#not even just in brawl the people on ranked were also playing terribly

[dravidious]

You're the most amazing kitty of

Mentioned this already today but this card in Brawl is very silly. If the opponent doesn't stop you by the time you get to chapter 3 you just win

[mallickshah]

A safe place (I)

February 11th @ Yureif’s Tavern ;  Evening ( of DOOMDAY )

A safe place had never been part of the things he’d grown up to need. 

When Saiyah had come into his life, she’d brought along something that had long been foreign to him. The touch of something that kept everything else at bay, she’d also brought her own safe place. She’d needed it more than he’d had, she’d grown with the need for a protective shield rather than the will to fight, because she was a serf, human, unwanted by many, shun by all in this faction. A species that could not find a way to survive on these soils.

The first time she’d told him about having somewhere she could hide and let herself feel safe, where she’d felt like no harm could come to her, he’d found it strangely uncanny. Mallick had the strength, mind and physical, to hold his own in fights, to hold his own in life in general, he’d never needed a hideout for the things he couldn’t confront. Because Mallick had been raised to confront it all, it was unfathomable for him to be a Shah and a Club and not have the will to fight his fight and hide somewhere when they became too much. There was simply not such a thing as too much. 

Their beginnings had been rocky, between his unrelenting need to show her that she could be strong, the need to protect her and her soft resignation that she just would never amount to what he’d grown used to. Their minds had collided more than once. But, somehow, in the midst of it all and the gruntings he’d left her with at times, Saiyah and Mallick had managed to create a bubbling world that had, with time and the years, come to make him realize what she’d meant by a shelter where nothing mattered and you felt as if nothing could harm you. 

Saiyah had given him a safe place. 

Mallick had never realized though, not until he’d lost her, and even then--he hadn’t truly understood why his world had been shaken to the point where his trust in everything he’d ever believed in had been shaken to its core. He hadn’t understood it after a year, or two of being in the resistance and he hadn’t all these years. 

Rather, he was understanding it now. 

The news came while he was at Yureif’s tavern, the only pint of the night he’d be drinking still in his hand. Somewhere in that situation, Mallick would find humor with his brother later on, because the news of Saiyah’s death had also found him in the same position. Hand wrapped around a cold beer and playful banter passing between comrades of any and all kinds. Yureif’s tavern welcomed any and all for a good time, no brawls, no violence and the means to evacuate anyone who would dare to disturb the peace. This was the only tavern of their family with such strict rules, implemented because Yureif did not want to have to explain to his wife, or his children, why he was running a place that could turn out to be dangerous.

Also, largely in part because Yureif was against violence. He despised it, had always despised it. He was more of the type to find danger in nature, rather than in people. When they’d been little, Mallick had always loved watching them, Yureif and Pribas, the only twins among his brothers, like ice and fire. Because where Yureif was a thrill seeker in anything that was not breathing, unless it was an animal, Pribas had always been quite fond of taking more than his fair share of hits and bruising as much as he got bruised. 

Needless to say, their arguments always reflected worry for one another. Yureif with his dangerous animals, Pribas with his dangerous fights. So when the men came in, loud and ready to deliver the news, Yureif was the first to step from behind the bar, cloth thrown over his shoulder to remind them of the rules of his tavern. It didn’t matter your ranks, he’d make sure that it was followed, so would the customers of the tavern. A lovely regular bunch who liked to keep it peaceful and would act as volunteering guns if necessary. 

“We’re only delivering the news.” One of the men raised his hands and Yureif nodded towards him who spoke. 

“Then deliver and get gone.” 

The mistrust was evident, their weapons were not hidden, their stances too aggressive to be taken as a pacific walk in. They gauged their audience and Mallick leaned back against the back legs of his chair to do the same, a look over how many of them they were, where they might have come from. They looked like the guards of the armory, as far as he could tell. He recognized one face among them and if they noticed him, it didn’t seem to show, their eyes not staying put on the arch of the eyebrow Mallick was sending their way. 

“These are orders from our Ace, they need to be followed to the letter and anyone who even thinks of not abiding by its code will face the consequences.” That was when the man let the leaflets reach Yureif’s hands, although it was more so slapped on his chest and he held it there for a bit, refusing to take a look until the men made right by their promise to not cause any commotion.

The man, who seemed to be in charge given that he’d been doing all the talking, tilted his head and marched his guards right back out of the tavern. They had nothing against the guards of the armory per se, but ever since Mallick had made it obvious to Yureif that he had his reticences with their Ace, his brother had somehow grown a sensitive bone towards anything that involved the man himself. Did Mallick want his brother involved in this? Of course not. But it was not a surprise that Yureif would take a strong stance, whether it was his fight or not. It was in the blood, was it not? It was what made Mallick the designated leader of the family, this power they all had flowing through their veins to protect everything, especially the people in their family.

The pride in his chest would never cease to amaze him, the swell of it had him rising from his seat. But Mallick had a frown almost instantly as he saw Yureif’s own at reading the message scribbled on the paper.

“What is it this time?”

Mallick’s hopes? That the good conversation they’d been having about the barbarians getting some action last night would be somewhat continued once the message was read. So to see Yureif frowning and cursing under his breath was not a good sign at all. 

“Fuck, why is it that your instincts always have to suck so much at being wrong?” 

Mallick shook his head, more than confused. However, once he took in the message on the leaflet, it all started to make a whole lot of sense. 

Every information leading to the death or arrest of HIM, the barbarians or a member of the resistance will be rewarded with an extra food ration.

The message left him feeling with a tangible bitter taste in his mouth, but it wasn’t that terrible. It did get wrinkled and tossed right out where the guards had brought it from, but just as soon as it was tossed, Pribas was running in, making the revolving door shake in his haste to come in. He was panting, had to take his breath but once it was done and the feathers were done falling from his quick shifting before he got through the doors.

The message Pribas carried made the taste stronger, more palpable, Mallick could almost taste ashes and blood. The heaviness of it was unrelenting and he wanted to do anything, anything but be here right now, listening to Pribas ramble on about what was going on out there in the quietness that Mallick had thought would be a constant for a little while. It would have come with such relief, wouldn’t it, after all that HIM and his barbarians had caused. After all that ruckus and hurt, and Mallick’s words to the resistance’s members who had wondered if they should act.

What had Mallick told them again? 

It might not be our place this time, we should wait to see what the Ace does.

Because as much as it’d pained him to sit still and watch, he’d somewhat thought him capable of handling this without the need for any externally drastic measures. But now, not only was he not putting out something like a hit on every resistance’s members, he was also seemingly going the same route that HIM had. 

Doing what he thought would be right to do, by force. 

Mallick had been wrong to think that an Ace would be able to handle this for the good of his people, without causing more hurt, he had been wrong and he needed the resistance now more than ever. He needed something, something he’d thought long gone when he’d lost Saiyah. 

He needed that constant had he known, had never once made him regret to have chosen them. Mallick needed his safe space, to be able to give the same to everyone else in Clubs who had never asked for anything else but that. Peace and safety. This was obviously not speaking to those who preferred the chaos of it all, it spoke of those who had not chosen that path or been given the ability to have it. Those who like Saiyah, had been forced to seek shelter somewhere other than where they’d been born and even that was being threatened by the one person who should have been doing the right thing by his people.

Which, if that was the case, then two did not need to play at this game. Both pieces of this chess needed to be tackled and taken out of the field, consecutively or at the same time. 

It was time for a plan that was for the people, not for power.

[coolgreatwebsite]

Cool Games I Finished In 2018 (In No Real Order)

Man! Wow! 2018! 2018 was a wild year for me. I managed to deliver those elbow drops I talked about last year and ended up doing a lot of of things. I left my job and moved cross-country in the span of like 2 and a half weeks! I took a new job in the video game industry (play Ninjin and Override)! I took a trip to Vegas a week after that! I got in a relationship! I got out of a relationship! It’s been a ride. A ride that hasn’t left me a ton of time to play video games or write about video games, but I’m like 1000 times happier now so it’s probably a fair trade. No matter what though, I will always be here at the end of the year to make a bunch of terrible MSPaint banners and provide you with another one of these. Here’s a bunch of cool games I experienced for the first time in 2018.

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (PlayStation 2, 2004)

Nocturne is a game that I haven’t been able to get out of my head since I beat it. It’s so damn cool. It starts with you witnessing a demonic apocalypse where only you, your two friends, your teacher, a reporter, and the man with the world’s wildest widow’s peak survive. These people are, with a couple of notable exceptions, the only real characters in the entire game. You barely see them, and when you do your meetings are usually pretty brief. Sure, you talk to and recruit a horde of demons to your side as party members, and you interact with a handful of demonic antagonists and various demonic NPCs, but for the most part the game is just you. You, alone, wandering the weird hellscape remnants of Tokyo. It’s one of the most solitary-feeling video games I’ve ever played, and it nails this atmosphere flawlessly. The music, the visuals, the writing, every element gels with every other element so smoothly to create a prevailing, almost overbearing feeling of loneliness. The combat and gameplay mechanics are what I understand this series to mostly be like (this being the only mainline SMT I’ve played), and are fun and engaging in a way that’s not too dissimilar from the Persona series. The only knock I have against Nocturne is that the dungeon design super sucks. I’m fine with endless corridors, my love of the PS2 Persona games can attest to that, but almost every dungeon in Nocturne has an annoying gimmick to it, and they all essentially boil down to different takes on a teleporter maze. I was kind of almost dreading navigating dungeons by the time I got to the last fourth of the game, but my intense love for literally everything else saw me through. For those of you who like JRPGs and haven’t played Nocturne, I’m sure you’ve heard this plenty of times, and I was like you once. I didn’t listen. But now I’m on the other side of the tunnel, so I get to say it. You should really, really play Nocturne. It’s good.

Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion (Nintendo Switch, 2018)

Octo Expansion is what Splatoon 2′s single player mode should have been from the start. Don’t get me wrong, the packed in single player campaign is fine, but it’s basically a level pack for Splatoon 1′s. Octo Expansion, on the other hand, is 100% fresh. Structurally it’s much more diverse, with the campaign taking place over 80 mostly-bite-sized missions with varying objectives. There’s a couple of stinkers in there, but overall the quality of the missions is much higher than what was in the original single player campaign. They can actually be pretty tough sometimes too! It was fun to see some actual challenge in a Splatoon campaign. Everything wrapped around the core gameplay of Octo Expansion is kind of phenomenal. The setting and visual design is super weird, the music is way more mellow than anything else that’s come out of the series and creates a great sense of atmosphere, and the writing is actually genuinely pretty great. There’s a lot of funny dialogue and good character moments. They made me like Pearl! The weird gremlin that eats mayo! She’s my friend now! The last half an hour or so of Octo Expansion is also straight up my favorite sequence from a game I played this year too. Don’t sleep on this thing just because it’s DLC. It’s legitimately great.

Monster Hunter: World (PlayStation 4, 2018)

At the outset I was incredibly skeptical of Monster Hunter: World. This wasn’t entirely fair to the game, as a lot of this feeling was based on its initial E3 reveal trailer kinda sorta matching up to some mostly not true pre-E3 leaks, namely that it would be much more action heavy to cater to Western audiences and tie into the then unannounced Monster Hunter movie (which, as an aside, looks like a trainwreck that I desperately want to see). You can probably pretty easily find some tweets and posts from me around that time saying that the game looks like trash because of some misinterpreted new game mechanic. I am here to say that I am a big wrong dumbass and Monster Hunter: World is very good. You might be surprised to hear this, but it’s Monster Hunter! With a bunch of good and well-executed gameplay refinements! And graphics that aren’t repurposed from a PS2 game! It’s a ton of fun and I put a lot of time into it, but it’s not without its flaws. The number of monsters and weapons is comparatively way lower than in previous games, mostly due to that whole not repurposing PS2 models thing. It’s still kind of clunky in a lot of the places Monster Hunter has been historically clunky in, but also in some pretty big new ways, mainly around playing multiplayer. Also the story, while it’s as bland as it’s ever been, is exponentially more intrusive thanks to the addition of voiced cutscenes (which need to be triggered before the game lets you bring other players into story missions, causing a lot of that clunk I mentioned earlier). It’s all nothing game-ruining, of course. The game wouldn’t be on the list if it was! Monster Hunter: World exceeded my expectations, and I’m super looking forward to playing the recently announced G Rank expansion when it comes out next year.

Contra: Hard Corps (Sega Genesis, 1994)

I wish I could go back in time and kick my own stupid ass for not playing this sooner. I’d written off Contra: Hard Corps for the longest time based solely on some bullshit I read on the internet at an age where I just took other peoples’ opinions and made them my own. This and Castlevania Bloodlines were the bad ones, the ones some weird b-team crapped out for the Genesis while the SNES got the good stuff like Contra 3: Alien Wars. Well, it turns out... they were right about Bloodlines. But MAN were they wrong about Hard Corps. Hard Corps is the best Contra game. It fucking rules. I would have gone on with my life never giving the game a glance if not for this excellent Giant Bomb feature happening, and a couple of episodes in I knew I had to play it for myself. Contra: Hard Corps is fucking nuts. It’s balls to the wall 100% of the time. There’s so many unique enemies and wild bosses and they’re all never not exploding. The game has four characters with unique weapons and multiple different level paths that have totally different levels, bosses, and story beats. Oh, and the soundtrack fucking rips. Sometimes it’s a little too much, and there are definitely some sequences and boss attacks that are total gotchas that you can’t survive without prior knowledge of how they work. I’d also be remiss not to give a special shoutout to level 4′s awful, tedious, unskippable-on-any-route boss. But god damn if the rest of Hard Corps doesn’t outshine these flaws. It’s the high water mark for insane non-stop 16-bit action.

Deltarune (PC, 2018)

Does this count? It’s a demo for a full game that won’t be out for a real long time... I suppose it does, it’s self-contained enough. Deltarune, the free demo for the sort of but also sort of not sequel to Undertale, is unsurprisingly good as hell. Less surprising for sure, as Undertale is a known quantity these days, but I’m still way into it. The story is interesting and full of charming characters, and the battle system has been overhauled to include things like multiple party members with different abilities while still keeping all the things that made Undertale’s battles novel. The music is, of course, fantastic, and the visuals look much nicer while adhering to the same general style as the previous game. It’s fairly short, and some character development feels a little rushed because of it, but again, it’s a small chunk of the beginning of a much larger game. I can’t imagine any of this stuff wouldn’t be expanded upon. It’s hard to judge this thing story-wise due to the nature of it being a demo. I thoroughly enjoyed what is there, though, and look forward to playing the rest of the game in 50 years or whatever.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Nintendo Switch, 2018)

This game is so much. Even though the first thing I learned about this game was “everyone is here”, I still wasn’t ready for how much it is. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is maybe too much. Of course, as previously stated, everyone (meaning every single previous playable Smash Bros. character) is here. Most of the previous stages are also present. This was all known. Where the game really, truly goes overboard though is in the single-player content. There’s the usual classic mode for every character, this time specifically structured around a theme for each character, but the vast majority of it is actually comprised of the all-new spirits system. Spirits are non-playable video game characters that you can collect and equip to your fighters for special abilities, sort of like a less terrible version of Smash Bros. Brawl’s stickers. You collect these spirits through spirit battles, which are fights themed around the character the spirit represents via extremely clever usage of already existing fighters and mechanics. These battles range from the obvious (Big the Cat’s battle tasks you with fighting a giant purple Incineroar), to the obscure (fight the main characters from Zangeki no Reginleiv as represented by Link and female Robin while you’re giant-sized), to the creative (Porygon’s spirit puts you in a fight against wireframe Little Mac and Akira from Virtua Fighter, normally an assist trophy), to the downright in-jokey (the spirit of Ness’s Father, displayed as the telephone spirte from Earthbound, makes you fight an invisible Solid Snake). There are like 1200 spirits. The vast majority of them have an associated battle. And you don’t just experience these battles through a menu, at least half of them are implemented into the 30 hour long adventure mode, World of Light, which has you fighting spirits, navigating dungeons, and facing bosses. It’s insane. They focused on spirits in lieu of collectible trophies this time around and they absolutely made the correct choice. The trophies in the last two Super Smash Bros. games were fine, but easier access to existing 3D models of most represented characters made them inherently less exciting than Melee’s tailor-made collection of high quality (considering the time period) renders, many of which would never receive a 3D model again. The spirits system manages to be exciting in the same way Melee's trophies were, fostering a genuine sense of anticipation to see what they cooked up next, but in the context of gameplay. They completely knocked it out of the park. Smash 4 made it on one of these lists long ago, and I essentially just said “it’s more Smash Bros. and that’s good”. Smash Ultimate is also more Smash Bros., but it’s SO much more Smash Bros. It’s so much more extremely good Smash Bros. The only things I can ding it for are some totally subjective stage preferences (where the hell is Poké Floats) and some slightly less than optimal music sorting decisions. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is, ultimately, the ultimate Super Smash Bros.

These games were also cool, I just had less to say about them:

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (Nintendo Switch, 2018): Remember Castlevania 3? Inti Creates sure did! This prequel to the still unreleased Koji Igarashi Kickstarter project Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is an unabashed love letter to Castlevania 3, and it’s pretty good. Mom Hid My Game! (Nintendo Switch, 2017): A charming little game in the style of those old escape the room Flash games. It even looks like one (in the literal sense, not the pejorative). It’s not tough or replayable really, but it is $5 and consistently absurd and surprising. Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (PlayStation 4, 2018): Yakuza 6 is kind of a weird juxtaposition. It’s the final chapter of Kazuma Kiryu’s story, but also the first game to use the Yakuza team’s new Dragon Engine. The story end of things is a good, solid sendoff for a bunch of characters I’m going to miss very dearly, but the gameplay feels very formative and limited in a way that sort of reminds me of Yakuza 1. I had a good time with it overall, but I hope they manage to dial it in like they did with the previous decade of Yakuza games and make something truly excellent again. Looking at you, Judge Eyes. Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth (Nintendo 3DS, 2017): Etrian Odyssey V is a return to basics for the series, ditching things like overworlds and sub-dungeons and just pitting your party against one big labyrinth. Honestly, gotta say, I miss the stuff they left behind! The core of Etrian Odyssey is still super strong so I had fun regardless, but the overall simplicity of the game and the changes to how classes work had me missing EOIV more often than not. Soundtrack’s great though, as expected. Sonic Mania Plus (Nintendo Switch, 2018): To be completely honest, most of the stuff they added to Sonic Mania in Plus really isn’t that fantastic. Mighty’s spike and projectile immunity is fun, but Ray’s flying is more interesting than effective. Encore mode is largely disappointing, with most of it feeling identical to the base game outside of its all-new (and too hard for their own good) special stages. HOWEVER, Sonic Mania Plus was an exceptional excuse to play through Sonic Mania another six or so times. Congratulations to Sonic Mania for being game of the year for two years in a row. WarioWare Gold (Nintendo 3DS, 2018): A good compilation game, executed much better than in the team’s previous Rhythm Heaven Megamix, but lacking in reasons to come back after you’ve played all the games. There’s the usual toy room stuff WarioWare has had since Touched!, but it’s bogged down by reliance on a currency system and the fact that sooooo many things you unlock are just parts that feed into a larger, not that interesting thing. The part where you play WarioWare is great though, and the new visuals make it all feel fresh even though it’s mostly older games. Mario Tennis Aces (Nintendo Switch, 2018): I had a brief, passionate love affair with Mario Tennis Aces. The core gameplay is rad as hell and more like a fighting game than a tennis game, with multiple different special shots and a focus on meter management. I played like 40+ hours of it between the full game and the demo and never even touched the single player (which makes it technically not count for this list, but, shut up). I got 2nd place at its very first tournament at CEO 2018. Then I... stopped playing. It had some weird balance issues, sure, but I think it was more a victim of circumstance rather than anything else. I moved basically right after CEO and just never went back to it. It’s still incredible though. I hope this game’s systems are the standard for Mario Tennis games going forward.

We made it! Bottom of the list! It was a shorter trip this time, but I’m still proud of you for making it here all the same. Thank you for reading the words I typed about video games. I’m looking to get this web page back into gear in 2019, so you can probably expect part 2 of The Best Babies sometime in January. Hopefully I’ll actually play some video games too so I can bring back Breviews on the first of February. Until then!

[sserpente]

A/N: Oh, I missed Eric, did anyone else? It took me long enough to finally write this. *facepalm*

Words: 2061 Warnings: language

“C’mon, (Y/N), you need to surprise me. Distract me. You’re hitting like a girl.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that when you know everything I’m going to do before I even know it myself?!” you yelled, panting loudly in the process.

How the fuck had you ended up in this situation anyway? There you were, taking private training sessions from none other than Eric, the probably most hated man in the faction. He despised you for several reasons and yet, he had volunteered to train you so you would make it through initiation. Well, maybe he just wanted to humiliate you.

Attempting to hit him by the throat, you lunged forward, your arm outstretched. Eric, however, was faster, expecting exactly what you intended to do. Before you even knew it, he caught you in mid-air, blocking you and pushing you back while simultaneously tripping you up. Falling backwards, your body connected to the floor. Hard.

“God damn it. Was I even close to beating you?”

“No.” The Dauntless leader seemed completely unaffected. In fact, he wasn’t even amused. Instead, he simply stared you down, waiting for you to get up again.

Gnashing your teeth, you did, getting back into position. Eric attacked you first this time, with you barely being able to dodge his blow.

“Surprise me, initiate!” he screamed as he kept assaulting you.

It was then the idea struck you. Being a transfer from Erudite, you were used to play with people’s minds and use knowledge and brain to your advantage—and to be really honest, Eric was hot as fuck. Maybe you should just go for it.

Next time he came near you, you jumped forward, practically clinging on to him and then—pressed your lips against his, kissing him so furiously that he stumbled back, taken aback completely.

Being Four’s best friend had a lot of advantages. Despite being an initiate, you knew information about the faction and the training methods you weren’t supposed to know about, there were a lot of free time activities and a badass reputation you came to enjoy and best of all, there was loads of free cake and muffins all to yourself. However, it also came with a big disadvantage, for there was one person in Dauntless that hated Four more than anything. Eric. Dauntless leader, arsehole and incredibly handsome idiot. It wasn’t surprising Eric hated you as much as he hated your best friend, the only problem though was that you were kind of attracted to him.

“(Y/N), are you listening to me?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” You shrugged your shoulders, shifting on the rock you were sitting on with Four. He had been telling you something about a new training method he wanted to try out but if you were completely honest, you had no idea what he was talking about, especially since you were quite nervous about your own initiation right now.

Four was doing a great job, you couldn’t blame him, but with all those other transfers as competition, making it through wasn’t exactly easy.

“Yeah? So what was I saying?” He grinned a little, amused by your mental absence. He knew you all too well by now.

“Bla bla, new training method, bla bla.” Returning his grin, you leaned back. It was quite late already, the pit almost empty. Usually, the whole faction was at peace at this time of the day but with just your luck, your one-sided conversation was interrupted only a second after by none other than your favourite Dauntless leader. He really always managed to show up when he was least wanted.

“What do you think you’re still doing up, initiate?” he yelled over, walking towards you in a threatening manner as he did. You only rolled your eyes, knowing already what Eric was like because of Four’s previous encounters.

“It’s alright, Eric, she’s with me.”

“I didn’t know there were special arrangements for your little fucktoys. You could at least have waited until initiation was over, number boy.”

Your jaw dropped in indignation, with Four jumping up and clenching his fists angrily.

“Excuse me? Are you fucking insane, we’re just friends!” you exclaimed, getting up as well as you did. You were breathing heavily, hoping that Four wouldn’t pounce on the Dauntless leader like an animal. Surely, a brawl like that would get him into serious trouble and if he was suspended, you’d never make it through initiation.

“On the other hand, though, she’ll never pass the first stage of training anyway, so what do I bother, right?” Eric glanced in your direction, watching your reaction. Not willing to give him the satisfaction of an outrage though, you decided to flip the tables instead.

“You’re one of the leaders of Dauntless, Eric, if I fail it kind of proves your incompetence.”

“(Y/N)…” You simply ignored Four, stepping forward to look Eric in the eyes. His incredibly blue, fucking beautiful eyes. You had to look up to properly do so, for he was a lot taller than you.

“Say that again, initiate, I dare you,” he replied quietly, his voice so dark and threatening you swallowed thickly, attempting to move a step back. “I dare you to question me.”

“I will. If you’re so super great and skilled, maybe you should train me and prove yourself.”

A malicious smirk played on his lips. Maybe provoking him had been a bad idea after all.

“You think you could take that, (Y/N)?”

You snorted. “Pah, you’d be surprised what I can take, I chose Dauntless for a reason.”

Nodding, Eric pouted silently. There was a scornful glistening in his eyes, making you regret your words in an instant.

“Alright then. Meet me in the training room in an hour. And don’t be late. It’s gonna be a long night. Oh and don’t think you won’t have to show up for training tomorrow after.”

Four only gave you a taunting look. You had let yourself in for it, now you had to face the music. Shit.

As soon as you pulled away and saw his deadly glare, you realised that this had been a real bad mistake.

“I-I’m… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. I thought… I mean you said… that was surprising, wasn’t it? I c-could’ve beaten you now?”

Staring at your fingernails, you bit your lower lip, hoping that Eric wouldn’t kill you on the spot. He didn’t.

“Don’t do it again.” he simply said, his voice both intimidating and empty.

“I-I… I won’t. Sorry.”

“Good. Then let’s continue.”

“What do you mean you kissed him?!”

“Shhh! God damn it, Four, not so loud! There’s other people in here. Fuck yes, I kissed him. I mean that’s, after all, one way to distract someone, right? I know that Eric is an arsehole but he’s quite handsome too so I didn’t really mind. Anyway, I know now that he’s absolutely disgusted by me, so don’t worry about it.” There was a clearly audible bitterness in your voice, showing you exactly why you had waited for a couple of days before telling your best friend what had happened during your training with Eric.

Grimacing, you took another sip of your alcoholic drink. That incidence with the Dauntless leader the other night really had taken its toll on you. Still, you had to admit that he had indeed given you a lot of useful tips… until you had kissed him, that was. Ever since that night, you hadn’t talked to Eric anymore. You had seen him now and then, watching your training but other than that, he would coldheartedly ignore you. It was just slightly concerning.

“Shit, (Y/N)… Of all people… why him?”

“Why him? Because he’s hot as fuck. I was… I wasn’t really thinking this through, okay? As I said, at least I know that he really hates me now, so just calm the fuck down.” You shrugged, emptying your drink so you could get a re-fill. At least you could get wasted tonight. In a few moments, the rankings would be up, determining whether you could stay in Dauntless, continue training and move on to the next stage or if you would become factionless. There was a lot of pressure on you right now and for once, alcohol really seemed to help you with that.

Four’s face somewhat distorted. “You say that like it’s a bad thing. You remember what I told you about him, right? What he did to me during my initiation?”

“I do. And I think it’s terrible,” But I think I have a fucking crush on him. Well, there were things that you couldn’t even tell your best friend. At least not yet. “But maybe he’s not so bad if you get to know him a little better. Maybe we should just give him a chance?”

“Do you even hear yourself?”

“I do. And I think that—“

“Good evening, initiates!” Max suddenly interrupted. As usual, he was standing on the balcony and casually leaning over the railing. He began ranting about what made a Dauntless “dauntless” or some shit like that—you didn’t really pay attention, for you were way too nervous—and then, he introduced you the rankings. Dozens of eyes were fixed on the transparent scoreboard in front of you. Your blood ran cold.

Names kept popping up. Your heart was in your mouth. Then, you felt a presence behind you. A strong, solid and muscly body pressing against your back. Comforted, you pushed back, glad for your best friend’s support.

And then you read your name. You had made it. You were above the red line. In fact, you were even number ten. Ten! You were among the ten best! How the hell did that even happen?!

A loud and cheerful scream escaped your lips. Turning around, you threw your arms around Four and felt how he energetically pulled you in a hug. Something, however, was different. Just seconds before, he had been wearing a jacket. He didn’t have any tattoos on his forearms and… he couldn’t be in two places at the same time.

Frowning, you took a step back, only to face a mockingly grinning Eric.

“What the hell, I thought you were—“

“Four? Yeah, I know. Amusing, isn’t it? Congratulations, you made it.” he said with a wink. Still perplex, you took another step back and attempted to reply—why would he care now?—when suddenly, he yanked you back into his arms and kissed you as passionately as you had a few days ago in the training room.

Now you were utterly confused. Where the hell was Four when you needed him? Where had he gone? He was supposed to be standing right next to you! On the other hand… naturally, he wouldn’t exactly be happy about this particular situation. But that was a story for another time. You’d convince him. In time. Right now, what mattered most was to find out what the fuck was going on between Eric and you.

When he finally pulled away and you opened your eyes again, unknowing that you had closed them in the first place, you blinked mutely, searching for the right words.

“But… I thought… I… you hate me… right? What did… why… how?!”

Eric only rolled his eyes.

“You can’t be that stupid. Do you really think I’d start a thing with you while I’m still in charge of your initiation? Unlike number boy, I’m a professional. Why the hell do you think I offered to train you that night? Because I let you provoke me? Hardly. I don’t do that shit for anyone.” he explained, rolling his eyes once more.

“I thought… I thought you were just being nice for once.”

“Do I look like I do nice?” he asked, raising his eyebrows in disbelief.

“Yeah, I know, that was the part I didn’t quite understand myself.” You shook your head and bit your lower lip. “So… what now?”

“What now? You work your fucking arse off so you make it through initiation. I don’t date factionless girls. Dinner tomorrow. My apartment. Don’t be late, (Y/N).”

“O-okay.”

And with that, he just walked away, leaving you standing there without a clue about what had just happened.

Certainly, there was a lot you needed to explain to Four… that was, as soon as you understood it yourself.

[natcat5]

Things that shouldn’t happen in a theoretical Animorphs netflix series, but probably would anyway

Hey since apparently I’m sdkfldkjf in this fandom now or something have a non-exhaustive list of things I think a director/screenwriter would stick into an Animorphs netflix series that they absolutely shouldn’t but would for the drama™ of it all

1. Berenson Brawl

Oh my god a Rachel vs Jake all out scrap. In the book it never happens except in Rachel’s fever dream. As much as she sometimes chafes against his leadership and the continual narrative suggestion that there’s a simmering desire to challenge him, having them actually fight to be in charge would be a huge disservice to both their characters as well as their relationship. Rachel and Jake have such a solid thing in which they know exactly their roles and how to work with one another, how to be each other’s anchor, leash-holder, or executioner if they get out of line. Having them brawl for leadership would be terrible, but oh my god it would 100% happen in a netflix adaptation. how could it not? there’d be so many on screen arguments, so many instances of Jake pulling Rachel back, that it would just have to culminate into a super-dramatic, brutal, tiger v.s grizzly bear beatdown that takes up like 20 minutes of the episode and has like 3 scene changes as they crash through buildings, trees, etc. 

That said, holy fuck god i would be so into it. Like it’s terrible of me but the second the fight started I’d have to pause to go pop some popcorn and pour myself a glass of wine and get hyped and then settle in for the fucking show. 

2. Traitor Tobias 

In Back to Before, Tobias gets Yeerked but mostly does not get his brain-controlled self up in anyone else’s business before having his head shot off. That absolutely would not fly in a netflix adaptation. There would 100% be a confrontation between Yeerk!Tobias and Rachel, and it would be tragic, and Yeerk!Tobias would probably be threatening her with a weapon to the temple, and then they’d look into each other’s eyes or some shit, and there’d be this moment of recognition...before someone, probably Ax or Marco, ices Tobias from behind. He collapses and Rachel catches him automatically, holds him in her arms and stares into his empty eyes, not understanding where this profound pain is coming from...

I would be full out weeping. still drinking wine, but also weeping. 

3. Honeypot

If you think we’re getting an adaptation involving spying, subterfuge, and teenagers, and not have one of them have to seduce a potential high ranking Yeerk controller who’s attending their school, you do not understand what old men in media think teenage audiences want to see. Someone’s going to a fancy restaurant with a potential enemy while everyone else hides in ridiculous outfits. 

I would find this acceptable so long as the one on the date is Jake. 

3. High School

Seriously, half the time in the books you forget they were somehow attending school. In a netflix series there would be recurring side characters, and ridiculous club responsibilities that people got sucked into, and the occasional episode climax that takes place at a school football game or pep rally for some reason. it’s the 90s. own the aesthetic.

actually I’d legitimately really be into a slightly more expansive social world for the characters. like show Jake and Rachel and Marco shifting away from their friend groups, even though they’re trying to keep up appearances. have minor characters that notice that there’s something drastically different about their friends. 

4. Pair the Spares 

It’s unavoidable that whenever Jake/Cassie and Rachel/Tobias get affectionate in the same scene, the camera’s going to pan to Marco and Ax standing awkwardly next to each other. Probably, they’d play it up for laughs. But I’m pretty down for out and undeniably bi Marco completely sincerely making passes at Ax whenever the rest of the team starts pairing up. And Ax just ???????? not understanding human courtship rituals. 

It toes a precarious queerbaiting line but so long as it’s completely clear that Marco is actually bi I’m good with a recurring joke of anytime the established couples get mushy, Marco starts wiggling his eyebrows at Ax

[ceescedasticity]

Troll Hamilton

@dreamwaffles and I have sketched out the basics of Troll Hamilton!

So, the Summoner’s rebellion was pretty big, yes? And he couldn’t possibly have been on every front at once. So on one less-than-central front, the rebels managed to overthrow the regional governor -- a laughably out-of-touch seadweller called George George -- and settled in to try to govern their area non-autocratically. Obviously (almost) all of them got killed when the Condesce arrived to put down the rebellion, but the main character died before that in a duel.

Writing this musical is political suicide (it doesn’t help that it’s all in slam poetry, trespassing in clown specialties). A lot of the original creators were executed. Producing or attending or listening to or acknowledging the existence of this musical would be political suicide. Except.

Her Imperious Condescension loves the music. And what HIC wants, HIC gets, even if it’s the continued existence and popularity of a frankly seditious musical.

In the play, Alxand Hamilt and Aarron Bursur are both olive, to play up the parallels between them, and both had lusii who died when they were young, but Bursur has a famous Ancestor of some description. (In history, Hamilt was mustard.) Bursur and Hamilt flip between ash and pitch a bunch of times, and never really find a good enough middle leaf. At the end they flip dangerously unstable pitch, and then there’s the duel. Hamilt also had a torrid pitch affair with Jefers somewhere in there.

Hamilt’s matesprit Elizah never flipped on his even after his publicized cheating. Elizah’s moirail is Angela. There’s unresolved-quadrant-tension of SOME sort between Hamilt and Angela. Angela is teal; Elizah’s in the high-jade-low-teal ambiguity zone, and doesn’t want to end up stuck in the caverns. At the end of the show, however, she escapes the slaughter of the rebellion by seeking shelter in the caverns, because she’s the only one who can live, and someone has to tell the story.

Discussion giving rise to all this:

dreamwaffles

hi hello I am interested in discussing troll Shakespeare

also I have Thoughts about Troll Hamilton

ceescedasticity

Tell me about Troll Hamilton

dreamwaffles

so Burr and Hamilton flipped between ash and pitch a few times.

their most successful middle leaf was George Washington during the war.

there was a while where they didn't cross orbits so much and Hamilton and Jefferson had a TORRID pitch relationship

flush with Eliza, pale(?) with Angelica

dreamwaffles

anyway Washington stepped in ash a few times for Hamilton and Jefferson but really those two were born to politically brawl all the time

(ash in the Cabinet, pitch in the ....I can't make 'bedroom' rhyme with Cabinet)

but at the end of Hamilton's life he and Burr flip pitch again

and it goes sour

dreamwaffles

Itemized list of disagreements! Duel! Bam.

He and Eliza don't ever really flip black when he cheats flush

(she and Angelica are like the Scourge Sisters but also pale)

this gives Angelica reason to ....???!!! when he hits on her pale

ceescedasticity

Hee

dreamwaffles

probably he and John Laurens were a flush fling in youth

dreamwaffles

I had a six-hour drive, what can I say. :P

I bet you can guess what my soundtrack was!

ceescedasticity

Maybe, maybe!

dreamwaffles

Hamilton's caliginous quadrants are a huge huge mess

really only Washington was able to last as a middle leaf. Everyone else gave up after like. a few days.

ceescedasticity

Do you have any idea of what the framing plot would be - is it actually a revolution, or what?

dreamwaffles

that I didn't devote much time to, though it's definitely fun.

maybe like

a tribute world so that King George can be a SUPER overdramatic violet

I was thinking probably most of the cast would be at most, like, cerulean

dreamwaffles

except George

dreamwaffles

Alexander might be, say, bronze or yellow

ceescedasticity

Hmmm, that sounds right

dreamwaffles

the Schuylers could be jades? I don't know if this is a universe with +1 mother grub, I've read a few aus where some colonies take one along

Or maybe teals.

George Washington and Jefferson are as high blue as Equius

ceescedasticity

yeah

King George is a seadweller who has never been on land and knows about as much about it as the little mermaid

dreamwaffles

Burr should be the same color as Hamilton

TOTES

ceescedasticity

that's a little difficult since Burr did have those antecedents...

same color, but knows about an Ancestor?

dreamwaffles

hmm true

Yeah, famous Ancestor

I just think the whole mirroring one another is important

though maybe step him up to 'famous olive'

ceescedasticity

agreed

dreamwaffles

I guess there's no reason Hamilton couldn't be busted down to rust, but that just gets a little more classist than I was going for

yellow still has the class thing but it's less pronounced

ceescedasticity

I think olive might be best

dreamwaffles

though if he's rust it makes the 'why do you write like you're running out of time' lines of Eliza's rather more heartbreaking

for Burr?

yeah

ceescedasticity

I think Hamilton and Burr both olive, Burr with a famous ancestor, could work

Like with Thresh Prince, olive is low enough to do caste-clashing, but not TOO low

dreamwaffles

You have a point

and he did go into law, so I that does bump him up

class-wise

ceescedasticity

Now, if I were designing a Alternia AU for Hamilton, Hamilton would probably be yellow

dreamwaffles

oh, most definitely

ceescedasticity

Either set it a very, very, very long time ago so it can have an analogous ending - gov they set up lasts a while - or during the Summoner's rebellion and everything goes bad at the end

But Eliza escapes

dreamwaffles

YES

like, among the troops.

ceescedasticity

which troops?

dreamwaffles

oh, the summoners' troops. Not a focus on the main part of the rebellion, but like, what was going on on the ground while the Summoner brought in the dragon?

ceescedasticity

yes, that's a good idea

dreamwaffles

I guess that's still pretty major.

dreamwaffles

But if there were two parts to the rebellion, the one fighting the sea forces and the one fighting the clown forces

then maybe whichever one the dragon wasn't with :P

ceescedasticity

King George would make a terrible subjugglator

dreamwaffles

I was thinking put him with the seadweller troops

that way HIC doesn't have to be involved

also the musical is v subversive because IT'S ALL SLAM POETRY?!?

(iirc that's associated with the clowns?)

(and thus highbloods)

ceescedasticity

Yes, I think so, too

dreamwaffles

but the highest blood in the cast is, like

dreamwaffles

usually honestly a blue who they tape fins on

unless they can find a really chill seadweller

(Fef would probably do it.)

(no, Fef would totally do it. Eridan would NEVER)

ceescedasticity

Snerk

dreamwaffles

(It has to be a blue otherwise people get EVEN More OFFENDED by someone pretending to be a seadweller)

(though there was a very well-rated all-rust production)

dreamwaffles

(probably honestly they were all culled)

ceescedasticity

Really, it's unavoidably subversive enough it would probably be banned -- except HIC took a liking to the music

dreamwaffles

Yeah. Awkward. It's not advisable to perform within 500 miles of subjugglators

ceescedasticity

A lot of seadwellers are also highly offended by it, but pretend not to be in an effort to suck up to HIC

dreamwaffles

Linman Mirnda was posthumously honored (the clowns got him)

dreamwaffles

A very small number of trolls know that HIC likes to enter war briefings to a remixed track of 'Here comes the general'

(fix it for troll standards)

ceescedasticity

And then she does her own version of the "we are out___ed", insulting her audience in some way

dreamwaffles

*SIGH* ".....what."

because it's call and response and she WILL fork you

dreamwaffles

Kurloz is SUPER not pleased about her love for this musical

but

he can't do anything about it

ceescedasticity

Easy way for upper-ranking subjugglator to die is share some slam poetry identifiably inspired by it

dreamwaffles

which is a problem, because Mirnda sampled A LOT of classic slam

so even if the subjugglator isn't *trying* to reference Mirnda....

(how do we trollorize 'Hamilton'

ceescedasticity

Hamilt? Xander Hamilt?

Alxand Hamilt?

dreamwaffles

and Burr is gonna be ridiculous.

Aaronn Burrsr?

ceescedasticity

Aarron Burrrr?

dreamwaffles

Ehehehe

dreamwaffles

Aarron Bursur?

ceescedasticity

Elizah is easy enough... Angela?

dreamwaffles

Close enough.

dreamwaffles

(and Peggie!)

ceescedasticity

lol

dreamwaffles

(you are, btw, welcome to add this to your crossover stuff if you are inclined, just tag me. :P )

(idk if this is the kind of stuff you collect but I'm not gonna do anything with it.)

ceescedasticity

I may post a transcript of the conversation if that's okay?

dreamwaffles

Totally fine!

So if this is Summoner-era, where does Jefferson come in?

dreamwaffles

Also, Lafyet is East Alternian, I guess

because the play's like Act 1: war Act 2: LEGISLACERATORS (kinda)

ceescedasticity

Hmmmm... true

ceescedasticity

Maybe the second act takes place inside the period between when they broke the imperial forces on Alternia and when HIC the Fleet arrived to Ruin Everything -- could be weeks, months, even a sweep or two

HIC AND the Fleet

dreamwaffles

Oooh, I like it

so, like, it ends with a duel and Eliza's final song is a song of escape as everyone else dies

ceescedasticity

"We're all about to die in the imperial counterattack and you two are trying to shoot EACH OTHER?"

Not sure who says that

...Probably Karkat the first time he saw a video of a production

dreamwaffles

He definitely cried though

The background is maybe, like

engines or something? You can see HIC in the distance

or, no, better, there's a projection of ships coming in

as the pitch romance goes sour, their auspistice (the general in the last war) dead

it's a tragedy, naturally

ceescedasticity

some people just watch the first half

(lol that would be me. i would only watch the less tragic half.)

dreamwaffles

one of the ones Karkat recommends for the cultureless aliens

Tavros only watches the first half

Sollux prefers the second half but pretends he has never seen it

ceescedasticity

when Aradia was little she dug up a skull she was SURE was... idk who

dreamwaffles

Nepeta is in it for the Laurens/Hamilton and the Schuyler/Hamilton, which I guess they'd need to devote a song to before they settle

Maybe Lafyte? I can see Aradia liking him. He's swashbuckling.

ceescedasticity

yes, good

sadly I need to attempt to get some sleep

dreamwaffles

the horns were JUST RIGHT

ceescedasticity

blech worknights

dreamwaffles

fun talking to you though!

sleep well

you have full permission etc to transcribe ^_^

and do cosmetic/coherence edits

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen Rambles about Ashen Wolves

To my followers, sorry for posting this a second time, but I need to test something. If it helps, I edited out some of the grammar issues.

I finished up the Ashen Wolves DLC for Fire Emblem Three Houses about a week ago and man, do I have some feelings about it.

There was honestly more I disliked about it than liked, but at the same time I don’t think it was a complete waste of my time either. The fact that you can only get this DLC if you had the season pass is also something I don’t like, even if I got the pass months ago. I don’t think I could recommend this DLC save for the bonus features and extra classes in the pack, but… Well, let me break down my thoughts a bit here.

The New Classes

Let’s start with something easy like the classes. Overall I think the new classes have their utility, but are in general pretty niche. Mind you, I say this as a casual player just looking at basic utility unit and effort it takes to get them, so it’s possible the more hardcore players will say that War Monk Raphael is the new meta, but to break things down a little…

War Monk

I’m glad we finally have a female-brawling class, or at least class for females to get into, but it comes at a cost. You need a a decent rank in brawling and white magic to use this class, and very few characters have the stats for the that. This has that Mortal Savant problem of a physical or magical character grinding in stat they’re weak in to become a middling hybrid class. Granted, unlike Mortal Savant you can get these classes at level 20, but would anyone really power-level your healer in brawling just to punch things? Or spam characters like Petra or Ingrid in Faith just to have weak heals? I mean, there’s meme-ing and New Game +, but realistically this class feels pointless. Balthus’s heals were pathetic in the DLC and didn’t sell me on this being a hybrid class, or at least not a good one. You’d either get a healer with weak punches, or a fighter with weak heals. (Edit: I’ve just made Lysithea a War Cleric and it’s absolutely hilarious how busted she is with Aura Knuckles. However, that’s one New Game+ so my point still stands.) And while I’ll admit Holy Knight Ferdinand’s weak heals honestly saved me a few times on my Crimson Flower campaign, statistically it’s kind of pointless.

Trickster

Trickster is actually pretty good since it’s a mid-game class that most magic and physical classes can reach, as most magic users also have a decent to high ability in swords as well for some odd reason. Manuela finally has a class to naturally spec into around mid-game that works for her default weapon line, you could also sneak Marianne and Lysithea in there too if you wanted, but overall this class is pretty good. It’s not too niche, it can be worked into during the early and mid game, and while you do have at least unlock thief, that’s not a difficult class to spec into at all. The only real downside is wasting a intermediate certificate to unlock the thief class, and that’s not much of an issue save for time. Overall a good class.

Valkyrie and Dark Flier

Valkyrie and Dark Flyer are female-only classes in a game where I’ve already complained about gender-locked classes. That said, they’re okay. Nice to have a mid-game caster that has more than four movement, but this is still gender-locked, so I can’t have Lindhart flying around spamming warp, canto, and the like. Valkyrie also gives Lysithea something that compliments her dark magic use, but nothing else I can say aside from that. They’re glass canons. Powerful, but can’t take much of a hit. Their canto abilities make keeping them safe a lot easier than most casters.

The Ashen Wolves themselves, as units in the DLC, were a little underwhelming outside of their utility. Like I said, Bathus has weak heals, but his self-healing made him a tank… but that’s a skill most brawlers can get naturally. Yuri was the most useful thanks to his Canto Ring and Foul Play, but Constance and Hapi just felt like more mobile Lysethias, and while Lysethia is great, these maps didn’t really let them one-shot anything like their class functions want them to.

But moving on.

Story

So… a story about the secret fourth house in Fire Emblem Three Houses…

Okay, to make it short, the story is bad.

It’s not terrible, it’s not Fire Emblem Conquest levels of dumb plotholes, but it’s still bad. This game jumped some hoops make the Ashen Wolves work into the lore and story, only to stumble and fall. But before I tackle all that, let’s at least open with something nice, so…

The Good

I’m doing the good in list form because, frankly, there isn’t a lot of good to begin with, but I do want to acknowledge the good that’s in here.

Having a side story involving all 3 house leaders is a good idea. The lack of interaction between them in the main game made it hard to believe the three were friends.

The designs and personalities of the Ashen Wolves themselves are great. Everyone feels unique and don’t bleed into another character, an amazing feat given the size of the cast.

I surprisingly like Yuri quite a bit as a character, if a little annoyed by his blatant secret-keeping and obvious heel-turn later throughout the story.

Abyss in general is an idea I can get behind. Garreg Mach already had secret underground tombs and sanctuaries, so I can buy it having a secret society of undesirables underneath too, as well as protectors in the form of the Wolves.

The final boss was actually pretty fun, both in terms of challenge and mechanics… not a story detail, but it’s also something good.

The Bad

Okay… where to begin?

The actual plot stuff… dear lord. 

For context, Cindered Shadows revolves around three things: the Rite of Rising, a botched resurrection ritual during the early days of Garreg Mach. The Four Apostles, four mystics with special crests that conducted the Rite of Rising and were exiled after failing to resurrect Sothis. And Byleth’s mother Sitri, a nun of the church that died soon after having Byleth who also had a secret admirer in the form of Abyss’s benefactor. All three of these points feel tacked on for the sole purpose of having a fourth house exist. The descendants of the four apostles just happening to be in the same place? Byleth’s mom just happening to have a random admirer as the main villain? The fact that a second type of resurrection ritual existing that just happened to never to be mentioned? Now, I’ve only finished Crimson Flower, the route that did the least amount of world-building and setting explanation, but even I recognize that some hoops are being jumped here. It feels like there’s a lot of world-building either being ignored or retconned so that the Four Apostles make sense within the lore. Especially since all four Ashen Wolves just happen to be descendants of the them. That’s just poor writing to me.

Yuri pulling that double heel and face-turn at the end was also dumb. Yuri being a rouge and scoundrel with secret motives is fine, that’s basically his character at a glance. However, that makes the heel-turn obvious, especially when it happens within the last three chapters of the side story. Again, it just feels like bad writing to have the obvious rouge character turn on you at the last minute. Yes, there were some hints that he was playing both sides, but still. The shady guy being shady isn’t really much of a plot twist, and while that isn’t bad in itself the fact that the writers try to frame it as clever, or at least as an honest surprise just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Overall, it feels like what was going to be a simple story about Abyss and the people there turned into something more complicated for the sake of giving it more importance, and that irritates me.

And the gameplay? The maps themselves? Let’s talk about that next.

The Maps and Gameplay

There’s a video by a Bismix that summarizes my feelings perfectly:

“So how was Cindered Shadows?”

“Foul Play was cool.”

And you know what? Foul Play was cool. A special movement skill that swaps places with a unit at decent range. Combined with the Canto ring it was a damn handy tool to move around Edelgard and Lindhart. But aside from that, I have a question for the Old Guard of Fire Emblem. The folks that have been playing this since that old GBA title that featured Eliwood.

Do you like getting kicked in the dick? Repeatedly?

Because that’s what these levels felt like. A map full of Assassins with high Avoid, magic users with high damage, and every unit having Silver Weapons. Is there a reason for this aside from challenge? Is there a reason to be this disadvantaged after chapter 3? And the reinforcement, don’t even get me started on the reinforcements. Chapter 2, 3, and 4 were complete bullshit because of them. Three waves of reinforcements and the Death Knight? A 1-in-3 chance of summoning reinforcements with a stats debuff for pulling the wrong lever? An escape map that features an entire army of reinforcements at the very last section? There’s challenge, and then there’s this.

I’ll ask again Old Guard, do you like getting kicked in the dick repeatedly?

Because whenever I see nonsense like that I remember the complaints about current Fire Emblem games being too easy. And while I’ll admit to not being a hardcore fan of this series, I doubt that the game was meant to induce so many unfair advantages and rage-inducing moments toward the enemy for the sake of challenge. I had to set this game down at least five times while playing through this DLC. I don’t find it a challenge to face a mountain of enemies that only four characters on my team can realistically fight, and only 3 of them actual able to hit said enemies. I don’t see feeding half the map to Byleth, Dimitri, and Balthus because they’re the few units that can take the hits and get kills to be skillful. I don’t get how spamming reinforcements after a long and difficult map is adding challenge. 

The only map that had an interesting gimmick was the final boss. Their map-wide attack displaced your entire army and summoned two phantoms that would be sacrificed to heal the boss at the end of your next turn if you didn’t kill them in time. However, the phantoms could be killed by most of your party in one or two rounds, and they dropped heal potions for your party to share and use to prep for the next phase. That map was a matter of prioritizing which units to tank the phantoms damage, trade blows, heal with the potions obtained, and get into position to do major damage to the boss when it was on cooldown. It was fun once I learned the pattern and a challenge as you couldn’t just spam the same units to take out the phantoms due to the party displacement. It was fun, interesting, and required on-the-fly strategy, the only map to really do so.

This… is leading me down something off-topic, so I’ll simply say that adding challenge in a turn-based RPG should always be based on gimmicks and special rules to keep the gameplay interesting, rarely should raising numbers be the main way of adding challenge.

With that out the way I’ll get to my last point, which is…

Small Nitpicks that Only Bug Allen

I’d usually state this portion first, but this DLC had so many bigger issues that I feel it’d be best to use my nitpicks as a cooldown rather than a warm-up. Thankfully my nitpicks are more so my preferences than actual nitpicks, as most small issues I have with this DLC are issues that came from the original. That said:

I feel like Ashe and Hilda should had been switched out for Mercedes and Raphael. We really needed at least one more decent healer in that group, and as I said before, Bathus and Yuri’s heals are pathetically weak. Either that or Lindhart should have had the Warp spell. Raph would had another decent tank that wasn’t as much of a glass canon as Hilda. Yes, we had Edelgard, but I would had preferred Raph do the tanking.

Jeralt and Sothis should had been involved in this DLC. I don’t care that they were trying to keep the canon point ambiguous, it should had happened. If Byleth wasn’t going to react to their mother’s dead corpse then I sure as hell would had liked to see either Sothis or Jeralt do so. Again, I don’t like Byleth, but that lack of emotion on their part really kills moments like this.

I would had liked it if they didn’t lock skills. Chapter 3 and 4 wouldn’t had been so suffering if Lindhart could warp Edelgard a few times. Again, getting kicked in the dick isn’t my idea of fun or challenging.

So, with all that out of the way I think I can move on to my last point, which is:

In the Future

Like I usually say, I find it pointless to try and “fix” a story that’s already been told, but I see nothing wrong with make suggestions for the future.

That said I’d like to see the next story DLC focus more on the culture and world of Fodlan. We only know about these places by name and their students, not much else. A DLC that covers the five-year gap would be nice, something that doesn’t have Byleth in it would be nice too. Fire Emblem Fates had a few Corrin-less DLC maps, and Fire Emblem Echoes had some side stories without Alm and Celica. I think it could work. A story DLC on the church and specifically Sothis would be great too. A story map that showed how Dimitri lost his eye. A prologue map showing all the houses meeting up before Byleth came into the picture. A playable map of the Battle of Red Cliffs, things like that.

If we get more classes in future DLC then please no more gender-locked classes is all I have to say. Anyway, that’s all I got for now. Maybe now I’ll actually finish the Gacha Rambling…

Or maybe I’ll do a thesis on Granbelm, which ever comes first.

[flauntpage]

DGB Grab Bag: Bladeless Jet Skates, Regular Bladeless Skates, and Honesty

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Jonathan Drouin – The Canadiens may still be on the outside of the playoff race, but at least their best players always remember to make sure they have blades in their skates. Well, almost always.

The second star: Ryan Hartman being a jerk – Remember when you were in grade school and you'd fake-punch other kids and then laugh if they flinched? Hartman still does that. But this time he did it to Corey Perry, so it's OK.

The first star: Dave Elston – You may not know the name, but you should. Elston is the legendary cartoonist whose NHL work was some of the only reliable hockey humor produced for much of the 80s, 90s, and beyond. He recently joined Twitter, where's he's been releasing old cartoons from his archives. He's must-follow for hockey fans, even new ones who may not get all the references.

Outrage of the Week

The issue: Former Oiler Jordan Eberle told reporters that criticism from the "brutal" Edmonton media had affected his confidence and his play there. The outrage: He's right, the media are insensitive jerks. Or he's wrong, and a big wimp for even bringing it up. Is it justified: It can't be fun to be an NHL player when things aren't going well. It really can't. We all have our good and bad days, and we all get criticized at some point by somebody. But for most of us, it doesn't happen on the front page of a newspaper or leading off the nightly newscast. It's easy enough to say that players should toughen up and have thicker skin, and some of them do. But not everyone is going to handle negativity in the same way, and basic human nature tells us that occasionally, it's going to get to you. Or as Eberle put it, "When you read articles every day about how much you suck, it’s tough."

So yes, Eberle's got a point here, and what he's saying about his experience as an Oiler is undoubtedly true.

But it's also true that Eberle deserved some criticism for his play in Edmonton, especially last year. By his own admission, he "definitely didn’t play up to my standards, especially in the playoffs." If you're in the media, and it's your job to give an honest opinion about how a player is performing, you don't really have many options. You can either pull your punches to spare someone's feelings, or you can call it like you see it.

So where does that leave us? I thought the best take I saw on the whole issue came from Elliotte Friedman, who wrote about the impact the media's coverage can have on players like Eberle. Friedman sounds like a guy who puts some real thought into the balance between doing his job and knowing the impact his work can have. Most of us in this business do think about that, although maybe not as much as we could. Believe it or not, it's rarely much fun to dump all over somebody. But it can be part of the job.

And of course, they key here is that the criticism has to be fair. Some of it isn't, and when you see the media inventing controversies or settling scores, you're right to take the player's side. And it goes without saying that the media members who spend their days criticizing players, coaches and GMs need to have thick skin about criticism of their own work. Most of us don't.

But the bigger point remains: This is just part of the job, for media and players alike. For those in the press box, the key is to make it fair, make it honest, and to remember (as Friedman points out) that your words may be affecting a player's friends and family too. For those on the ice, the criticism is one downside of a job that still often ranks as one of the best in the world.

As for Eberle, he deserves points for being honest. That's what the media is supposed to want out of players, so we can't fault him for not playing make-believe and telling us that none of this ever gets to him.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

Earlier this week on the Biscuits hockey podcast, Dave and I were asked which active players would pair off for the best goalie fight. And I'll admit it—we kind of blew the answer. Dave mentioned Jonathan Quick, which was a solid choice, and we kicked a few other options around. But we missed several names that were obvious picks. We'll follow up on next week's show and make it right.

In the meantime, let me try to make it up to you with this week's obscure player pick: goaltender Mark Laforest.

Laforest, who was creatively nicknamed "Trees," went undrafted but was signed by Detroit as organizational depth in 1983. He made his NHL debut two years later, going 4-21-0 for a terrible Red Wings team because that's the only kind there was back then.

He was traded to the Flyers in 1987, and then to the Maple Leafs in 1989. He spent one year in Toronto, winning a career-high nine games, before being shipped to the Rangers as part of the deal that sent a young Tie Domi to New York. He never played for the Rangers, and didn't make it back to the NHL until a brief appearance with the Senators in 1993-94.

Laforest wasn't exactly known as a hothead, but in Philadelphia he did serve as the backup to Ron Hextall. Some of that may have rubbed off, because in 1989 he decided it would be a good idea to fight Sean Burke. It was not.

This is what happens when you let two redheads coach in the same NHL game.

This is actually one of the first (for lack of a better term) modern goalie fights I can remember. In the old days, goalie would pair off during bench-clearing brawls, but those had recently become extinct. This was one of the first times that a goalie got to do the full length-of-the-ice skate. Twice, as it turns out.

Most importantly, Sean Burke was legitimately one of the best fighting goalies ever. People remember Hextall or Patrick Roy or Billy Smith, and rightfully so, but Burke belongs right up there with them. Laforest actually does OK here; others were not as lucky.

As for Laforest, that Ottawa stint was it for his big-league career, which saw him appear in 103 games, posting 25 wins along with two shutouts and 65 penalty minutes. He played in the minors until 1996 and later went into coaching.

Be It Resolved

It was an interesting week for NHL interviews. A few days after Eberle's quotes hit the public, an even bigger star had even more interesting things to say. Lots more.

I know, right? I was shocked too. But there it was, in this Craig Custance piece in The Athletic. Somehow, he got Kings' defenseman Drew Doughty to open up about his contract status. And when he did, he started dropping bombs.

The article is behind a paywall so I won't cut-and-paste all the good bits here, but among other things it includes Doughty admitting that:

He's already thinking ahead to free agency in 2019.

He thinks money is important, and apparently doesn't feel the need to pretend otherwise.

He plans to talk with fellow UFA Erik Karlsson to maximize their potential payout.

He thinks he should make more than P.K. Subban.

This all might end with him playing somewhere else, and he sure sounds interested in the Maple Leafs (including him describing their coaching situation by saying, and I swear to you that this is a real quote, "Oh fuck, yeah. Babs.")

None of that should be especially shocking, but it kind of is when you hear it actually said by an NHL player. We know the drill by now. Doughty is supposed to say "Gosh, hadn't even thought about it, I'm just focused on playing, all I want to do is win and the rest of it will take care of itself." But he didn't. He told the truth. And it was kind of fascinating.

So this week, we have a Be It Resolved two-fer. First of all, be it resolved that nobody get all cranky with Doughty about actually saying something. That includes you, Kings fans, even though I'm sure the Maple Leafs stuff isn't playing well. We're all constantly complaining about how boring hockey players are, so we can't go filling our diapers the second somebody gets interesting.

And second of all, be it resolved that Custance has to take whatever magic pocket watch he dangled in front of Doughty's eyes to get him to talk like this and share it with the rest of us. No fair hogging, Craig. Spread the joy.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

With the NHL officially hitting the century mark last weekend—Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the league's founding—it's tempting to look towards the future and try to figure out what the league will look like over the next 100 years. Luckily, we don't have to work too hard, because this decades-old Red Wings broadcast already covered it for us.

This clip seems to be from Detroit's PASS sports station, and would have aired in the early 90s. They're going to take a shot at what the next few decades hold. Let's see how they do.

We start off with a look back at the days when hockey was played outdoors, which is crazy because I'm pretty sure neither of those teams is even the Blackhawks. We also hear about how goalie pads are much bigger than ever before. If you consider that a good thing then boy, do I have exciting news for you, early 90s hockey fans.

We also hear about all of the "space age" equipment that modern players have, including "custom-fitted skates." Yeah, I bet it was rough back in the day when you just had to wear whatever size they had lying around.

We finally get to the predictions for 2050, and I just want to point out that the last clip before we jump into the future is of Steve Yzerman and the Tampa Bay Lightning. Does that count as an accurate prediction? I think it might have to.

So our first prediction of life in 2050 is…uh, Alaska looking like a beach due to global warming. Wow, this got dark in a hurry. I'm kind of depressed now. I sure hope future scientists are focused on preserving the climate so we don't all die.

Nope, they're making fake ice and bladeless jet skates. But "the air jets are non-polluting," so cool, close enough.

After way too many shots of some dude's toes, we move onto our next prediction: Hockey's expansion to the sun belt. That ended up happening, of course, although not quite as far south as Central America, as predicted here. We also get a look at the uniforms of 2050, which is clearly wrong since there aren't any ads plastered all over them.

I'm completely on board with the Lazer Stik, though. It's not so much the warp setting or $14,999 price tag, I just like the idea of a stick that doesn't break every third shift.

Side note: I wish I was as enthusiastic about anything in my life as announcer Marty Adler is about literally every sentence in this clip. Or, as he would put it: I wish I was as enthusiastic about anything in my life as this announcer is about LITERALL EVERY SENTENCE in this clip.

Next up is the helmet of the future, which includes a microphone, tiny TV screens, and even brain probes to foil opposition attempts at frequency jamming. Weird, I guess the Patriots are an NHL team in 2050.

Also, the helmets will have cameras in them, which is just ridiculous.

Coaches will apparently live in little rooms packed with screens, a bubble hockey game, and a button that's labelled DO NOT PUSH in giant letters. I'm kind of intrigued by that last one. I'm assuming Ken Holland has one in his office right now that starts the Red Wings rebuild.

We get a section about the puck being embedded with sensors that makes reviewing goals and offsides foolproof. That's pretty much guaranteed to happen at some point soon, and I'd give them credit for getting another one right if I weren't distracted by trying to figure out why the goalie of the future wears a blocker all the way up his entire arm.

There's a break halfway through, during which the future player stares at us for an uncomfortably long time. I have a lot of questions, like: Do everyone's eyebrows look that in 2050 or just hockey players? Does he wear the helmet all the time, or do the brain probes come off? And most importantly, can you please make him go away before I have nightmares?

The second half is focused on the fans, who will of course have flying cars because it's the future. Arenas will have retractable roofs, force fields and laser walls. And there will be two classes of fans, the elites who matter and the poors who don't. That sounds about right, nods Kevin Lowe.

I'm all in on the food chute—or, as Marty calls it, the FOOD CHUTE. But the rest of those luxury features sound awful. Can you imagine having a phone and a screen right in your face at all times? Sounds like an awful way to go through life.

No joke, the spinning section of the stands is a good idea and we should do that. Build that into your next arena proposal, Calgary.

We also hear about 3D holographic broadcast, which also seem pretty cool. You know, the future of hockey sounds like a lot of fun. I've almost forgotten that 2050 will feature uncontrolled global warming that will render the planet a dystopian nightmare and oh good they're here to remind me.

Yes, we're back to the warm weather thing, as we learn that the NHL will expand to Egypt and Guam on its way to becoming a 128-team league. Sorry, Hamilton, you were #129 on the list, we swear.

Just as we're trying to figure out why there are future divisions named after Rick Zombo and Walt Poddubny, our clip ends. Overall, they did reasonably well—they pretty much nailed outdoor games, puck sensors and helmet-cams, and they still have 33 years to get the rest of it. (You know, before we all die in the great flood.)

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @DownGoesBrown.

DGB Grab Bag: Bladeless Jet Skates, Regular Bladeless Skates, and Honesty published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[amtushinfosolutionspage]

DGB Grab Bag: Bladeless Jet Skates, Regular Bladeless Skates, and Honesty

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Jonathan Drouin – The Canadiens may still be on the outside of the playoff race, but at least their best players always remember to make sure they have blades in their skates. Well, almost always.

The second star: Ryan Hartman being a jerk – Remember when you were in grade school and you’d fake-punch other kids and then laugh if they flinched? Hartman still does that. But this time he did it to Corey Perry, so it’s OK.

The first star: Dave Elston – You may not know the name, but you should. Elston is the legendary cartoonist whose NHL work was some of the only reliable hockey humor produced for much of the 80s, 90s, and beyond. He recently joined Twitter, where’s he’s been releasing old cartoons from his archives. He’s must-follow for hockey fans, even new ones who may not get all the references.

Outrage of the Week

The issue: Former Oiler Jordan Eberle told reporters that criticism from the “brutal” Edmonton media had affected his confidence and his play there.

The outrage: He’s right, the media are insensitive jerks. Or he’s wrong, and a big wimp for even bringing it up.

Is it justified: It can’t be fun to be an NHL player when things aren’t going well. It really can’t. We all have our good and bad days, and we all get criticized at some point by somebody. But for most of us, it doesn’t happen on the front page of a newspaper or leading off the nightly newscast. It’s easy enough to say that players should toughen up and have thicker skin, and some of them do. But not everyone is going to handle negativity in the same way, and basic human nature tells us that occasionally, it’s going to get to you. Or as Eberle put it, “When you read articles every day about how much you suck, it’s tough.”

So yes, Eberle’s got a point here, and what he’s saying about his experience as an Oiler is undoubtedly true.

But it’s also true that Eberle deserved some criticism for his play in Edmonton, especially last year. By his own admission, he “definitely didn’t play up to my standards, especially in the playoffs.” If you’re in the media, and it’s your job to give an honest opinion about how a player is performing, you don’t really have many options. You can either pull your punches to spare someone’s feelings, or you can call it like you see it.

So where does that leave us? I thought the best take I saw on the whole issue came from Elliotte Friedman, who wrote about the impact the media’s coverage can have on players like Eberle. Friedman sounds like a guy who puts some real thought into the balance between doing his job and knowing the impact his work can have. Most of us in this business do think about that, although maybe not as much as we could. Believe it or not, it’s rarely much fun to dump all over somebody. But it can be part of the job.

And of course, they key here is that the criticism has to be fair. Some of it isn’t, and when you see the media inventing controversies or settling scores, you’re right to take the player’s side. And it goes without saying that the media members who spend their days criticizing players, coaches and GMs need to have thick skin about criticism of their own work. Most of us don’t.

But the bigger point remains: This is just part of the job, for media and players alike. For those in the press box, the key is to make it fair, make it honest, and to remember (as Friedman points out) that your words may be affecting a player’s friends and family too. For those on the ice, the criticism is one downside of a job that still often ranks as one of the best in the world.

As for Eberle, he deserves points for being honest. That’s what the media is supposed to want out of players, so we can’t fault him for not playing make-believe and telling us that none of this ever gets to him.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

Earlier this week on the Biscuits hockey podcast, Dave and I were asked which active players would pair off for the best goalie fight. And I’ll admit it—we kind of blew the answer. Dave mentioned Jonathan Quick, which was a solid choice, and we kicked a few other options around. But we missed several names that were obvious picks. We’ll follow up on next week’s show and make it right.

In the meantime, let me try to make it up to you with this week’s obscure player pick: goaltender Mark Laforest.

Laforest, who was creatively nicknamed “Trees,” went undrafted but was signed by Detroit as organizational depth in 1983. He made his NHL debut two years later, going 4-21-0 for a terrible Red Wings team because that’s the only kind there was back then.

He was traded to the Flyers in 1987, and then to the Maple Leafs in 1989. He spent one year in Toronto, winning a career-high nine games, before being shipped to the Rangers as part of the deal that sent a young Tie Domi to New York. He never played for the Rangers, and didn’t make it back to the NHL until a brief appearance with the Senators in 1993-94.

Laforest wasn’t exactly known as a hothead, but in Philadelphia he did serve as the backup to Ron Hextall. Some of that may have rubbed off, because in 1989 he decided it would be a good idea to fight Sean Burke. It was not.

This is what happens when you let two redheads coach in the same NHL game.

This is actually one of the first (for lack of a better term) modern goalie fights I can remember. In the old days, goalie would pair off during bench-clearing brawls, but those had recently become extinct. This was one of the first times that a goalie got to do the full length-of-the-ice skate. Twice, as it turns out.

Most importantly, Sean Burke was legitimately one of the best fighting goalies ever. People remember Hextall or Patrick Roy or Billy Smith, and rightfully so, but Burke belongs right up there with them. Laforest actually does OK here; others were not as lucky.

As for Laforest, that Ottawa stint was it for his big-league career, which saw him appear in 103 games, posting 25 wins along with two shutouts and 65 penalty minutes. He played in the minors until 1996 and later went into coaching.

Be It Resolved

It was an interesting week for NHL interviews. A few days after Eberle’s quotes hit the public, an even bigger star had even more interesting things to say. Lots more.

I know, right? I was shocked too. But there it was, in this Craig Custance piece in The Athletic. Somehow, he got Kings’ defenseman Drew Doughty to open up about his contract status. And when he did, he started dropping bombs.

The article is behind a paywall so I won’t cut-and-paste all the good bits here, but among other things it includes Doughty admitting that:

He’s already thinking ahead to free agency in 2019.

He thinks money is important, and apparently doesn’t feel the need to pretend otherwise.

He plans to talk with fellow UFA Erik Karlsson to maximize their potential payout.

He thinks he should make more than P.K. Subban.

This all might end with him playing somewhere else, and he sure sounds interested in the Maple Leafs (including him describing their coaching situation by saying, and I swear to you that this is a real quote, “Oh fuck, yeah. Babs.”)

None of that should be especially shocking, but it kind of is when you hear it actually said by an NHL player. We know the drill by now. Doughty is supposed to say “Gosh, hadn’t even thought about it, I’m just focused on playing, all I want to do is win and the rest of it will take care of itself.” But he didn’t. He told the truth. And it was kind of fascinating.

So this week, we have a Be It Resolved two-fer. First of all, be it resolved that nobody get all cranky with Doughty about actually saying something. That includes you, Kings fans, even though I’m sure the Maple Leafs stuff isn’t playing well. We’re all constantly complaining about how boring hockey players are, so we can’t go filling our diapers the second somebody gets interesting.

And second of all, be it resolved that Custance has to take whatever magic pocket watch he dangled in front of Doughty’s eyes to get him to talk like this and share it with the rest of us. No fair hogging, Craig. Spread the joy.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

With the NHL officially hitting the century mark last weekend—Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the league’s founding—it’s tempting to look towards the future and try to figure out what the league will look like over the next 100 years. Luckily, we don’t have to work too hard, because this decades-old Red Wings broadcast already covered it for us.

This clip seems to be from Detroit’s PASS sports station, and would have aired in the early 90s. They’re going to take a shot at what the next few decades hold. Let’s see how they do.

We start off with a look back at the days when hockey was played outdoors, which is crazy because I’m pretty sure neither of those teams is even the Blackhawks. We also hear about how goalie pads are much bigger than ever before. If you consider that a good thing then boy, do I have exciting news for you, early 90s hockey fans.

We also hear about all of the “space age” equipment that modern players have, including “custom-fitted skates.” Yeah, I bet it was rough back in the day when you just had to wear whatever size they had lying around.

We finally get to the predictions for 2050, and I just want to point out that the last clip before we jump into the future is of Steve Yzerman and the Tampa Bay Lightning. Does that count as an accurate prediction? I think it might have to.

So our first prediction of life in 2050 is…uh, Alaska looking like a beach due to global warming. Wow, this got dark in a hurry. I’m kind of depressed now. I sure hope future scientists are focused on preserving the climate so we don’t all die.

Nope, they’re making fake ice and bladeless jet skates. But “the air jets are non-polluting,” so cool, close enough.

After way too many shots of some dude’s toes, we move onto our next prediction: Hockey’s expansion to the sun belt. That ended up happening, of course, although not quite as far south as Central America, as predicted here. We also get a look at the uniforms of 2050, which is clearly wrong since there aren’t any ads plastered all over them.

I’m completely on board with the Lazer Stik, though. It’s not so much the warp setting or $14,999 price tag, I just like the idea of a stick that doesn’t break every third shift.

Side note: I wish I was as enthusiastic about anything in my life as announcer Marty Adler is about literally every sentence in this clip. Or, as he would put it: I wish I was as enthusiastic about anything in my life as this announcer is about LITERALL EVERY SENTENCE in this clip.

Next up is the helmet of the future, which includes a microphone, tiny TV screens, and even brain probes to foil opposition attempts at frequency jamming. Weird, I guess the Patriots are an NHL team in 2050.

Also, the helmets will have cameras in them, which is just ridiculous.

Coaches will apparently live in little rooms packed with screens, a bubble hockey game, and a button that’s labelled DO NOT PUSH in giant letters. I’m kind of intrigued by that last one. I’m assuming Ken Holland has one in his office right now that starts the Red Wings rebuild.

We get a section about the puck being embedded with sensors that makes reviewing goals and offsides foolproof. That’s pretty much guaranteed to happen at some point soon, and I’d give them credit for getting another one right if I weren’t distracted by trying to figure out why the goalie of the future wears a blocker all the way up his entire arm.

There’s a break halfway through, during which the future player stares at us for an uncomfortably long time. I have a lot of questions, like: Do everyone’s eyebrows look that in 2050 or just hockey players? Does he wear the helmet all the time, or do the brain probes come off? And most importantly, can you please make him go away before I have nightmares?

The second half is focused on the fans, who will of course have flying cars because it’s the future. Arenas will have retractable roofs, force fields and laser walls. And there will be two classes of fans, the elites who matter and the poors who don’t. That sounds about right, nods Kevin Lowe.

I’m all in on the food chute—or, as Marty calls it, the FOOD CHUTE. But the rest of those luxury features sound awful. Can you imagine having a phone and a screen right in your face at all times? Sounds like an awful way to go through life.

No joke, the spinning section of the stands is a good idea and we should do that. Build that into your next arena proposal, Calgary.

We also hear about 3D holographic broadcast, which also seem pretty cool. You know, the future of hockey sounds like a lot of fun. I’ve almost forgotten that 2050 will feature uncontrolled global warming that will render the planet a dystopian nightmare and oh good they’re here to remind me.

Yes, we’re back to the warm weather thing, as we learn that the NHL will expand to Egypt and Guam on its way to becoming a 128-team league. Sorry, Hamilton, you were #129 on the list, we swear.

Just as we’re trying to figure out why there are future divisions named after Rick Zombo and Walt Poddubny, our clip ends. Overall, they did reasonably well—they pretty much nailed outdoor games, puck sensors and helmet-cams, and they still have 33 years to get the rest of it. (You know, before we all die in the great flood.)

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you’d like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @DownGoesBrown.

DGB Grab Bag: Bladeless Jet Skates, Regular Bladeless Skates, and Honesty syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

[importanttravelerninja-blog]

How My Father (Maybe) Started the Timeless ‘Beat L.A.!’ Chant

What if I told you that my father invented one of the most iconic sports chants of all time? That he and his friends, from the balcony of a packed and stuffy Boston Garden in 1982, started yelling something that would, decades later, be appropriated by every fan who hates Los Angeles, which, it turns out, is a lot of them?You probably wouldn’t believe me. I’m not sure if I believe me, either, but every family needs a claim to history. This one is ours. Some people’s ancestors came over on the Mayflower. Some people’s parents attended Woodstock. My dad, Joel Semuels, invented the “Beat L.A.!” chant.*What is the “Beat L.A.!” chant, you ask? It is what you will likely hear as the Houston Astros host the Los Angeles Dodgers for two more World Series games at Minute Maid Park this weekend. It is chanted in stadiums across the country when any Los Angeles team—the Dodgers, Lakers, Rams, or Clippers, even the obnoxiously named Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim—plays in another city. But I also saw it on a San Francisco movie-theater marquee during a bus ride to work this week.It is a simple but powerful phrase: “Beat L.A.!”Sure, it’s not the most complicated combination of words, but its origins are pretty clever. It was not started in a game against a Los Angeles team, but, according to both my dad, the inventor*, and to certain accounts of sports history, during a May 1982 playoff game between my hometown Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers.The seven-game series was tied at 3–3, and whoever won that last game would go on to play the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals. The Celtics had come back from a 3–1 series deficit, but near the end of the game, as it became evident that the Celtics would not win, fans (including my dad)* started chanting “Beat L.A.!” as a way of encouraging Philadelphia to go on and (you guessed it) beat Los Angeles.Watch the game’s television coverage, marvel at the players’ incredibly short shorts and fans’ feathered hair-dos, and observe the chant arise out of silence. “Do you hear what the crowd is chanting to the Sixers?” Bill Russell, the Hall of Famer and color commentator, asked play-by-play man Dick Stockton. “Beat L.A.!” Stockton replied.  For those not very knowledgeable about 1980s basketball, some extra context may be necessary. First, the Celtics and Lakers have long nurtured an intense, emotional rivalry. It started in the 1960s, when they played each other six times in the NBA Finals. The stakes rose years later, when the Lakers drafted Magic Johnson and the Celtics drafted Larry Bird. As collegiate phenoms, they had faced off against each other in the 1979 NCAA championship game, and that competitiveness carried over to the professional ranks. Their NBA matchups defined the very essence of the East Coast–West Coast rivalry, with either the Celtics or Lakers playing in every Finals in the 1980s.“It felt like the Celtics and the Lakers were always on the verge of playing for history. It was kind of like a soap opera,” says Jim Podhoretz, the director of ESPN’s excellent 30 for 30 documentary “Celtics/Lakers: Best of Enemies.” (Or, as my dad calls it, “The 20-for-20 documentary about the Celtics.”) Some commentators have suggested that the rivalry was propelled by racial undertones, with Boston, a city long known for its systemic racism, cheering on a team featuring white players like Larry Bird and Kevin McHale, and Los Angeles, which was more diverse, fielding a team of black players like Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. As the Los Angeles Times columnist Scott Ostler wrote during the rivalry’s apex, “Is it bad that a segment of white sports fans in Boston have jumped on the Celtic bandwagon because the team’s leader and superstar, Larry Bird, is white?”Racial tensions may have sowed some fans’ investment in the rivalry, but for fans like my father, the Lakers hatred wasn’t about race but rather the teams’ disparate styles. Jerry Buss, who purchased the Lakers in 1979, wanted basketball games to be more entertaining—thus the “Showtime” Lakers of the ’80s were born—and would pipe in rock music to make games seem more like night club acts. “The Lakers were very Hollywood and the Celtics players were not Hollywood,” my dad says. Pat Riley, who had experience in TV announcing before coming aboard as Lakers head coach, became known for his Armani suits and slicked-back hair, and his Lakers played an up-tempo style, replete with alley-oops and no-look passes. They had courtside cheerleaders and boasted dozens of famous Hollywood celebrity fans at the Forum, their fancy and relatively new arena that did have a night club on site for postgame celebrations.The Celtics, conversely, weren’t fast or smooth. And Boston, with its working-class reputation, was kind of a dump in the 1980s. They played in the Boston Garden, which had been built in the 1920s and didn’t even have air conditioning. The Celtics neither had cheerleaders nor a sea of recognizable fans. “The Lakers were a very showy team,” my dad explains. “The Celtics were like a lunch-bucket group.”  (I didn’t know what a lunch-bucket worker was, so I looked it up: Thesaurus.com says it’s a “common laborer.” Dads. They teach you things.)Boston fans didn't like this new approach to basketball. In the Boston Garden, my father says, fans were serious about basketball, not about all the extra entertainment. There were no kiss cams or jumbotrons or hot-dog cannons. “Back then, people came for the basketball,” he says. “They didn’t come to win a free T-shirt.” That meant fans were more engaged in the game, more knowledgeable about the players, and, therefore, knew what would happen if the 76ers beat the Celtics, which is they would play the Lakers in the Finals.Celtics fans respected the 76ers, with whom they also had an intense rivalry in the 1980s. They certainly respected them more than they did the showoff Lakers. After all, the Celtics came back from a 3–1 series deficit in 1981 to beat the 76ers and go on to win the NBA championship. The 76ers, like the Celtics, were an East Coast team, with players like Julius “Dr. J” Erving and Andrew Toney, who was known as “The Boston Strangler” since the Celtics were terrible at defending him.More than anything, Celtics fans abhorred the “Showtime” Lakers and wanted them to lose, no matter the cost. So my dad, standing in the balcony with his friends, thinking about how much he disliked the Lakers, started chanting: “Beat L.A.! Beat L.A.!” Other fans followed. The Garden turned from a place of funereal silence to one united by a loud, synchronous chant. Darryl Dawkins, a 76ers player, reportedly told the Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan, “When I heard that, my dick got stiff.” My dad did that!*Now, I would not peg my father as much of a chanter. Growing up going to Red Sox games, I’m not sure I ever heard him chant the now-ubiquitous “Yankees suck!” But, he insists, he was a chanter then. Everyone was. “You can’t understand how passionate the fans were back then,” he told me. “People don’t do that now. They just get lots of food and try to get seen on the kiss cam.” It probably helped that there were all sorts of bench-clearing brawls to capture fans’ attention. And that the Celtics had been absolutely dreadful in 1978 and 1979 and, all of a sudden, they were good again? Well, fans get giddy when they are pleasantly surprised.  As a dutiful journalist, I tried to corroborate my father’s account. I wanted to start with his two friends who were at the May 23, 1982, game with him. They were Richie and Bob Weintraub, family friends who shared season tickets with him until the Boston Garden was torn down and replaced by the Fleet Center (now known as TD Garden), which had far too many jumbotrons and T-shirt cannons for their taste.Richie, who was beloved in Boston for his work creating programs for the homeless, passed away last year. His death was sad not only because he was a great guy but because he would have gleefully called my father out if this whole tale was some kind of fabrication.But his brother Bob, the longtime headmaster of Brookline High School and now a lecturer at Boston University, confirms the three of them were at that game. Did they invent the chant? “If your father thinks we started it, I’ll accept credit for it,” he says. “Honestly, maybe we did.”Not exactly the most conclusive answer, but not a denial either. When I emailed the Celtics for a comment about who might have started it, Jeff Twiss, the team’s vice president of media relations, wrote me back. “If I recall, the crowd just started chanting it,” he says. “There was no jumbotron or prompt from a mascot to entice the crowd back then.” As to whether my father started it, Twiss wrote, “I guess we take that for face value, as there were over 14,890 in the old Garden then.”Fair point, but my father is not the type of person to make such things up. He is a Town Meeting member in my hometown of Belmont, meaning he is an elected official and we all know elected officials never lie. He is also a pretty typical dad, as far as dads go. He tells bad jokes. (“If you eat lots of hummus, you’ll never falafel.”) He likes sports. (Well, he doesn’t care about hockey, but that’s understandable.) He picks up trash on the streets during his morning walk. I’ve never known him to tell a lie. And I grew up hearing that he started the “Beat L.A.!” chant.I have to say, I believe him.*Today, fans use “Beat L.A.!” when they’re actually playing Los Angeles teams. It has become a refrain for people who don’t like Los Angeles, with its movie stars and sunny days and its hippie-dippie food trends, like just eating soup. “The chant is a way to let L.A. know we’re tired of the smugness, from its perfect weather to high-paid athletes and celebrities,” as the Arizona Republic reporter Scott Craven wrote in a recent piece about the chant.Sure, you can buy “Beat L.A.!” T-shirts and “Beat L.A.!” coffee mugs, but the phrase started as something cleverer than another anti-L.A. trope. It’s “the ultimate example of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend,’” as author Chuck Klosterman, a longtime Celtics fan, told me. Klosterman remembers hearing the “Beat L.A.!” chant in 1988, as the Detroit Pistons were about to knock off the Celtics in the conference finals and advance to face the Lakers in the NBA Finals.Alas, the chant—like so many both before and after—did not actually work. In 1988, the Lakers beat the Pistons in seven games to win another title, just as they beat the 76ers six years earlier, a couple of weeks after a famous chant was birthed into existence.But in 1984, two years after my father’s historic contribution, the Celtics prevailed over the Lakers, in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. And it was inside that stuffy, overheated Boston Garden, devoid of air conditioning and so many other luxuries, that the Celtics themselves beat L.A.* Maybe. Read the full article

[yahoo-puck-daddy-blog]

Blackhawks, Olympics and NHL goalie ranking (Puck Daddy Countdown)

  (In which Ryan Lambert takes a look at some of the biggest issues and stories in the NHL, and counts them down.)

 6 – Ranking stuff

Everyone was very mad this week that the NHL Network put out its list of the top 10 goalies in the league. As you might imagine, the list was Very Bad.

Let’s go: Carey Price No. 1? I guess I get it still but y’know. Braden Holtby second? I get that too.

Sergei Bobrovsky at No. 3 seems an awful lot like recency bias but he’s got two Vezinas in the collection and is .923 in his five years as a starter with Columbus.

After that it gets wacky: Matt Murray has 62 regular-season appearances to go with his two Cups, so this seems awful premature. Devan Dubnyk has two good seasons as a starter under his belt. Jonathan Quick at sixth is idiotic on its face. Cam Talbot is fine at seventh if you’re weighing last season really really heavily. Henrik Lundqvist, after one bad season, is only the eighth-best goalie in the world all of a sudden.

Martin Jones is fine-ish at No. 9. I accept that I guess. Pekka Rinne at 10 is not.

Where’s Tuukka Rask? Where’s Cory Schneider? Man, tough crowd (unless you’re Jonathan Quick).

Anyway the 10 best goalies in the league are the 10 best goaltenders in quality-adjusted 5v5 save percentage over the last three years, after a further adjustment for aging curves.

Not accepting any questions or comments on the matter at this time. Thank you.

5 – Bringing up the Olympics again

I have been trying not to think about it, but the AP re-confirmed the thing everyone already knew: No NHLers, and no players on NHL contracts in any other league, are going to be heading to South Korea in February.

Which, fair enough. It’s a bummer but I have accepted it.

Or at least, I thought I had. Then I saw that Canada/Russia line brawl from the other day and just how bleak the situation is really going to be. I looked at a quick writeup of that game and, like, Gilbert Brule starred for Canada. Kevin Poulin was the goalie. Justin Azevedo was in the big donnybrook.

Like I say: Bleak.

Look at this list of Americans playing in the KHL this season. These are the best American internationals, playing in what is probably the third-best pro league in the world, and it’s a bunch of guys like TJ Galiardi and Matt Gilroy at best. The Swedish league’s Americans are even worse.

I’m starting to worry we won’t really even get AHL-level hockey out of these Olympics. This is bad news.

4 -The Predators plans

I wonder, at the end of the day, how much the Predators were counting on this decision by Mike Fisher to call it a career to not-happen.

I don’t like their center depth much even with Fisher in the fold, but going with Johansen, then Bonino, then Fisher, then probably Colton Sissons isn’t terrible. I don’t rate Bonino or Fisher as anything approaching being a legitimate top-60 center in the league, but they’d both solidly be in the top 75 or so I think. If you have two “tweener” middle-six centers, I think you can get by, especially with that defense.

Now, the Preds don’t even have that. One clear top-line guy. One so-so middle-six option, and then after that it’s Sissons, who seems okay I guess, and, I dunno, Freddie Gaudreau maybe?

Obviously I’m still pretty high on Nashville to succeed in the Central based on the overall strength the team has on the blue line and, frankly, on both wings as well. But they’re going to realize pretty quickly that if they want to get back to a Cup Final they need some center help. Probably why those “trade a defenseman” rumors persist, huh?

Anyway, speaking of where the Preds will finish in the Central…

3 – Prediction time

Gotta say: Pretty shocking to log onto Twitter on Monday, Aug. 7, and find predictions about who will finish where in the Central Division. But here we are: The Hockey News Yearbook came out and predicted the standings for most everything you could hope to predict. Pittsburgh over Edmonton in the Cup Final, etc. (That’d be three Cups in a row for Pittsburgh, which seems very optimistic.)

Anyway, the really interesting part in all of this was that the Hockey News has the top-three finishers in the Central as Dallas, Nashville, and Chicago in that order.

It got me thinking, like, I don’t know who I think is any good in the Central, except to say that a good chunk of the teams in it are clearly good, if flawed.

I don’t trust Dallas at all, and certainly not with that goaltending situation, to win a division that will probably take 105 points to win. Nashville could do it, but that center depth is concerning and Pekka Rinne has to be considered a big question mark. Chicago, well, we know their problems. Minnesota has a solid roster but would need another bonkers season from Devan Dubnyk to come close to winning. St. Louis poses as credible a threat to the rest as well. Winnipeg could take a step forward if the goaltending sorts itself out with Steve Mason (that it probably won’t do that will not be a reflection on Mason, in my opinion). Colorado is tanking, so that’s the one team that won’t do any real damage.

In a division with seven teams, probably five of them are going to finish north of 90 points, if I had to guess. I just don’t see where any of them stand out above the rest. If I had to ballpark it right now today, I’d say Nashville wins — they were phenomenal in the second half, and not just because of PDO — over the full 82. But hockey’s funny and things can go sideways.

2 – The benefit of the doubt

One other thing to note with all that stuff about the Central got me thinking: What will it take for a major hockey publication to predict Chicago will miss the playoffs?

I think they’re still a playoff team right now — don’t get mad at me, fanboys! — but I don’t think they’re the third-best team in that division any more. They’re capable of being that, but right now there are too many question marks. Serious ones at that. What does Kane look like without Panarin? What does the whole defense look like without Hjalmarsson? What does this team look like with a dozen 22-year-olds on it?

So I think it’s legitimate to ask when Hockey People will stop saying, “Ah it’s Chicago! Kane Toews Keith!” about these guys. Probably has to be two straight playoff misses, right? They’ll be presumed “in” until they miss once, for sure. You can call that a hiccup.

But for the entire hockey ecosystem to shift to, “Ah they’re past it” — which by the way is a somewhat reasonable position to take even right this second — it’s gotta be two misses.

That puts at “at least two more years of people saying Chicago is elite.” Probably more like four, if we’re being honest. Which is wild, because Dallas won a playoff game more recently than Chicago did.

1 – Sidney Crosby

Also wild: Sidney Crosby is now officially one of those guys I would say is “on the wrong side of 30.”

Death comes for us all.

(Not ranked this week: Not signing Jagr.

Folks, this is getting silly! I do not like it!)

—

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All statistics via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

MORE FROM YAHOO SPORTS

[0225pm]

guess who came all the way to my place at 330AM!!!!! lol i was so surprised bc i just got done with putting on my acne treatments for the night and was about to hit the hay already until i received a call from han. funny thing was, i thought he was super tired today since we've met each other like 3 days in a row already so i figured i should let him rest and take a break from seeing my face HAHAHAHA 😂 and then earlier in the evening around 530PM, i met up with dayah since it was her birthday yesterday and i wanted to pass her a gift i got her as well. in the midst of it all, i managed to get cupcakes (thank goodness twelve cupcakes exist at bedok mall) as an additional gift because imo a birthday without some form of cake or something similar and edible isn't really a birthday-birthday, if you get what i mean!!! and then i treated her to a little something extra which was starbucks since they still had the 1-for-1 promo going on (thanks seanna for this!!) i know everything just seems like i'm spending a lot but idk i just wanted to make her feel like she deserves all these because of what she's going through both in school and at home. besides, it's not everyday that we do these sorta things for each other! and my mom always taught me to be kind and generous if you have the means to do it!! (〃＾▽＾〃) ok and then around 7+ i think we decided to head back home since she was tired from school and was carrying a lot of gifts from her clique at school. and upon reaching home, i video called han HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! he didn't pick it up at first so i thought ah, he must be asleep and i ended the call after a couple of rings. then just as i was about to head to the toilet to remove my makeup, i felt my phone vibrate and noticed that han was video calling me HAHAHAHAAH SO I PICKED IT UP AND HE WAS LIKE, han: woa first time you video call me eh me: ya hahaha i thought you're sleeping cus you didn't pick up han: no la i didn't feel the vibration etc etc etc me: ohhhhh me: me: han: is it you video call me cus you're wearing makeup??? me: LOLOLOLOLOL me: omg how you know HAAHAHAHHAHAAH this is, but true HAHAHAAH. i'm slowly tryna get comfortable with my skin and even after han had already seen me FRIKIN BARE FACED IN REAL LIFE during my visit to the clinic the other time for my acne meds, i still am so shy and embarrass to let him see my naked and makeup-free face even after all these time hahahaha even after he told me how much he doesn't care and it doesn't even bother him and how much he still adores and loves me no matter how shit i look and still give me lots of kisses and holds my hands in public but lol i still feel so..... shy and not confident enough. i feel like i should dress to match how good he looks because he slays all the time y'all like forrealz idk how he does it but he looks bomb all the time. and then after awhile he had to end the call because he had something to do and then he thanked me for video calling him for the first time ever haahhaahahah ヽ(；▽；)ノ anyway fast forward the time to about maybe 8/9pm or so. we were just having a normal conversation, with him replying sometimes instantly and sometimes taking up to 30 mins *rolls eyes* it was mostly about whether he had already had his dinner or not and then because i already had starbucks with dayah i sent him a photo of it telling him that if he's not tired on friday (his first day off) then maybe we can go grab it together since it's the last day of the promo. i think he saw my instastory cus the next moment he said something like "yeah and you light the savory one" and i was just LOL-ing because i thought he was sleepy which was the reason for the typos. and then i wanted to ask him to play ml with me but LOL HE ALR GM4 damn fast or what this bugger (also bc he's always playing ranked games more than classic/brawl. unlike me, i played like idk how many games of brawl already). then around 10PM he asked me to play first and then he'll join later. so i said ok ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but i was too busy doing other shit like removing my make up (yes i haven't removed my make up after the video call) and moisturizing, my skincare routine la basically and by the time i wanted to play ml i think it was already around 11+. and then suddenly he came online right at the time when i just ended my game and then he told me to play one round together then he's gonna go sleep. i was kinda bummed like aiya one round je?? but it's late and i know he has work later early in the morning so i said ok and then we played one round together and lost terribly i think cus he was lagging??? and his friend was lagging too or smth i'm not sure hahaha. but overall i am also now GM4!!!! i didn't see his goodnight message on ml until after 1 so i texted him asking if he was already asleep. but i kinda suspected that he was fast asleep cus he didn't reply after i double texted him again at like 2+ almost 3AM, sending him a screenshot of the new menu at macdonalds HAHAHAHAHA!!! and then suddenly he called me and i was so shocked?? bc at that time i was alr preparing to hit the hay. i excitedly picked up his call and asked him why isn't he asleep yet!!! then he said smth like he woke up or smth and saw my msg so i was like oh ok but he sounded super fresh like as though he just had a super good sleep. and then he said he wanted to go to the toilet and will call me back later but i told him to bring me along LOOOOL and then he said noooo for what but i said bring meeeeeeee. he ended up bringing me but putting me on mute. BUT WHAT SHOCKED ME THE MOST WAS WHEN I HEARD KNOCKING ON MY WINDOW WTF LA. cus it was already so damn late who tf would be knocking on my window right. and i was on the phone with han at that moment as well and i thought it was my brother but he's in camp!!!! so it's definitely not him. never in my mind would i have thought that it was actually han :') wtf i can't believe he came all the way to my place at such an ungodly timing. i was so touched!!!!!! he's so sweet ;;;;;;; what did i even do to deserve such a wonderful boyfriend like him omg. other people will probably think he's a creep for doing things like this but wtf i rly love it bc when someone rly loves you they do silly things like this and sacrifice and risk themselves just to see you and be with you!!!! i made him wait a rly long time and i was truly sorry but i'm not gonna go out looking like a kentang that just went through the fryer with my oily ass haven't shampoo hair and my stinky face full of spot treatments LOL so i went to wash my face, used lots of dry shampoo to soak up my oily hair and then put on a huge ass hoodie lmaO. the moment i stepped outta the house, han: what took u so long???? me: um i look like shit han: *embraces me from back* me: um *blushes but he can't see thank god* han: *continues back hugging into the lift* me: why u come all the way here omg?????? han: hmmmm *still hugging* me: somemore you got work later then must go all the way back lol wtf i'm so passive aggressive when i actually fucking highkey loves the fact that he's right in front of my eyes in physical form LOL me: *waddles bc han is still back hugging me* han: me: me: me: *unlocks han's embrace to turn around and face him before i flung my arms around his neck into a tight hug* he smells so good ;-; he smells just like he came out from the showers or something omg i love his smell?????? is that a thing hahaahha then we held hands and walked to mcds but lol it wasn't dinner/supper anymore cus by 4 they changed the menu to breakfast which was ok by me but i think han actually wanted to have their dinner set bc he wanted to try the new menu but das ok we can always get it another time!! OH AND WHILE WALKING he said, "u never notice anything ah?" then i was like huh and i looked down at what he was staring/pointing at. and i realized he was wearing the jeans i got him hehehehe and it fits him quite well!!!!!!! sorry i wasn't observant i was still in a state of surprise to notice or maybe it's bc you look like a million bucks all the time already ;) and then around 4+ 5 he had to leave to avoid the morning commuters :( i was sad bc he's leaving so early but i can't be selfish either bc i don't want him to be stuck in a jam and then be late bc of my selfishness so he booked a grab and after many many many kisses and warm hugs, he left since the grab driver already arrived. but lol he keyed in the wrong location and then i booked another grab for him instead with the right location this time (he got the same driver ahahahaha) and watched him get in the car safely before i went in, washed up, sent him a text and falling asleep soundly hehe. best boyfriend award goes to you ♡

[flauntpage]

DGB Grab Bag: Bladeless Jet Skates, Regular Bladeless Skates, and Honesty

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Jonathan Drouin – The Canadiens may still be on the outside of the playoff race, but at least their best players always remember to make sure they have blades in their skates. Well, almost always.

The second star: Ryan Hartman being a jerk – Remember when you were in grade school and you'd fake-punch other kids and then laugh if they flinched? Hartman still does that. But this time he did it to Corey Perry, so it's OK.

The first star: Dave Elston – You may not know the name, but you should. Elston is the legendary cartoonist whose NHL work was some of the only reliable hockey humor produced for much of the 80s, 90s, and beyond. He recently joined Twitter, where's he's been releasing old cartoons from his archives. He's must-follow for hockey fans, even new ones who may not get all the references.

Outrage of the Week

The issue: Former Oiler Jordan Eberle told reporters that criticism from the "brutal" Edmonton media had affected his confidence and his play there. The outrage: He's right, the media are insensitive jerks. Or he's wrong, and a big wimp for even bringing it up. Is it justified: It can't be fun to be an NHL player when things aren't going well. It really can't. We all have our good and bad days, and we all get criticized at some point by somebody. But for most of us, it doesn't happen on the front page of a newspaper or leading off the nightly newscast. It's easy enough to say that players should toughen up and have thicker skin, and some of them do. But not everyone is going to handle negativity in the same way, and basic human nature tells us that occasionally, it's going to get to you. Or as Eberle put it, "When you read articles every day about how much you suck, it’s tough."

So yes, Eberle's got a point here, and what he's saying about his experience as an Oiler is undoubtedly true.

But it's also true that Eberle deserved some criticism for his play in Edmonton, especially last year. By his own admission, he "definitely didn’t play up to my standards, especially in the playoffs." If you're in the media, and it's your job to give an honest opinion about how a player is performing, you don't really have many options. You can either pull your punches to spare someone's feelings, or you can call it like you see it.

So where does that leave us? I thought the best take I saw on the whole issue came from Elliotte Friedman, who wrote about the impact the media's coverage can have on players like Eberle. Friedman sounds like a guy who puts some real thought into the balance between doing his job and knowing the impact his work can have. Most of us in this business do think about that, although maybe not as much as we could. Believe it or not, it's rarely much fun to dump all over somebody. But it can be part of the job.

And of course, they key here is that the criticism has to be fair. Some of it isn't, and when you see the media inventing controversies or settling scores, you're right to take the player's side. And it goes without saying that the media members who spend their days criticizing players, coaches and GMs need to have thick skin about criticism of their own work. Most of us don't.

But the bigger point remains: This is just part of the job, for media and players alike. For those in the press box, the key is to make it fair, make it honest, and to remember (as Friedman points out) that your words may be affecting a player's friends and family too. For those on the ice, the criticism is one downside of a job that still often ranks as one of the best in the world.

As for Eberle, he deserves points for being honest. That's what the media is supposed to want out of players, so we can't fault him for not playing make-believe and telling us that none of this ever gets to him.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

Earlier this week on the Biscuits hockey podcast, Dave and I were asked which active players would pair off for the best goalie fight. And I'll admit it—we kind of blew the answer. Dave mentioned Jonathan Quick, which was a solid choice, and we kicked a few other options around. But we missed several names that were obvious picks. We'll follow up on next week's show and make it right.

In the meantime, let me try to make it up to you with this week's obscure player pick: goaltender Mark Laforest.

Laforest, who was creatively nicknamed "Trees," went undrafted but was signed by Detroit as organizational depth in 1983. He made his NHL debut two years later, going 4-21-0 for a terrible Red Wings team because that's the only kind there was back then.

He was traded to the Flyers in 1987, and then to the Maple Leafs in 1989. He spent one year in Toronto, winning a career-high nine games, before being shipped to the Rangers as part of the deal that sent a young Tie Domi to New York. He never played for the Rangers, and didn't make it back to the NHL until a brief appearance with the Senators in 1993-94.

Laforest wasn't exactly known as a hothead, but in Philadelphia he did serve as the backup to Ron Hextall. Some of that may have rubbed off, because in 1989 he decided it would be a good idea to fight Sean Burke. It was not.

This is what happens when you let two redheads coach in the same NHL game.

This is actually one of the first (for lack of a better term) modern goalie fights I can remember. In the old days, goalie would pair off during bench-clearing brawls, but those had recently become extinct. This was one of the first times that a goalie got to do the full length-of-the-ice skate. Twice, as it turns out.

Most importantly, Sean Burke was legitimately one of the best fighting goalies ever. People remember Hextall or Patrick Roy or Billy Smith, and rightfully so, but Burke belongs right up there with them. Laforest actually does OK here; others were not as lucky.

As for Laforest, that Ottawa stint was it for his big-league career, which saw him appear in 103 games, posting 25 wins along with two shutouts and 65 penalty minutes. He played in the minors until 1996 and later went into coaching.

Be It Resolved

It was an interesting week for NHL interviews. A few days after Eberle's quotes hit the public, an even bigger star had even more interesting things to say. Lots more.

I know, right? I was shocked too. But there it was, in this Craig Custance piece in The Athletic. Somehow, he got Kings' defenseman Drew Doughty to open up about his contract status. And when he did, he started dropping bombs.

The article is behind a paywall so I won't cut-and-paste all the good bits here, but among other things it includes Doughty admitting that:

He's already thinking ahead to free agency in 2019.

He thinks money is important, and apparently doesn't feel the need to pretend otherwise.

He plans to talk with fellow UFA Erik Karlsson to maximize their potential payout.

He thinks he should make more than P.K. Subban.

This all might end with him playing somewhere else, and he sure sounds interested in the Maple Leafs (including him describing their coaching situation by saying, and I swear to you that this is a real quote, "Oh fuck, yeah. Babs.")

None of that should be especially shocking, but it kind of is when you hear it actually said by an NHL player. We know the drill by now. Doughty is supposed to say "Gosh, hadn't even thought about it, I'm just focused on playing, all I want to do is win and the rest of it will take care of itself." But he didn't. He told the truth. And it was kind of fascinating.

So this week, we have a Be It Resolved two-fer. First of all, be it resolved that nobody get all cranky with Doughty about actually saying something. That includes you, Kings fans, even though I'm sure the Maple Leafs stuff isn't playing well. We're all constantly complaining about how boring hockey players are, so we can't go filling our diapers the second somebody gets interesting.

And second of all, be it resolved that Custance has to take whatever magic pocket watch he dangled in front of Doughty's eyes to get him to talk like this and share it with the rest of us. No fair hogging, Craig. Spread the joy.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

With the NHL officially hitting the century mark last weekend—Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the league's founding—it's tempting to look towards the future and try to figure out what the league will look like over the next 100 years. Luckily, we don't have to work too hard, because this decades-old Red Wings broadcast already covered it for us.

This clip seems to be from Detroit's PASS sports station, and would have aired in the early 90s. They're going to take a shot at what the next few decades hold. Let's see how they do.

We start off with a look back at the days when hockey was played outdoors, which is crazy because I'm pretty sure neither of those teams is even the Blackhawks. We also hear about how goalie pads are much bigger than ever before. If you consider that a good thing then boy, do I have exciting news for you, early 90s hockey fans.

We also hear about all of the "space age" equipment that modern players have, including "custom-fitted skates." Yeah, I bet it was rough back in the day when you just had to wear whatever size they had lying around.

We finally get to the predictions for 2050, and I just want to point out that the last clip before we jump into the future is of Steve Yzerman and the Tampa Bay Lightning. Does that count as an accurate prediction? I think it might have to.

So our first prediction of life in 2050 is…uh, Alaska looking like a beach due to global warming. Wow, this got dark in a hurry. I'm kind of depressed now. I sure hope future scientists are focused on preserving the climate so we don't all die.

Nope, they're making fake ice and bladeless jet skates. But "the air jets are non-polluting," so cool, close enough.

After way too many shots of some dude's toes, we move onto our next prediction: Hockey's expansion to the sun belt. That ended up happening, of course, although not quite as far south as Central America, as predicted here. We also get a look at the uniforms of 2050, which is clearly wrong since there aren't any ads plastered all over them.

I'm completely on board with the Lazer Stik, though. It's not so much the warp setting or $14,999 price tag, I just like the idea of a stick that doesn't break every third shift.

Side note: I wish I was as enthusiastic about anything in my life as announcer Marty Adler is about literally every sentence in this clip. Or, as he would put it: I wish I was as enthusiastic about anything in my life as this announcer is about LITERALL EVERY SENTENCE in this clip.

Next up is the helmet of the future, which includes a microphone, tiny TV screens, and even brain probes to foil opposition attempts at frequency jamming. Weird, I guess the Patriots are an NHL team in 2050.

Also, the helmets will have cameras in them, which is just ridiculous.

Coaches will apparently live in little rooms packed with screens, a bubble hockey game, and a button that's labelled DO NOT PUSH in giant letters. I'm kind of intrigued by that last one. I'm assuming Ken Holland has one in his office right now that starts the Red Wings rebuild.

We get a section about the puck being embedded with sensors that makes reviewing goals and offsides foolproof. That's pretty much guaranteed to happen at some point soon, and I'd give them credit for getting another one right if I weren't distracted by trying to figure out why the goalie of the future wears a blocker all the way up his entire arm.

There's a break halfway through, during which the future player stares at us for an uncomfortably long time. I have a lot of questions, like: Do everyone's eyebrows look that in 2050 or just hockey players? Does he wear the helmet all the time, or do the brain probes come off? And most importantly, can you please make him go away before I have nightmares?

The second half is focused on the fans, who will of course have flying cars because it's the future. Arenas will have retractable roofs, force fields and laser walls. And there will be two classes of fans, the elites who matter and the poors who don't. That sounds about right, nods Kevin Lowe.

I'm all in on the food chute—or, as Marty calls it, the FOOD CHUTE. But the rest of those luxury features sound awful. Can you imagine having a phone and a screen right in your face at all times? Sounds like an awful way to go through life.

No joke, the spinning section of the stands is a good idea and we should do that. Build that into your next arena proposal, Calgary.

We also hear about 3D holographic broadcast, which also seem pretty cool. You know, the future of hockey sounds like a lot of fun. I've almost forgotten that 2050 will feature uncontrolled global warming that will render the planet a dystopian nightmare and oh good they're here to remind me.

Yes, we're back to the warm weather thing, as we learn that the NHL will expand to Egypt and Guam on its way to becoming a 128-team league. Sorry, Hamilton, you were #129 on the list, we swear.

Just as we're trying to figure out why there are future divisions named after Rick Zombo and Walt Poddubny, our clip ends. Overall, they did reasonably well—they pretty much nailed outdoor games, puck sensors and helmet-cams, and they still have 33 years to get the rest of it. (You know, before we all die in the great flood.)

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @DownGoesBrown.

DGB Grab Bag: Bladeless Jet Skates, Regular Bladeless Skates, and Honesty published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[flauntpage]

DGB Grab Bag: Bladeless Jet Skates, Regular Bladeless Skates, and Honesty

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Jonathan Drouin – The Canadiens may still be on the outside of the playoff race, but at least their best players always remember to make sure they have blades in their skates. Well, almost always.

The second star: Ryan Hartman being a jerk – Remember when you were in grade school and you'd fake-punch other kids and then laugh if they flinched? Hartman still does that. But this time he did it to Corey Perry, so it's OK.

The first star: Dave Elston – You may not know the name, but you should. Elston is the legendary cartoonist whose NHL work was some of the only reliable hockey humor produced for much of the 80s, 90s, and beyond. He recently joined Twitter, where's he's been releasing old cartoons from his archives. He's must-follow for hockey fans, even new ones who may not get all the references.

Outrage of the Week

The issue: Former Oiler Jordan Eberle told reporters that criticism from the "brutal" Edmonton media had affected his confidence and his play there. The outrage: He's right, the media are insensitive jerks. Or he's wrong, and a big wimp for even bringing it up. Is it justified: It can't be fun to be an NHL player when things aren't going well. It really can't. We all have our good and bad days, and we all get criticized at some point by somebody. But for most of us, it doesn't happen on the front page of a newspaper or leading off the nightly newscast. It's easy enough to say that players should toughen up and have thicker skin, and some of them do. But not everyone is going to handle negativity in the same way, and basic human nature tells us that occasionally, it's going to get to you. Or as Eberle put it, "When you read articles every day about how much you suck, it’s tough."

So yes, Eberle's got a point here, and what he's saying about his experience as an Oiler is undoubtedly true.

But it's also true that Eberle deserved some criticism for his play in Edmonton, especially last year. By his own admission, he "definitely didn’t play up to my standards, especially in the playoffs." If you're in the media, and it's your job to give an honest opinion about how a player is performing, you don't really have many options. You can either pull your punches to spare someone's feelings, or you can call it like you see it.

So where does that leave us? I thought the best take I saw on the whole issue came from Elliotte Friedman, who wrote about the impact the media's coverage can have on players like Eberle. Friedman sounds like a guy who puts some real thought into the balance between doing his job and knowing the impact his work can have. Most of us in this business do think about that, although maybe not as much as we could. Believe it or not, it's rarely much fun to dump all over somebody. But it can be part of the job.

And of course, they key here is that the criticism has to be fair. Some of it isn't, and when you see the media inventing controversies or settling scores, you're right to take the player's side. And it goes without saying that the media members who spend their days criticizing players, coaches and GMs need to have thick skin about criticism of their own work. Most of us don't.

But the bigger point remains: This is just part of the job, for media and players alike. For those in the press box, the key is to make it fair, make it honest, and to remember (as Friedman points out) that your words may be affecting a player's friends and family too. For those on the ice, the criticism is one downside of a job that still often ranks as one of the best in the world.

As for Eberle, he deserves points for being honest. That's what the media is supposed to want out of players, so we can't fault him for not playing make-believe and telling us that none of this ever gets to him.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

Earlier this week on the Biscuits hockey podcast, Dave and I were asked which active players would pair off for the best goalie fight. And I'll admit it—we kind of blew the answer. Dave mentioned Jonathan Quick, which was a solid choice, and we kicked a few other options around. But we missed several names that were obvious picks. We'll follow up on next week's show and make it right.

In the meantime, let me try to make it up to you with this week's obscure player pick: goaltender Mark Laforest.

Laforest, who was creatively nicknamed "Trees," went undrafted but was signed by Detroit as organizational depth in 1983. He made his NHL debut two years later, going 4-21-0 for a terrible Red Wings team because that's the only kind there was back then.

He was traded to the Flyers in 1987, and then to the Maple Leafs in 1989. He spent one year in Toronto, winning a career-high nine games, before being shipped to the Rangers as part of the deal that sent a young Tie Domi to New York. He never played for the Rangers, and didn't make it back to the NHL until a brief appearance with the Senators in 1993-94.

Laforest wasn't exactly known as a hothead, but in Philadelphia he did serve as the backup to Ron Hextall. Some of that may have rubbed off, because in 1989 he decided it would be a good idea to fight Sean Burke. It was not.

This is what happens when you let two redheads coach in the same NHL game.

This is actually one of the first (for lack of a better term) modern goalie fights I can remember. In the old days, goalie would pair off during bench-clearing brawls, but those had recently become extinct. This was one of the first times that a goalie got to do the full length-of-the-ice skate. Twice, as it turns out.

Most importantly, Sean Burke was legitimately one of the best fighting goalies ever. People remember Hextall or Patrick Roy or Billy Smith, and rightfully so, but Burke belongs right up there with them. Laforest actually does OK here; others were not as lucky.

As for Laforest, that Ottawa stint was it for his big-league career, which saw him appear in 103 games, posting 25 wins along with two shutouts and 65 penalty minutes. He played in the minors until 1996 and later went into coaching.

Be It Resolved

It was an interesting week for NHL interviews. A few days after Eberle's quotes hit the public, an even bigger star had even more interesting things to say. Lots more.

I know, right? I was shocked too. But there it was, in this Craig Custance piece in The Athletic. Somehow, he got Kings' defenseman Drew Doughty to open up about his contract status. And when he did, he started dropping bombs.

The article is behind a paywall so I won't cut-and-paste all the good bits here, but among other things it includes Doughty admitting that:

He's already thinking ahead to free agency in 2019.

He thinks money is important, and apparently doesn't feel the need to pretend otherwise.

He plans to talk with fellow UFA Erik Karlsson to maximize their potential payout.

He thinks he should make more than P.K. Subban.

This all might end with him playing somewhere else, and he sure sounds interested in the Maple Leafs (including him describing their coaching situation by saying, and I swear to you that this is a real quote, "Oh fuck, yeah. Babs.")

None of that should be especially shocking, but it kind of is when you hear it actually said by an NHL player. We know the drill by now. Doughty is supposed to say "Gosh, hadn't even thought about it, I'm just focused on playing, all I want to do is win and the rest of it will take care of itself." But he didn't. He told the truth. And it was kind of fascinating.

So this week, we have a Be It Resolved two-fer. First of all, be it resolved that nobody get all cranky with Doughty about actually saying something. That includes you, Kings fans, even though I'm sure the Maple Leafs stuff isn't playing well. We're all constantly complaining about how boring hockey players are, so we can't go filling our diapers the second somebody gets interesting.

And second of all, be it resolved that Custance has to take whatever magic pocket watch he dangled in front of Doughty's eyes to get him to talk like this and share it with the rest of us. No fair hogging, Craig. Spread the joy.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

With the NHL officially hitting the century mark last weekend—Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the league's founding—it's tempting to look towards the future and try to figure out what the league will look like over the next 100 years. Luckily, we don't have to work too hard, because this decades-old Red Wings broadcast already covered it for us.

This clip seems to be from Detroit's PASS sports station, and would have aired in the early 90s. They're going to take a shot at what the next few decades hold. Let's see how they do.

We start off with a look back at the days when hockey was played outdoors, which is crazy because I'm pretty sure neither of those teams is even the Blackhawks. We also hear about how goalie pads are much bigger than ever before. If you consider that a good thing then boy, do I have exciting news for you, early 90s hockey fans.

We also hear about all of the "space age" equipment that modern players have, including "custom-fitted skates." Yeah, I bet it was rough back in the day when you just had to wear whatever size they had lying around.

We finally get to the predictions for 2050, and I just want to point out that the last clip before we jump into the future is of Steve Yzerman and the Tampa Bay Lightning. Does that count as an accurate prediction? I think it might have to.

So our first prediction of life in 2050 is…uh, Alaska looking like a beach due to global warming. Wow, this got dark in a hurry. I'm kind of depressed now. I sure hope future scientists are focused on preserving the climate so we don't all die.

Nope, they're making fake ice and bladeless jet skates. But "the air jets are non-polluting," so cool, close enough.

After way too many shots of some dude's toes, we move onto our next prediction: Hockey's expansion to the sun belt. That ended up happening, of course, although not quite as far south as Central America, as predicted here. We also get a look at the uniforms of 2050, which is clearly wrong since there aren't any ads plastered all over them.

I'm completely on board with the Lazer Stik, though. It's not so much the warp setting or $14,999 price tag, I just like the idea of a stick that doesn't break every third shift.

Side note: I wish I was as enthusiastic about anything in my life as announcer Marty Adler is about literally every sentence in this clip. Or, as he would put it: I wish I was as enthusiastic about anything in my life as this announcer is about LITERALL EVERY SENTENCE in this clip.

Next up is the helmet of the future, which includes a microphone, tiny TV screens, and even brain probes to foil opposition attempts at frequency jamming. Weird, I guess the Patriots are an NHL team in 2050.

Also, the helmets will have cameras in them, which is just ridiculous.

Coaches will apparently live in little rooms packed with screens, a bubble hockey game, and a button that's labelled DO NOT PUSH in giant letters. I'm kind of intrigued by that last one. I'm assuming Ken Holland has one in his office right now that starts the Red Wings rebuild.

We get a section about the puck being embedded with sensors that makes reviewing goals and offsides foolproof. That's pretty much guaranteed to happen at some point soon, and I'd give them credit for getting another one right if I weren't distracted by trying to figure out why the goalie of the future wears a blocker all the way up his entire arm.

There's a break halfway through, during which the future player stares at us for an uncomfortably long time. I have a lot of questions, like: Do everyone's eyebrows look that in 2050 or just hockey players? Does he wear the helmet all the time, or do the brain probes come off? And most importantly, can you please make him go away before I have nightmares?

The second half is focused on the fans, who will of course have flying cars because it's the future. Arenas will have retractable roofs, force fields and laser walls. And there will be two classes of fans, the elites who matter and the poors who don't. That sounds about right, nods Kevin Lowe.

I'm all in on the food chute—or, as Marty calls it, the FOOD CHUTE. But the rest of those luxury features sound awful. Can you imagine having a phone and a screen right in your face at all times? Sounds like an awful way to go through life.

No joke, the spinning section of the stands is a good idea and we should do that. Build that into your next arena proposal, Calgary.

We also hear about 3D holographic broadcast, which also seem pretty cool. You know, the future of hockey sounds like a lot of fun. I've almost forgotten that 2050 will feature uncontrolled global warming that will render the planet a dystopian nightmare and oh good they're here to remind me.

Yes, we're back to the warm weather thing, as we learn that the NHL will expand to Egypt and Guam on its way to becoming a 128-team league. Sorry, Hamilton, you were #129 on the list, we swear.

Just as we're trying to figure out why there are future divisions named after Rick Zombo and Walt Poddubny, our clip ends. Overall, they did reasonably well—they pretty much nailed outdoor games, puck sensors and helmet-cams, and they still have 33 years to get the rest of it. (You know, before we all die in the great flood.)

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @DownGoesBrown.

DGB Grab Bag: Bladeless Jet Skates, Regular Bladeless Skates, and Honesty published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[natcat5]

natcat5:

Hey since apparently I’m sdkfldkjf in this fandom now or something have a non-exhaustive list of things I think a director/screenwriter would stick into an Animorphs netflix series that they absolutely shouldn’t but would for the drama™ of it all

1. Berenson Brawl

Oh my god a Rachel vs Jake all out scrap. In the book it never happens except in Rachel’s fever dream. As much as she sometimes chafes against his leadership and the continual narrative suggestion that there’s a simmering desire to challenge him, having them actually fight to be in charge would be a huge disservice to both their characters as well as their relationship. Rachel and Jake have such a solid thing in which they know exactly their roles and how to work with one another, how to be each other’s anchor, leash-holder, or executioner if they get out of line. Having them brawl for leadership would be terrible, but oh my god it would 100% happen in a netflix adaptation. how could it not? there’d be so many on screen arguments, so many instances of Jake pulling Rachel back, that it would just have to culminate into a super-dramatic, brutal, tiger v.s grizzly bear beatdown that takes up like 20 minutes of the episode and has like 3 scene changes as they crash through buildings, trees, etc. 

That said, holy fuck god i would be so into it. Like it’s terrible of me but the second the fight started I’d have to pause to go pop some popcorn and pour myself a glass of wine and get hyped and then settle in for the fucking show. 

2. Traitor Tobias 

In Back to Before, Tobias gets Yeerked but mostly does not get his brain-controlled self up in anyone else’s business before having his head shot off. That absolutely would not fly in a netflix adaptation. There would 100% be a confrontation between Yeerk!Tobias and Rachel, and it would be tragic, and Yeerk!Tobias would probably be threatening her with a weapon to the temple, and then they’d look into each other’s eyes or some shit, and there’d be this moment of recognition…before someone, probably Ax or Marco, ices Tobias from behind. He collapses and Rachel catches him automatically, holds him in her arms and stares into his empty eyes, not understanding where this profound pain is coming from…

I would be full out weeping. still drinking wine, but also weeping. 

3. Honeypot

If you think we’re getting an adaptation involving spying, subterfuge, and teenagers, and not have one of them have to seduce a potential high ranking Yeerk controller who’s attending their school, you do not understand what old men in media think teenage audiences want to see. Someone’s going to a fancy restaurant with a potential enemy while everyone else hides in ridiculous outfits. 

I would find this acceptable so long as the one on the date is Jake. 

3. High School

Seriously, half the time in the books you forget they were somehow attending school. In a netflix series there would be recurring side characters, and ridiculous club responsibilities that people got sucked into, and the occasional episode climax that takes place at a school football game or pep rally for some reason. it’s the 90s. own the aesthetic.

actually I’d legitimately really be into a slightly more expansive social world for the characters. like show Jake and Rachel and Marco shifting away from their friend groups, even though they’re trying to keep up appearances. have minor characters that notice that there’s something drastically different about their friends. 

4. Pair the Spares 

It’s unavoidable that whenever Jake/Cassie and Rachel/Tobias get affectionate in the same scene, the camera’s going to pan to Marco and Ax standing awkwardly next to each other. Probably, they’d play it up for laughs. But I’m pretty down for out and undeniably bi Marco completely sincerely making passes at Ax whenever the rest of the team starts pairing up. And Ax just ???????? not understanding human courtship rituals. 

It toes a precarious queerbaiting line but so long as it’s completely clear that Marco is actually bi I’m good with a recurring joke of anytime the established couples get mushy, Marco starts wiggling his eyebrows at Ax

6. Animorphs v.s Generic High School sports Team

This post by @thejakeformerlyknownasprince totally made me aware that, yes, if the hypothetical Netflix series does what I would like it to do and establishes school as an actual setting where actual things actually occur, there would so totally be a fight between animorphs and Generic Jock Bullies™. 

It could play out either comically or with maximum angst, which makes it super interesting to me. I mean, it could be a day Ax is there, and some Generic Jocks™ are picking on him for being exceedingly odd, and then the situation just escalates wildly until the whole gang is fighting for Ax’s honour and Marco is up on someone’s back like a monkey and Rachel has two different guys in a headlock simultaneously and Jake looks like he wants to be anywhere else but sends anyone who gets in range flying and Cassie Does Not get involved except to slidetackle a meathead about to hit Rachel over the head with an algebra book from behind. And if Tobias is there he keeps accidentally screeching like a hawk and jumping up which is really embarassing but he also keeps nailing people in the face with flying kicks. 

Afterwards they’re all shamefaced and bruised and silent and then they just look at each other...and burst out laughing. It’s ridiculous. they fight vicious imperial aliens practically daily and they just got into a fight with the bloody footlacrossball team or whatever and are now waiting in the Principal’s office like they’re in a bad teen drama. it’s too much. they lose it. laugh hysterically. for some reason, a meaningless fight like this lets them blow off some much needed steam.

Or it could play out super, super angsty. Where, like in jfkp’s post, they’ve just come out of a bad fight, they’re exhausted and fed up, and some Jock pushes one of them too far and they just snap. And the fight isn’t comical, it’s vicious. It’s them using their nails and sometimes their teeth and getting too caught up and barely realizing they’re not in an actual war fight and I bet Rachel catches herself almost morphing halfway through and if Tobias is there I bet he catches himself continually trying to claw out people’s eyes and it’s a horrible, terrible thing where they accidentally bring the war to school with them and they’re all horrified at themselves and feel, acutely, that being soldiers has ruined them forever. 

This became less of ‘things to include in netflix series’ and more ‘fanfiction someone should probably write’. 

Things that shouldn’t happen in a theoretical Animorphs netflix series, but probably would anyway