal of the show, especially for people like me. We like the show because we like horses! We WANT them to be horses!

(END OF POTENTIAL SPOILERS)

So, what would I want in a Generation 5?

Knowing what MLP has done right and done wrong in its lifetime, plus what I would like to see, this is what I would want from a Generation 5:

First of all, MAKE THEM LOOK LIKE THEY'RE ACTUALLY SUPPOSED TO BE EQUINES.

What was appealing about past generations (G3 in particular) is that they were horses, resembled horses, and appealed to horse lovers. G3.5 and even more so G4 strayed violently from looking like something that was supposed to be a horse. I might get a lot of hate from G1 fans for this, but while the G1 TV show did a great job of making the characters look like horses, the toys looked like Hippopotamuses. I loved the G1 cartoon, but the toys don't appeal to me at all. They did improve some over the years, but in general (ESPECIALLY the baby ponies) looked more like Hippos to me than horses. The G3 toyline in particular did the best job of looking like horses, and I'd love to see something go that route again.

While you're at it, let them ACT like horses!

In complete contradiction to what the MLP staff say they want, I really loved it in the first few seasons in G4 when they would nod to the fact that they were horses by giving them horse-like mannerisms once in a while, like making them whinny when they were surprised or excited (they did bring it back once recently for Shining Armor) and that one time in the Buffalo episode where Rainbow Dash snorted when she was angry. It was really clever.

Not so many main characters, yet still not focusing on any one particular pony

One thing that both G1 and G3 did right was not having a set cast of main characters that dominated the series. There were a few "spokesponies" that appeared often, but were more seen as... idk... like the "leaders" of the town? than "THESE are the MAIN characters that you're SUPPOSED to pay attention to!!!" It gets old focusing on the same characters for so long, and you can only drag out a character arc so far. That's why FiM has lost my attention. When you start out from the beginning by focusing on a different character or set of characters every episode, you could seemingly run the show as long as you wanted to and always have new material.

Bring back the wide character assortment in toys!

My Little Pony's "Thing" has always been, until now, to have a wide selection of characters to collect. If the character was in the show, there would (almost) always be a brushable toy figure of them that you could own, and then some. There was no shortage of designs and colors to choose from, and if they weren't in the show, that added to the creativity of playing with them because you could make up your own personality for them. With G4, all you get are the main characters, maybe 3 or 4 background characters, and 2 or 3 "creative" characters. I don't know about other kids or kids nowadays, but when I was little, I always loved to have empty slate characters that I could project my own ideas and personalities onto.

Don't you DARE make it 3D.

This is more of a personal preference than what may or may not benefit everyone, but PLEASE MLP. PLEASE don't fall into the "just another generic, dumb 3D kids' show" hole. PLEASE.

Make something wholesome that can still touch on not necessarily adult topics, but deep topics (like the reality of death) the way older shows weren't afraid to do.

Don't focus too much on being funny. Like the 3D trap, nothing makes civilized people who crave substance turn off your show like a cartoon that acts like the only emotion kids feel is humor. Witty and clever gags are good. Random is funny in moderation. But if that's all your show has going for it, people are going to brush it off at best, and rabidly hate it at worst. We need shows like G1 that could go on adventures and help characters overcome problems. Problems that often got deep, and even invoked empathy, sadness, or even fear. We need shows like G3 that could inspire us and ignite our dreams. We don't need more shows that have to rely on pop culture references, making every moment "funny", and breaking the fourth wall.

[iloveyoupittsburghpirates-blog]

It Will Never Be The Same, Pittsburgh Pirates

My Dearest Pittsburgh Pirates, 

I wasn’t planning on writing you until Spring Training but obviously things have occurred that need to be addressed. It took me a couple days to get up the nerve to do this. It’s one of the hardest letters I’ll ever write even if it all was inevitable. In a matter of 48 hours, you traded away your number one pitcher and the face of your franchise. Gerrit Cole was shipped to the World Series champion Houston Astros and former MVP Andrew McCutchen is on his way to San Francisco. Brutal. I’ve been in favor of trading Cole because with two years left before free agency I knew his value would do nothing but decline especially if he had another mediocre season. You also have some decent options in the farm system to potentially replace Cole. You have nothing like that for Cutch except maybe for the under-performing and often hurt former first round pick, Austin Meadows. This is arguably the saddest moment as a Pirates’ fan since Sid slid in 1992 and the aftermath doesn’t seem anymore promising. Damn you, Pittsburgh Pirates.

The return for Cutch and Cole has been ridiculed beyond belief. Out of everything I can complain about in this situation, the return isn’t one of them. Cole netted you Joe Musgrove, a pitcher who flew through the minors in dominant fashion known for quality control and a high groundball rate before finally arriving in the majors only to crash and burn. He pitched decently when called up in 2016 with a 4.06 ERA and a 1.21 WHIP in ten starts. Last year was a disaster. As a starter, he had a 6.12 ERA and opponents had a .908 OPS against him. He was finally relegated to the bullpen where he seemed to get back on track posting a 1.44 ERA and lowering OPS against to .565. He’s thrown less than 200 innings in the majors so with the help of Ray Searage he could potentially still turn into a good starting pitcher. They also received a hard throwing reliever, Michael Feliz, who could be a nice compliment to Felipe Rivero at the back of the bullpen. He’s 24 and had a down season last year (5.63 ERA 1.56 WHIP) after being much better in 2016 (4.43 ERA 1.18 WHIP). The peripherals are interesting. His FIP in ’16 and ’17 were 3.24 and 3.78 respectively. The most interesting thing about him is his K’s/9 which both years were a ridiculously impressive 13.2 and 13.1. His 3.0 and 4.1 BB/9 aren’t but that’s something Searage can fix. They also received an OF prospect, Jason Martin, who was the Astros 15th best prospect. He’s got some pop and athleticism but the former 8th round pick projects as a 4th outfielder. 

The last piece, and the other focal point of this trade with Musgrove, is 3B Colin Moran. With Jung-ho Kang not returning, you were desperate to fill his spot. Moran will be givwn that chance. He’s 25 years old, he’s 6′4″, and he bats lefty which is a bonus when you play at PNC Park. Moran, another former 1st round pick, was the Astros 9th best prospect but he had a very interesting turn around last season. In 2016, Moran was in AAA and played in 117 games hitting 10 homers with an OPS of .697. Not very good by any standards. According to a very interesting article by Baseball America, Moran rebuilt his entire swing before last season and focused more on implementing launch angles, the trend that changed baseball. His results with the new swing were staggering: 79 games, 18 homers, and an OPS of .916. He added 175 points just to his slugging percentage. If he would have played a full season he might have hit 35 homers. That doesn’t guarantee it will translate to the majors but there’s certainly more hope. For a player like Cole, who has slipped from a top 20 pitcher a few years ago to more like a top 40 starter last year, I’m content with this return.

For Cutch, I was less hopeful simply because he only has one year left on his contract and his cost is more than double Cole’s. He had a bounce back season last year but that’s after the worst season of his career. The return for Cutch was modest at best. Kyle Crick is a hard throwing relief pitcher with control problems. Searage could fix him too and then Crick could join Rivero, Feliz, and Kontos to make up a pretty impressive bullpen. The other piece was another outfielder, Bryan Reynolds, who was the Giants 4th best prospect but they are also known to have one of the worst farm systems in baseball. I could argue you would have been better off keeping Cutch, letting him leave in free agency at the end of the year, and taking the compensatory draft pick. To be fair, you haven’t been good at drafting in that part of the first round (Conner Joe, anyone?) but it’s moot at this point anyway. The Cutch trade, even more than the Cole trade, designates the end of an era. An era that could have led to much more success if treated properly. Cutch is a generational player. From 2013-2015, you had a chance to go all in so maybe you didn’t end up in the Wildcard games against Bumgarner or Arrieta, the two best pitchers in the world at those moments. You were so worried about mortgaging the future that you didn’t do anything to enhance the roster. Now we are in the future and you seem like Old Mother Hubbard and only Mitch Keller is in the cupboard. In 2016, you made your most egregious error yet by starting the season with embarrassing options in the starting rotation (Locke, Nicasio, Voggelsong) which you declared as a bridge year. You can’t afford to have “bridge years” when the clock on Cutch and Cole is ticking. You never went all in so that you could protect the future and now in Cutch’s tenure you won a total of three playoff games, you only had three winning seasons, and the bevy of prospects you so carefully protected haven’t amounted to much. All this era will be remembered for now is a wasted opportunity.

That might be too harsh. I always liked Cole and our success in those seasons couldn’t have happened without him. When I look back on this team though, I’ll remember Cutch. Cutch was the first time a Pirates’ player was my favorite player since Barry Bonds. I was convinced for years that I would never see another winning season in my lifetime until Cutch came along. There’s many memories I’ll hold dear for the rest of my life. Obviously the Black Out game, the best Pirates’ memory in my life, doesn’t happen without him. Cutch’s walkoff homer against St. Louis when we were down 5-4 in extra innings in that series before the All Star break will probably the be the specific game moment I remember him for the most similarly to how I always remember Bonds’ walkoff homer off Lee Smith when his arms shot in the air off the crack of the bat. The one moment that stands out most was during a game I attended in San Diego. After a win, Cutch ran out to two young Pirates’ fans in center field. He reached up and handed them his batting gloves. The excitement and joy on those kids’ faces gets me emotional to this day. The one kid repeatedly yelled, “I love you” as Cutch trotted back to the dugout. It’s a moment that made me proud to be fan of the Pirates. Proud to tell people that Cutch was my favorite player. Proud that this was the face of our franchise. In my 34 years of life, I have seen seven winning seasons and one of those was in 1988 when I was five and can’t remember it. Three of those winning seasons were because of Bonds, Bonilla, Van Slyke, and Drabek. The other three were because of some good pitching but mostly Cutch. I live in LA so I might make it a point to go to a couple more Dodgers’ games when they play the Giants to watch him. I will always root for him. The only thing left to say to Cutch is thank you. Thank you for ending the losing streak. Thank you for giving Pirates’ fans a reason to cheer again. Thank you for being one of the best Pirates ever. You will be sorely missed, Cutch.

 P.S. unfortunately stands for Pittsburgh Steelers and I just can’t right now. Between these two trades and that game, it was a brutal weekend to be a Pittsburgh sports’ fan. Let’s Go Pens…

[madisonrooney]

alright lets get some more collected thoughts out here

im still a little scatter brained but i wanted to get something at least somewhat more cohesive out before the night is over lol

- predicted ways to be wicked to be a dream sequence. check and mate. - i cant?? entirely remember what my thought was as far as why mal was blonde but i think i was right? that she dyed it to yknow fit in better? - ofc not a fan of forced heteronormative relationships but janelos had its moments i must admit. like, if i had to take it or leave it, id leave it, but it didnt have me cringing and rolling my eyes the whole time, yknow? - ok guys. go easy on me. but some of you know that im that ass who holds dog with a blog as one of their favorite shows of all time. im a sucker for that kind of stuff, always have been. so i was all over dude talking. im now aware im probably the only one who feels that way but oh well lol. and i thought it was bobby moynihan at first but wasnt sure? but then lo and behold lol. im glad they got a somewhat big name, and i really like his voice work so. - i knew id love the new VKs but i loved them even more than i expected. uma was a badass as anticipated. harry was so loud and crazy i loved him. and gil is my son omg?? im always a sucker for the big burly boys who happen to be sweet little idiots. and dylan was super cool when i met him at the RDMAs, shouldve known id end up loving his character. - chad is such a douche and he made me laugh so much lol. and you go audrey drop his ass lmao. - the whole thing with lonnie was great. glad to see her get more screen time, especially given that it fit in with her heritage and wasnt just random yknow. i loved everything about her plotline, and i liked that any romance between her and jay was subtle and implied. i can handle that. - beyond just that, we had a lot of lesser seen interactions, like between ben and evie and jay and mal. liked those a lot. - its very intriguing to see each VKs different feelings towards the isle. the part where evie made ben promise her she wouldnt have to stay there really struck me deep. she and mal have different histories there, so its understandable that they have different attachments to it. - as is common consensus, dizzy is adorable and im so happy she (and other isle kids it seems) are gonna have a chance to go to auradon prep. - dove got me hyped for a very layered, insecure, developed mal and naturally, she delivered. i think she had a very real relatable story and i really liked that. - in mal’s story and in others, there were some deeper implications that i found really interesting. like how uma said beast was the one who trapped them all there when really the children are innocent. sure this was addressed in the first movie but this gave us a chance to think about it a bit more. i also liked the message of “you dont have to be one thing or another, you can be a mix of whatever you want” i thought that was pretty original and creative?? and could be interpreted as a metaphor for gender/sexuality (among other parts of the movie). - a lot of people are saying the pacing was bad and i can kinda agree to some extent but at the same time i watched it with commercials and thats the first time ive watched a new disney show or movie with commercials (save for one gmw ep that id already seen at a taping anyway) in a year and a half so that kinda threw me off. plus i had to watch it on lifetime which i think had more ads than DC did. - one thing that did confuse me tho was mal’s decision process of where to stay or where not to as the movie went on. like she just...went back to auradon without even thinking about it (but i guess that was to escape uma, and then jay offering to take her back kinda balanced that out). but her official decision to stay was a bit...confusing to me?? - okay yah so dragon mal is something ive been dreaming of for who knows how long and i never genuinely hoped for or even expected it to happen in canon so the fact that it did made me RIDICULOUSLY HAPPY. (im a slut for dragons for those who dont know). and i also hoped for uma to go full ursula which she did so that was awesome. - even tho i knew this earlier this week, the soundtrack is baller. its going down is my fav. chillin like a villain is a bop. space between....is gay. its all great. - im a SLUT for parallels so any parallels to the first movie were a plus for me - long awaited bal kiss yay!!! and more than one no less!! - oh!! and of course!!! dove is adorable/flaming hot/angry angsty baby all at the same time look at my girl go

so all in all, it gave me a ton of things i wanted, some of which i didnt even expect to get, raised the stakes, built on the characters and added some great new ones, had fantastic music and dancing, payed homage to the original movie but also made it its own, and overall was a super fun exciting ride! sure it had a few issues here and there, but thats to be expected of a DCOM. what matters most to me is that i love this franchise and i had a fantastic time watching this new installment.

[animationnut]

To Gravity Falls, From Piedmont: Chapter 28

Summary: It’s a long way until next summer. Until then, Dipper and Mabel share their daily antics and life problems with their lifelong friends and attentive great-uncles through an endless string of e-mails. Distance makes the heart grow fonder after all, and there’s no place Dipper and Mabel love more than Gravity Falls.  Note: In which Mabel and Dipper switch places. If the idea of Dipper dressing as a girl and Mabel dressing as a guy makes you uncomfortable, here's your warning.

                                                     Chapter List

To: Mabel Pines (ShootingStarRainbowUnicorn); Dipper Pines (GhostHarasserfan)

From: Wendy Corduroy (Lumberchick)

Subject: Hollywood stars in your neighbourhood

Yo dudes.

I just read that the crew of The Sarcophagus' Curse is coming to do a promotional stunt in Piedmont for their latest film. Since it's Dipper's favourite film of like ever, I'm not bothering to ask if you're going to meet them. Snag me an autograph from Leila Petti, will you? She's a kick-butt actress.

See all messages in this thread (Expand)

Mabel Pines: Dipper would if he could. But he can't. He's been moping about it for the last two days.

Dipper Pines: It's typical. The cast of my favourite film franchise is coming on the one day I'm already busy. Life really is unfair.

Wendy Corduroy: That sucks. You can't get out of whatever you're doing?

Dipper Pines: My robotics club is getting ready for an upcoming bot-fighting tournament. We have a meeting after school and I need a decent excuse in order to miss it. Like a severe illness. Otherwise I'll get kicked out.

Wendy Corduroy: Bot-fighting sounds super rad, but it's not an once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Mabel Pines: He wants to finish the year with the club so he'll get into the high school robotics club. Apparently it's competitive.

Dipper Pines: It is. And as much as I want to, I can't skip out. We worked really hard on our robot and it wouldn't be fair if I just left them to it.

Wendy Corduroy: Well, what about Mabel? She can get the autographs for you…and me.

Mabel Pines: I could totally do it.

Dipper Pines: I know, but it's just not the same as meeting them myself. This would be a great time to clone myself.

Mabel Pines: Your lesson was clearly not learned.

Wendy Corduroy: What?

Dipper Pines: She's just making a joke. Which is not funny.

Wendy Corduroy: You know what, you already have a clone—sort of.

Mabel Pines: He does?

Wendy Corduroy: Yeah, you.

Dipper Pines: Pretty sure my clubmates would notice the difference between me and Mabel.

Wendy Corduroy: Not if you switch places and disguise as each other.

Mabel Pines: We haven't done that since we were super little.

Dipper Pines: I don't think that's going to fly. She's, you know, obviously a girl and I'm obviously not.

Wendy Corduroy: Come on, it's the perfect solution. You guys are pretty similar in facial structure and body shape and you could probably imitate each other's voice. No one will know.

Mabel Pines: It sounds like fun!

Dipper Pines: Seriously?

Mabel Pines: Why not? Besides, I've got the best Dipper impression.

Wendy Corduroy: Mabel can go to your club and you can go meet the stars of The Sarcophagus' Curse.

Dipper Pines: As Mabel. I'll meet A-List Hollywood actors dressed as a girl. Why can't I go as myself and have Mabel dress as me?

Wendy Corduroy: There's going to be a lot of cameras snapping pictures and a lot of people. It might get back to your club members and then they'll realize they were tricked.

Dipper Pines: Which still would not be as awkward as getting busted for dressing as my sister.

Wendy Corduroy: They won't knoooow.

Mabel Pines: You can't reschedule your meeting and you can't miss it. This is a solution!

Dipper Pines: You are way too excited about this.

Wendy Corduroy: What do you say, Dipper?

Dipper Pines: …fine. Why not? I've done far more embarrassing things.

Mabel Pines: Plus you really really want to meet Danny Devro.

Dipper Pines: It's a great motivator, actually. Even with the knowledge that I won't pull this off.

Wendy Pines: Dudes, no one is going to notice. Trust me.

Dipper Pines: We'll see.

Mabel Pines: Operation Switcharoo is a go!

"Found it!"

Dipper paused his wrestling with a pair of light blue leggings to call, "Hang on a second!"

He managed to yank on the article of clothing and adjusted the short skirt, which was a darker shade of blue. Dipper then shrugged on a sweater that had silver and blue gem swirls on the front. Outfit complete, he swung open the door where his sister was patiently waiting on the other side.

"This is a bad idea."

"Won't know until we try it," said Mabel cheerfully. She was already wearing Dipper's orange T-shirt, dark blue vest and shorts. In her hands was a wig, long brown hair that was a shade darker than her natural hair colour.

Dipper gingerly took it, rolling the artificial strands of hair through his fingers. "Why do you even have this?"

"For Halloween, a long time ago. When the hairdresser cut my hair way too short and I needed it longer for a costume. It came in handy then so I decided to keep it. Good thing, huh?"

"Yeah," said Dipper flatly, adjusting the wig over his own short locks. Mabel handed him a brush and he smoothed out the tangles. When he was finished, Mabel was staring at him with an awed stare. "What?"

"Pretty sure this is going to work out fine."

Brow furrowing in confusion, Dipper approached the mirror and was stricken by his reflection. With the addition of the wig, he looked strikingly like Mabel. "I don't know how to feel about this."

"Just a few more finishing touches," declared Mabel.

She took some blush to use to redden Dipper's cheeks, foundation to take the redness away from his nose and used mascara to elongate his adjusted the wig so that hair fell over his forehead, covering his birthmark. "Wow," was all Dipper could find to say.

"Tell me about it."

Mabel removed a clip from the pocket of her shorts and piled her long hair on top of her head. She took Dipper's ushanka and pulled it on, covering the excess of hair from sight. As she used the blush to redden the tip of her nose, Dipper squinted at her eyelashes, suddenly releasing they were much shorter than before.

"Wait, what did you do to your eyelashes?"

"Trimmed them with cuticle scissors."

Dipper gaped at her. "That's dangerous!"

"It's not the first time I've done it. But this is the first time I've got them this short. You hardly have eyelashes compared to me."

"I think you're taking this way too seriously."

"I've got a part to play, bro!"

"Those theater lessons you took when you were seven really left an impression."

Mabel finished her makeup application process and they stood side-by-side in front of the mirror. There were some things they couldn't mask, such as Mabel's cheeks being rounder than Dipper's, miniscule difference in height and Mabel's braces.

"That's a problem," remarked Dipper, gesturing to the silver gear adorning Mabel's teeth.

Mabel thought for a moment and said, "I'll be right back." She disappeared and returned a minute later carrying a white bacteria mask. She strapped it over her mouth and swung out her hands in victory. "Voila!"

"I'm changing my mind. This is most definitely not a good idea."

"You're sick and don't want to spread it around! Problem solved."

Dipper scratched the back of his neck, feeling the wool material of the sweater rub against his skin. "What about me? I can't magically acquire braces."

"You're going to be in the city, where no one knows Mabel Pines wears braces," she answered, unconcerned. "Even if you run into some kids from school, it's not like they talk to us anyway."

Knowing she had a point, Dipper looked once more at their reflection in the mirror. "I know we're twins, but this is still freaky."

"Freakier than the time we switched bodies on the magic rug?"

Dipper blinked. "Right. That was a thing that happened. Never mind then."

…

Mabel approached the house of Dipper's robotics club friend, Justin. The garage was open and she stepped inside. "Hey, guys."

The three males standing around a worn wooden table glanced up. "Uh…hey, Dipper," spoke Justin, eyeing Mabel oddly. "What's with the mask?"

"I've got a nasty cold. I'd hate to spread it around."

"Thanks for the consideration, but a couple of germs won't stop us." Len kept his eyes on the small, square, tank-like robot as he tightened the bolts. "We're winning the tournament this year."

The look of utter seriousness and determination on their faces caused Mabel some bewilderment. She knew that the bot-fighting tournament was important, but she didn't realize it was such a big deal. Dipper was excited about these events, sure, but not as intense.

"Right. So what can I do?"

"Did you get the wiring finished from last time?"

"Er…no, I'll get right on that."

Mabel removed a blue notebook from Dipper's bag, which he had told her contained instructions for the mechanisms of the robot they were constructing. He had known that he would be tasked with finishing the wiring, and wrote everything down that Mabel needed to do in the notebook.

She turned to the correct page, where there was a coloured diagram with notes written neatly in the page beside it. Mabel crouched next to the open panel and studied the red, green and blue wires coiled together inside.

Okay…you can do this. It's like a puzzle. And Dipper's already told you where the pieces go.

She pulled on a pair of rubber working gloves and a pair of pliers. She started to twist certain wires together and splicing others apart. She was relieved that Dipper had laid everything out for her to follow, because while she was a whiz with glue, wool and scissors, she knew nothing of robot building.

"Ouch!"

She let out a yelp when she accidentally pinched herself with the pliers. She hastily looked around to see if anyone had caught her high-pitched sound, but the three males were intent on finishing their own tasks.

Right. Dipper's scream isn't exactly the manliest to begin with.

It was twenty minutes later when Mabel finished her work and she screwed the panel back into place. "Finished," she declared.

"Same," spoke Justin.

"I think we're as ready as we can be," said Len, wiping his hands on his jeans.

"Anyone have any last-minute suggestions for what we can add?" asked Diego, pushing his dark hair out of his eyes.

"Glitter."

It was an automatic response, leaving her lips before Mabel could think about it. She stilled as the three turned to stare at her with odd expressions. "What?" asked Justin.

Mabel shrugged nonchalantly. "It looks sort of bland, is what I mean. Isn't there something we could use to liven it up?"

Diego glanced at Justin. "Dipper's got a point. It does look sort of boring. At least the other robots have lights on them."

Justin thought for a minute. "We've got some glow-in-the-dark paint. We could use that."

He went over to a wooden shelf and removed a metal can. Together they decorated the robot, painting the base with green flames and the robotics club logo on the front. Diego added skull and crossbones on the back. Justin turned off the lights and an eerie green glow surrounded their metal contraption.

"That looks awesome," said Diego with a grin. "Good idea, Dipper." He raised his knuckles for a fist-bump and Mabel returned it. Diego blinked and added, "Wow, your hands are soft."

"All right guys, I think we're all set. The robot's finished, charged and we have fresh batteries in the controller." Justin went over to a bag near the door and removed four grey work jumpsuits, where their school logo was embroidered over the pocket. "We'll have to leave soon if we want to get there in time to register."

Mabel blinked. "What?"

"Our competition is tonight, remember?" When Len got a blank stare in return, he turned to look accusingly at Justin. "Didn't you tell Dipper that the tournament got rescheduled to tonight?"

"I thought I did." Justin checked his text history. "Oh. Sending failed. Sorry, man."

"It's okay."

Justin handed her a jumpsuit and Mabel felt her face flare up when he started removing his shirt to change. She hastily retreated to a corner of the garage and yanked the jumpsuit over her clothes, knowing she would probably be hot with the extra layers.

She then took out Dipper's phone (because her pink sparkly case would be a dead giveaway) and started texting.

'So your robotics tournament is actually tonight. Surprise!'

…

Dipper stood in the long, twisting line of people stretching down the blocks. He had already been waiting for about two hours and now he could see the Hollywood stars if he inched out to peer further ahead. They were stationed at a table in front of a large poster advertising their latest movie, along with cardboard cut-outs and other promotional materials.

He let out a quiet sigh, crossing his arms over his chest. He could feel sweat gathering beneath the wig and under his armpits, and he wondered for the umpteenth time how Mabel was able to endure such weather in heavy clothing.

No one had given him a second look, not through his trip through the city and not as he waited in line. He was glad Mabel had used waterproof makeup on him, or else the sheen of sweat on his face would have been his undoing. He wasn't quite sure how he was going to disguise his voice, or if it would be better if he didn't talk at all.

A buzzing sounded within the white purse slung over his shoulder, which Mabel had given him to store his stuff. He normally used his backpack to carry his items around, or packed it inside of his vest, but he had to make do with one of Mabel's purses (which he had to admit was pretty handy—it had a lot more pockets to utilize).

Dipper dug out the cellphone and was momentarily confused to see his name flash across the screen until he remembered that he and Mabel had switched phones. He read the text, his stomach immediately sinking with panic.

'What?! It's not supposed to be for another couple of weeks!'

'I guess the text Justin sent you didn't go through. Don't worry, bro. I'm sure it'll go fine. I can film it if you want to see your bot throw-down.'

'That's not the problem. The problem is that I'm controlling the robot. Which means YOU'RE controlling the robot.'

'Oh snap.'

'Yeah.'

'Is that in your little book?'

'I thought tonight was just a regular meeting, so no, it's not in my book. If I tell you the controls, do you think you could do it?'

'Is it like a video game?'

'Pretty much, yeah.'

'Lay it on me.'

Dipper typed out the instructions for the robot's controls, triple-checked to make sure he hadn't forgotten a single detail, and paused. For a moment, he hesitated, debating on whether or not he should abandon his mission and go finish out the year for his robotics club.

But he was so close to getting the autographs, and he'd come this far. He'd been to plenty of robot fights before with his club members, and if they won all their battles tonight, they would move on to the state-wide tournament.

And he trusted Mabel would annihilate the competition. He hit send.

'Got it. Don't worry bro, we'll win this.'

'I know you will. If you feel nervous, you can always ask one of the others to do it. They might get suspicious, but they'll take over.'

'Are you kidding? I've always wanted to fight with one of your bots before. It'll be fun. Plus, considering we fought a crazy triangle demon with the Shacktron, this will be nothing.'

'Fair point. Good luck!'

'Thanks!'

As the next hour or so passed, Dipper inched his way further in the line. He eventually made his way to the front, his heart pounding with excitement. Hands trembling slightly with nerves, he stepped up to the table, draped with a deep red tablecloth, where the four main stars were sitting—Danny Devro, Leila Petti, Joshua Jans and Henry Douglas.

"Hey, sweetheart," greeted Leila.

"Hi."

It was the first time Dipper was grateful for his high-pitched squeak whenever he got nervous, for it made his voice passable to a female. He extended the small glossy movie poster he had brought with him for and the actors started to sign it.

"What's your name?" asked Danny.

"Dipper."

Oh, shoot.

The foursome exchanged glances, eyebrows raising. "Dipper?" repeated Danny in bemusement. "I'm guessing that's a nickname."

"Uh…yeah."

Intrigued, Henry leaned forwards. "Don't leave us hanging, girl. How did you end up with a nickname like that?"

Mindful of the wig on his head, Dipper carefully nudged the brown bangs aside, revealing a portion of his birthmark that the strands hid from view. "Because of this. It's in the shape of the Big Dipper."

"That's amazing," reacted Joshua.

Dipper brightened, letting the hair fall back into place. "Thanks!"

"All right, Dipper, important question." Danny passed the poster on to Leila and then gestured between himself and Joshua. "Who's your favourite?"

"You," answered Dipper automatically.

Danny grinned. "Danny Nation represent."

"Give me a break," muttered Joshua.

Dipper's eyes widened. "I mean, you're great too—"

"Don't feel bad for telling the truth, you made the right choice," interjected Danny. "I'm way hotter than he is."

Joshua glared. "You're only slightly in the lead!"

At Dipper's confused expression, Leila giggled. "It's their dumb contest. They take tallies from the female fans to see who is more popular. It's super shallow, but then again so are they."

"We can hear you," said Danny in annoyance.

"That's not what I—" Dipper tried to interject, but Joshua interrupted.

"Seriously, it's cool. I don't mind."

Dipper was about to insist that he had meant something completely different when he said Danny was his favourite, but was distracted by Leila signing his poster. He removed another one from his bag, a poster of Leila's movie character. "Would you mind signing one for my friend Wendy?"

"Sure thing."

Soon the posters were back in his hands and Dipper said sincerely, "Thanks. You're all amazing. These movies are my favourites."

"We're only amazing because of fans like you," returned Henry.

"Yo, Danny, give a member of your Nation a kiss."

"Gladly."

Dipper did not get time to protest, for Danny leaned over the table and kissed him on the cheek. Stuttering out a goodbye, Dipper hastily retreated, face red and throat beginning to ache from the strain of using a high voice.

Wait until Mabel hears this one.

…

The location of the tournament was the local community center, one of the large meeting rooms transformed into sections for the robot matches. Mabel and the guys had made it to the final match, where if they won, they would move on to the state-wide tournament.

By this point Mabel had gotten the hang of steering the robot. She was currently in the middle of a heated match, their small robot going against a heavily-armoured opponent. The exterior was covered in spikes and below that was a thick metal, making it difficult to land hits.

"Oh man, that thing is tearing us up," muttered Diego.

Mabel's eyes narrowed. "Not for much longer."

Okay. I need to find out how to hit that thing. It's outside material is too strong. But…I wonder what the underneath looks like.

Mabel studied the other robot, which was bigger and heavier than theirs. "Let's see how well you can turn corners."

She pretended to retreat, guiding the robot away from the enemy. It followed in pursuit and Mabel waited until it was close enough before making a sharp turn and whizzing past. The other robot tried to copy the turn, its weight making it tilt slightly. Seizing this opportunity, Mabel charged her robot forwards caught the exposed bit of the enemy robot, managing to tilt it over completely. It's underside was not nearly as protected and Mabel activated the water gun of their robot, soaking the circuits and frying the system, causing the enemy bot to shut down.

"Yes!" cheered Justin.

"Way to go Dipper!" whooped Diego.

"We're moving on to the state tournament!" exclaimed Len.

Mabel smiled broadly, pumping her fist in victory. Justin retrieved their robot and the four went to receive their medals for winning the school district championship. They shook hands with the other school team before leaving.

"We're going to get some ice-cream, are you coming?" asked Diego.

Mabel shook her head. "No, I have to get home. But thanks anyway!"

"No, thank you. We wouldn't have won if you weren't an expert on these controls," said Len.

"I've had a lot of practice," replied Mabel. "It's just like a video game. I'll see you guys at school!"

"Hey, take a cough drop when you get home!" called Justin as Mabel jogged away. "Your voice sounds terrible!"

…

'We won, bro!'

Sitting near the back of the bus, Dipper read Mabel's text and smiled. 'I had no doubts. Thanks.'

'No problem. It was actually really fun. I took some pictures. I'll show them to you after. Oh, and Justin clearly doesn't listen to you, because he thinks my impression of you was a symptom of your illness. I don't know what's with him, because I nailed it.'

'The bacteria mask probably threw you off.'

'Yeah, that must be it. So how did it go with you?'

'Great! I got my autographs, and the actors are actually really cool people. Danny Devro kissed my cheek, so that's a thing.'

'No way!'

'Yeah. He asked me who my favourite was, between him and Joshua. When I answered that it was him, I didn't realize it was a poll to see who has the most female fans.'

'Boys.'

'Tell me about it. Are you home?'

'Yup. I don't know how you manage to go around with the ushanka all the time, I thought my brain was cooking.'

'I'm used to my head being warm. How do you wear your sweaters year-round?'

'I don't mind my upper body being warm, so long as my legs and head are cool.'

'Your clothes are very comfortable, but this is the last time I'll switch places with you.'

'Ditto. I missed my sweater and glitter. But hey, it went pretty well!'

'Much to my amazement.'

'Operation Switcharoo is a success!'

Dipper was about to type out a response when the phone started buzzing, indicating an incoming video call from Stan. He instinctively clicked accept and Stan's face filled the small screen. Stan opened his mouth to say something, froze, and stared blankly. Dipper returned the stare, eyes wide, and said (in as high a voice as he could muster on a crowded public bus), "I'm going to have to call you back."

He hastily hung up and texted Mabel back.

'Uh. Yeah. Sort of. We're probably gonna hear from Grunkle Stan soon. Just saying.'

To: Dipper Pines (GhostHarasserfan); Mabel Pines (ShootingStarRainbowUnicorn)

From: Grunkle Stan (StantheMan)

Subject: I probably shouldn't ask but I'm going to anyway

I send a video call request to Mabel's phone, expecting Mabel, and I see Dipper dressed as Mabel. Is there something someone needs to tell me?

See all messages in this thread (Expand)

Mabel Pines: It's a long story.

Dipper Pines: Wendy can tell it. It's mostly her fault. Wendy!

Wendy Corduroy: Did you guys pull it off?

Mabel Pines: We did!

Grunkle Stan: Pull what off?

Wendy Corduroy: Dipper wanted to go and get autographs from the cast of the latest movie in The Sarcophagus' Curse franchise. But he had a robotics club meeting he couldn't miss. I suggested that Mabel could go to the robotics club in his place while he went to meet the cast dressed as Mabel. They switched places.

Grunkle Stan: Gotcha.

Dipper Pines: That's it? No other questions? No comments on the fact I was wearing a skirt?

Grunkle Stan: It's a free country. I figured there was a story why you were dressed as your sister and now I know. The curiosity was killing me.

Wendy Corduroy: And you thought someone would catch you, Dipper.

Dipper Pines: Someone did catch me. Grunkle Stan.

Wendy Corduroy: Well he doesn't count.

Grunkle Stan: Watch yourself, missy.

Dipper Pines: I know we're twins, but I guess we look more similar than I thought. But there were some differences that we had to cover. Mabel wore a bacteria mask to cover her braces and I wore a wig. Turns out my voice can go quite high, which was a relief today but overall slightly annoying.

Grunkle Stan: Masters of disguise. Just like your old Grunkle.

Mabel Pines: Our family is amazing.

Wendy Corduroy: Did you get an autograph for me?

Dipper Pines: I did.

Wendy Corduroy: Sweet.

Dipper Pines: I'll mail it to you this week. Now I'm going to take a shower and have a The Sarcophagus' Curse marathon.

Wendy Corduroy: Was it worth it?

Dipper Pines: Yeah. It was.

Mabel Pines: I think I might see if I can join the robotics club next year. It's a blast.

Grunkle Stan: I'll talk to you runts later. Oh, and Dipper, don't hang up on me again.

Dipper Pines: Sir yes sir!

Mabel Pines: Ha! You got in trouble!

[renaroo]

Any thoughts on Venus de Milo(tmnt)?

BOY DO I

I wonder if this is related at all to MovieBob’s recent video about her being the worst female character ever because the moment I watched it I wondered if anyone would be asking me about her. 

So. Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation is... a thing that in itself is almost too difficult to explain outside of “you had to be there”, but I’m going to do my best. Because I was there. Oh, man. Was I there. 

While I had VHS tapes of the original ‘80s TMNT cartoon I grew up with and watched religiously, the show stopped airing new episodes before I was born, and stopped resyndication by the time I was four. So while I definitely grew up with them and loved them and read the Archie comics religiously as a kid and watched the original live action movies pretty much every weekend we rented movies from the down the road movie rental store (anyone remember those?), my actual first memories of watching any TMNT show as it aired was the 1998 flop show, Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation. 

In fact, I distinctly remember getting the chicken pox that year and part of the only good thing that came from it was I got to watch episodes of NT:TNM without impediment from my then-one year old sister because they kept her away from me as if I had the plague. 

Which I kinda did, but regardless. 

It was actually just 4 years later, in 2001, that I’d come to build an online presence with TERRIBLE Pokemon, Inuyasha, and Star Fox fanfics that I first started looking up geocities communities for various fandoms and one of those was TMNT. 

If anyone remembers geocities or pre-ff.net fandom lore in the Ninja Turtles circle, here’s how old I am: I, personally, used to talk to the likes of Kali Gargoyle, Azure the Turtle, Kat, Sakan (FREAKfreak), Ame Musashi, Buslady, and Machias -- a statement that I can almost guarantee means absolutely NOTHING to 99.9999% of you.

Now, an interesting thing about the fandom culture just before the 2003 cartoon aired was that there was actually a large contingent of the fandom that were defensive of Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation and thought of it as being only as bad as the current Power Rangers season of the time (which was the one right before Dino Thunder, so I can’t remember which one it was). In fact, people were so on the bandwagon for it, that the geocities community started an online petition -- which at the time was a difficult thing to do because it meant everyone sending a single email chain around and around so everyone can sign it with their online names and then email it to Saban, who owned the rights. The petition was to allow the show to have another season and tie up its loose ends with the (most likely misinformed) opinion that Next Mutation had had better viewership than the Power Rangers season it ran side-by-side with. 

Did it deserve it? With my nostalgia goggles off, having bought the DVDs of the series and watched it within the last four years, can I say Next Mutation and Venus de Milo deserved that type of fandom swelling in support?

...

Um. Noooooo?

Okay, my extensive fandom history aside, I cannot defend The Next Mutation because... it was really bad. Like, made the Shredder a good guy in the pilot and got rid of the most iconic villains for the rest of the series bad. Instead we had the Dragon Lord (eh) and Wick (his servant, again eh), Silver the Gorilla... gangster whose gang came straight out of the (also flop) Dick Tracey movie, and... 

Vam Mi. Who was probably the first indication my parents had that I was into girls. Because. Well shit. I mean. 

A Chinese vampire obsessed with the female of the show and wore tight leather and heeellllooooooooo

Vam Mi is actually the thing I remember the best about the show and I could probably write an essay on defending the storyline “Unchain My Heart” which goddamn if we’d had episodes like that throughout the show and a villain like Vam Mi throughout the show, well it probably would’ve gotten that mythical second sense that would have made sense of the other garbage. 

But I’ve obviously gotten away from your question. Which is about Venus herself. Or, as I prefer to call her (for reason we’ll get into) Mei Peih Chi. 

The reason I’ve had all this build up and quandering about the show itself is because Mei herself is such a product of this series that removing them from each other leaves out how things went so wrong with an idea that came from such an obviously positive place. “Hey, little girls deserve to want to be Ninja Turtles, too!”

Best intentions. Worst executions. 

If you read a lot of my meta, you know that I actually despise the concept of “Mary Sues” and how female characters are carelessly cast aside by people for basically having attributes of any main character. But. Well. Let’s just look at Mei’s character in its context: 

Mei is a fifth turtle who was in the same bowl that fell into the sewers and was mutated along with the turtles (aka, does not have her own unique origin story and was there from the beginning but WE’RE JUST LEARNING ABOUT IT), she was found by a Chinese monk (Chinese, not Japanese which is the ethnicity of the Hamato family of the turtles and Yoshi, sort of glazing over the cultures as being interchangeable), was raised as his daughter in the monastery back in China even though... he seemed to somehow know about the others Turtles and Splinter and inform her where to go after his death in the pilot?, and she -- in a series called Ninja Turtles, was not a ninja but a Shinobi priestess with psychic abilities. 

Oh, and throughout the show they keep bringing up the fact that none of them are blood-related, despite the turtles being brothers being a cornerstone to the franchise since the 80s comics, for the sole purpose of having a love triangle between Raph, Venus, and Leo without it being incest. 

(This hilariously backfired and became the justification for the ever growing T-Cest fandom that shipped the boys together for years afterward by the by)

She is a fish out of water, has zero fun throughout the series, is not as physically strong in a fight as the boys, and is basically the plot equivalent of Deus Ex Machina in the end because Magic > Ninjitsu in a franchise that is completely dependent on the physicality and Ninja-ness of the characters. 

Also. Despite Mei growing up in China, still learning English and Western culture, and having an obvious struggle with mourning the loss of her home in China and her Chinese father, in the goddamn pilot the main guys rename her “Venus de Milo” because she knocked the arms off a statue and they thought it was funny. Because while the guys are named after Renaissance artists, Mei is renamed and for all purposes “Anglicanized” for an art object. Like. It’s difficult to understand who okayed any of this. 

Like. Were they thinking?

Mei, from the start, was kind of a broken character with a gross costume design (turtle boobs turtle boobs what’re you gonna do there’s a turtle with fucking boobs) that still forces girls to see themselves as thin and demure even if they’re bulky, shell having turtles. BECAUSE WE GOTTA HAVE THEM HIPS AND CURVES i guess. 

She’s so loathed by Peter Laird (co-creator of the TMNT) that he made the overly drastic declaration that he’ll never allow there to be female turtles in the franchise again, period. Which I kinda... find extreme. 

Because....

As bad as she is. As problematic as she was. 

.... When I was six, I loved her. 

How could I not love her? She and Vam Mi were the only girls on the whole damn show! (April and Casey didn’t even get cameos). The face value of representation for a long time made me defensive of Mei and of the show because of how it made me feel as a kid.

It’s that Maya Angelou quote personified: “People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.“

I didn’t remember how bad the props and puppetry was until I rewatched the show. I didn’t remember how annoying Venus’ “spot” in the team was as immediate den mother and object to be fought over (like Raph and Leo needed more to fight over really). I didn’t even remember that the show kept pushing for the Turtles to not be a family. 

I remembered having a lot of affection for seeing a female ninja turtle along with the characters I had grown up loving. I mean, seriously, do I have to post that picture again of me as a baby in the scariest Ninja Turtle themed grocery store ride in the history of ever?

So she’s bad. And there needs to be more effort in being progressive and being more inclusive, especially for old properties trying to adapt to the changing times. 

And I’m someone who believes wholeheartedly that any idea can be done well. 

.... Venus was not done well.

But she had her part in making me a lifetime Ninja Turtle fan. A complicated, twisted, only could happen in the late part of the Clinton administration way. 

So I will criticize the hell out of Mei, out of the series, but I’ll always be mindful of how it made a six-year-old Rena excited every Saturday. 

I’ll remember that and the hot vampire in leather. 

[thornburgrealty]

Null content_type just out video amp_url content took

Sidney Eley, the Executive Director of the Chamber, who knew , taught his children and worked with him over the years spent nearly hour with me telling me the stories of the that he and this community lovingly remember simply as . He had 36 saves Sunday’s 3 overtime victory against the Islanders Brooklyn. You get a to meet new people and see different things and be part of different communities. We’re going through the correct steps, Gase said. When I’m with my family, I’m quiet, because I’m the youngest. Before fullbacks became endangered species, Finn also spent four seasons as a lead blocker for the Giants’ Authentic Chris Chelios Jersey all-time and single- rushing leader, Tiki Barber. I think is a visual learner, and just because Wilks was saying it, maybe he didn’t necessarily understand it, Tillman said. He http://www.isfcusco.com/david-west-jersey-c-1_15.html caught 425 passes for 6 yards and 53 touchdowns his seven seasons with Green Bay, playing a key role the Packers’ Super-Bowl run 2010. If he failed, Paradis would use his business economics degree to become a financial adviser. … of Jason and Erica Robinson … Born on Feb. He’s clearly ahead of Gilkey on the depth chart.

Fiser pinned Central Wise’s Trevor Shupe for first. A former UDFA out of Missouri Valley College, is being signed out of the little-known Football League. Cabrera came into the game hitting .345 lifetime against the Indians nba basketball jerseys with 40 nfl jerseys 2017 homers and 134 RBI. Rather take Nkemdiche if you take yet another risk. The first day cheap jerseys from china out here I had the little jitterbugs, the Cincinnati Bengals linebacker said late Thursday. First nfl jerseys 2017 of all, at the combine, there are 36 independent doctors and trainers making their conclusions a numerical system about how they rate each player relative to their previous injuries and concerns. We would work on drills and shoot some hoops. – Keim called it cheap jerseys from china embarrassing the Cardinals had already lost two home . And if you’re interested the ads, you have a surprise store.

When a reporter posed the question that just shut down the best team baseball, the Pirates pitcher politely corrected the statement: It’s just opportunity to salvage the cheap jerseys from china series, said. It looks like there is no Newsday subscription account associated with this login information. , a career 37 percent 3-point known for making nfl jerseys 2017 huge shots with the Miami Heat during their championship runs, said he doesn’t feel any move to bring the 3-point line back would affect the league’s top tier shooters, and that it would open up the floor for more offense by creating more room that cheap jerseys from china defenses have to cover. , the chance for to have a significant increase snaps absolutely possible. Suggs signed a four-year contract extension February 2014 that included an $11 million signing bonus. But, at the same time, when people critiqued me like that, it let me know that I have some type of ability that most ‘t have, if you’re critiquing everything that I do. Even during his best 2010, Bowe started with nine catches for 152 yards and one touchdown. Please send help. Roenick was traded to the Los Kings following the 2004 NHL lockout; nba basketball jerseys he returned to the Coyotes on a one-year deal after a single Los . 1 the draft and to get Ovechkin. And even that game saw the Packers score 24 points the first half, eight http://www.authenticgoldenknightssale.com/cody-eakin-c-1_7.html thereafter.

A 2014 Pro Bowler, Parkey, replace him. Barron, the Bucs’ rookie cornerback from Alabama had his first Cornelius Lucas Youth Jersey career interception and had eight tackles a romp over Kansas City. During ‘s first living at 104 Townsend there were three other players from Philadelphia and six from Hampton Roads, Va. said Raising the minimum wage is not the answer. These conversations need to happen and I think it’s something that can bring everybody closer. For more specific information on how to update your browser –Click Here or visit your browser’s website. February, he helped the United States win a silver medal at the 2010 Olympics. When you come injured, you know you’re not 100 percent and it’s not very fun. Los pitcher Brett was hustling his pitches to the plate, nba basketball jerseys soaked with water, trying to get the inning done before even more rain.

wanted to stay compact and maintain direction but his methods directly led to keeping his posture forward longer and moving away from the ideal rotation of his upper body. qdog112 says: Mar 27 3 PM CAVEAT: I’m Gettleman’s biggest critic, but adding Boykin is better than not having him. But you can’t easily sell a who looks cheap jerseys from china like him as our future franchise quarterback, cheap jerseys from china who’s taking us to the Promised Land. Hindsight, when you review the and look at things you can get better at, that was probably one of top things on list. Maybe too excited. There’s none better Delon Wright Womens Jersey . They suffered their injuries against the Jaguars.

from WordPress http://www.thornburgrealty.com/2018/06/26/null-content_type-just-out-video-amp_url-content-took/

[cosmicmapping-blog]

Thoughts on The Last Jedi (Spoilers)

Yesterday, After two weeks of narrowly avoiding several spoilers in the form of MovieWeb articles and obnoxious Twitter posts, I finally got the chance to check out the latest installment and 8th episode of the Star Wars saga, The Last Jedi.

I had my apprehensions about the film going in. The “Porg” creatures seen in the trailers and marketing immediately reminded me of soulless capitalistic entities such as Minions created exclusively for maximizing profit scared me that Disney might be heading down the wrong path with the franchise. Although, knowing Breaking Bad director Rian Johnson was at the helm of this film always gave me excitement and hope that this film would end up being a worthy addition to the Star Wars mythos. I mean, Come on now. A Star Wars movie directed by the guy who was responsible for some of the best episodes of BREAKING BAD. This had to have been good. Different, But good. At let me tell you... He did not disappoint.

What I love about this movie is that it TAKES RISKS. Sure, It has some dumb moments clearly shoe-horned in for toddlers, But Ech. They never jump the shark with these moments and everything still feels like it belongs in the Star Wars universe. And the Porgs ended up being FAR less annoying than I thought they’d be. I actually kind of enjoyed them while they were just moseying around on Ahch-To. It added life to the universe and felt proper. Although, Once they started boarding the Millennium Falcon, chewing the wiring and messing with Chewbacca, The “Minionness” of the Porgs really started to show and slightly took away from the immersion of the movie. I also find it sad that Chewbacca’s role in the movie was almost exclusively tied to these scenes with the Porgs.

Anyways, Let’s get into the nitty-gritty.

This film was considerably darker than The Force Awakens, But it doesn’t rely on its darkness as a gimmick. Many Shows/Movies today just love to wear their darker nature like a parade float and march down the streets yelling “Look at me! look at me! We killed off a bunch of dudes for no reason, Aren’t we so hip and edgy!” Shows like The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones (While both being two of my favorite shows) Have done this in the past. Instead of using dark writing as a tool to lift the narrative itself and tell meaningful stories, They’ll just do something dark and edgy to get on Twitter trending for a few days and up their ratings. Season 5 of Game of Thrones is a great example of this. Now I am NOT AT ALL saying dark storytelling is a bad or lazy thing, Not at all. I absolutely love dark storytelling. I use it in my own videos all the time, And I believe it’s an absolutely wonderful way to generate emotion and build connections between the Audience and the story. Although, If it’s nothing but darkness, What’s the point of watching?... It’s the same thing for overly-happy meaningless drivel. If there’s no conflict, Why be invested?... And if there’s no resolution, Just endless sadness, Why be invested?... Anyways, I’m getting off topic.

Here are a couple bullet points and moments that really stood out for me:

1: Yoda’s scene

The appearance of Yoda was truly an unexpected and wonderful move. Yoda appears essentially to bring Luke out of his nihilist fervor, And into the light once more. By destroying the first Jedi temple, Which was just a beautiful move. Yoda doesn’t show up just to tell Luke to “Believe in himself” or to “Hold on to the light” He agrees with Luke and straight up says “You’re right, Fuck the past” And sets the tree ablaze. Which is so surprising given Yoda spent half the movies trying to preserve the Jedi order, Making this even more meaningful. Instead, What he shows Luke isn’t some corny message about the light or whatever. It’s about moving on. Leaving the past in the past and setting out towards a brighter future, Even if it means burning it all down. And as Luke & Yoda sat there, Watching the tree burn, I dought there was a dry eye in the theater. The full-circle moment shared between not a master and his Padawan, But now two equal Jedi-Masters was completely heart-wrenching. The line “Oh I have missed you, Young Skywalker” Particularly got to me. One tiny thing though, I didn’t particularly care for Yoda’s puppet... I wish they either went with the CGI model from Revenge of The Sith, Or made a version more accurate to the original Empire Strikes Back puppet.

2: The silent Light-speed cruiser into Snoke’s ship.

This was an absolutely stunning scene. First of all, The very notion of this scene is crazy on its own. There was always something about the cruiser ships in Star Wars that fascinated me as a kid. Their stunning grandeur, A city in the sky. And knowing these weren’t just hunks of metal floating in space, No. These were ships. Thousands of rooms in each section of the ship, Thousands of people living their lives. Bedrooms, Theatres, Lavatories, The control rooms. All within the confines of this existentially massive tomb. It was always just so interesting to me. The idea of one of these things slamming into the other at light speed is totally something out of “Wouldn’t it be crazy if they did this” conversation, AND THEY DID IT. When the tension is building, Things are looking bleakest for the Resistance as their entire movement are sitting ducks to The First Order’s cannons, The streak of light goes through Snoke’s ship and you’re left with nothing but silence accompanying the visuals of the incomprehensibly massive shockwave destroying The First Order’s fleet and restoring hope to the resistance, It’s an absolutely transcendent feeling.

3: Leia’s space scene.

I thought this was it for Leia. When the bombs hit the deck I automatically assumed I had witnessed the death of one of the most iconic characters in Film history, And I couldn’t help but feel showing her floating corpse drifting through the void of space was a tad much... Then it happened. Through The Force, Her own energy, Or god knows what. She came back to consciousness and flew through the void back to the ship. This was totally out of nowhere and probably the scene most people are split on. Some think it’s completely unfounded, Makes no sense, And jumps the shark entirely. Others believe it worked perfectly to stun the audience and build the narrative. I like to believe it worked well, But unfortunately, we’re never going to see the end of this new narrative... It’s been said by the production team that Episode Nine was going to be Leia’s movie. The plot would have been very focused around Leia what most likely whatever these new found abilities happened to be. Although, Due to Carrie Fisher’s incredibly depressing untimely passing, This will never happen. Leaving us to wonder what exactly could have been.

4: Captain Phasma.

This is a tricky one. What exactly are they trying to do with this character?... I remember back in 2015 during all the hype for The Force Awakens, Captain Phasma was completely over marketed. She was shown in nearly all promotional material for the movie, Making us believe she was going to be a massive part of this new trilogy. Eventually, she ended up getting barely any screen time in The Force Awakens, And hardly a few cameos in The Last Jedi. And now she’s dead. I really don’t understand... There was potential for this character. Gwendoline Christie has proven in the past to be an absolutely amazing actress when given good material to work with, But this... I really just don’t understand why Phasma was even in these movies. We already had very strong villains with Kylo Ren, Snoke, And General Hux. There really wasn’t a need for Phasma. Gwendoline Christie should have been given a different role entirely. Overall, Phasma’s place in the story was completely superficial and just feels like a ploy for merchandise. Almost an adult version of Porgs.

5: Luke Skywalker

Well... That’s it, Huh? Luke’s arc in this movie was a complete roller coaster of emotions. Writing this must have been a challenge unlike anything many of us will face in our lifetimes. The team behind The Last Jedi were responsible for tying up the character arc for LUKE SKYWALKER. One of the most culturally important figures in modern history, The modern day Hercules! And I gotta say, it was truly beautiful. Luke went from cynical and jaded from his years of shame and exile caused by his own mistakes, To back to being the hopeful wisecracking galaxy-saving superhero we remember from the original trilogy. Luke tied up his duties in the mortal realm brilliantly, Projecting himself lightyears away to face Kylo Ren and bring closure to his friends and family. I teared up when he winked at C3-PO. It was amazing. And then we sat there, Luke having restored hope, Brought closure, And paved the way for the new generation, The entire theater watched Luke Skywalker become one with the force, As Yoda did before him. Luke Skywalker, Has Died. And not to instill any type of forced sadness in the audience, Or to play with our emotions unjustly. But to bring closure to a man who desperately deserved it.

Rian Johnson is truly a visionary. This film took risks, And they all paid off. This film doesn’t seek to bring you easy laughs or joyous romps. Neither does it seek to destroy you and leave you with a broken heart, No. This film takes you across all ranges of the Human emotional spectrum. It embodies so much of what makes things like Undertale so wonderous. This film is about hope, And holding on to that hope in even the direst and most existentially horrific situations. There will always be a way. As Leia said, “Hope is like the sun. If you only believe it when you see it you’ll never make it through the night.”

The Last Jedi is one of the best movies in the franchise. And I feel humbled to have been alive during its release.