#Was gonna change my user from Jade but I have nothing that feel more like me (was going to be Jade for literal years and now it doesn't fit)

[jadewritesficshere]

The boy is mine (Jade's edition)

Eddie Munson x Reader

Summary: Eddie has a plan for a romantic night, but things go awry (2k words)

Contents: Anxiety, Eddie is self deprecating, hurt/comfort (kinda), no gendered terms for reader except mention that their hand is smaller then Eddie's and reader is called beautiful, a literal fire (please look up fire safety), fluff

A/N: So I saw this the first day it was posted and I thought it was a fun idea and saved the prompt by @carolmunson. I've been writing this for a bit,, but like I have had such bad mental fog and generalized pain recently I have been having a hard time focusing...I think I kind of misinterpreted the rules a bit...so here is sad lump of a contribution. Call me Stitch the way I am telling myself "it may be little and broken but still good".

18+ only

The night had started well, at least Eddie thought it had. He promised you a romantic night in. He even prepped for it.

Eddie rented sappy love movies, getting advice by Harrington and Buckley surprisingly. Harrington stated flowers were the way to go, but then started arguing with Buckley. While entertaining, Eddie learned more about the languages of romance from Buckley then he did about romantic gifts. But he wrote down to get flowers.

So he watched the movies. And Eddie was high paid a lot of attention and basically learned to make a grand speech. Big pour out your heart moment. Which, he felt he always talked your ear off, so he could totally do.

Eddie then read those magazines all the cheerleaders gossiped and giggled over. He didn't learn much except some tips for the best kiss. Cup the person's cheek and lean in slowly. Build the suspense. Eddie could do that.

Give you flowers. Make a speech. Cup your cheek as he kisses you. Eddie had this in the bag! Each point written in his little notebook.

And then the reality of you coming to his trailer hit him when you called to confirm the date was still on that morning. He hung up the phone after flirting a bit and looked around his house. Nerves flooded his system as he looked at it with the perspective of an outsider. He didn't want it to look bad. And it was, well, it wasn't bad but definitely could be cleaner.

So Eddie had vacuumed and dusted the entire trailer. Tossed empty pizza boxes in the trash. Sprayed some cologne around the trailer to cover the scent of weed, then cursed himself for using the expensive cologne when there was a bottle of air freshener in the bathroom.

Had picked up his clothes scattered across his room and shoved them all, clean and dirty, into the closet. Had made sure his bed had more then one pillow, grabbing spare throw pillows and tossing them towards the headboard. Even if he didn't think there was a chance you would enter his bedroom tonight, he wanted to be prepared.

Eddie had even started dinner before you arrived. An easy roast that Wayne had made hundreds of times. Thrown meat, potatoes, onions, and carrots into the pot, seasoned it and thrown it all in the oven.

It was newer, this thing between you, and he wanted to get it all right. You'd been friends for years, just recently evolved into dating. It was easy to hold your hand and throw an arm around your shoulder before, stealing those small intimate moments and pretending it meant something more. But now it does mean more. Truly, it always had, but neither of you had said anything. Because like usual, Eddie was the coward and ran.

He spent what felt like minutes (it had been hours) looking back at the notes, the plan. He had even sketched some pictures of you and him as he studied. Gave himself some sweet new tattoos and piercings and muscles while you had hearts around your head. By the time he stopped rereading the same points over and over again, he realized you would be there within the hour.

And he already failed the first point, flowers. It had completely spaced him what with the studying, but he had other things he had been wanting to give you so he figured he could wing it. He rehearsed everything in his mind, having various conversations with you. He would take your coat, be charming as ever, and you would fall for him even more then you already had.

But the plan immediately left his mind when you had arrived. Eddie could feel his face flush as his eyes trailed up and down your figure. All the rushing thoughts in his head suddenly stopped. All he could think was Damn, how'd I get so lucky?

"You're beautiful." Eddie mumbled in awe as you had shrugged off your coat. And then you smiled and Eddie realized he had messed up the plan. He thought he had went through every variable but he hadn't. It wasn't you that was going to fall more in love with him tonight, but Eddie was going to fall more in love with you.

Eddie twirled a piece of hair around his finger, unable to meet your eyes. His heart was beating wildly in his chest and his palms were begin to sweat. He couldn't help but shift from foot to foot. "Oh I uh....got you something," Eddie smiled and turned to leave before hesitating and motioning to the couch," You can uh sit...or stand, standing is good too! I'll be right back."

Eddie cursed himself the whole time he walked away because of how stupid he was. He could stage elaborate campaigns but couldn't seem to form a single sentence in your presence. Eddie grabbed the gift off his dresser and inhaled slowly, mentally yelling at himself to be cool for once in his life.

And faltered in his steps.

Because you were sat on the couch. Not just on the edge of the cushion like those who he dealt to who couldn't wait to get out of his presence. No, you were fully relaxed into the cushion. You looked comfortable. You looked like you belonged.

And Eddie couldn't squash the butterflies that took flight in his stomach. And he sat on the cushion next to you, fighting the urge to wrap you in his arms and hold you close.

"I got you this," Eddie declared as he handed you a rock. A small, smooth stone that fit in the palm of your hand. Your mouth parted but no words came out. Eddie bit his lip as you slowly turned the stone over in your hands, staring at it.

"I saw it and I thought, well, I thought of you and it matches your eyes and-" Eddie huffed out a laugh and shook his head," Sorry, it's stupid just give it back."

Eddie moved to grab it out of your hand but you slapped at his arm and clenched the stone in your hand. "No, it's mine!" You held your hand to your chest and glared at him. "It's stupid," Eddie looked down. "It is not." "It is!"

"Are you serious? If you don't stop we're gonna have a problem. This is the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me." You beamed at him. Joy and adoration written clearly across your face. Eddie slowly grinned back as you dared to open your palm and look at the stone again. "My precious," you wiggled your eyebrows at him, making him bark out a laugh as he relaxed.

"Let's save a ring for a later date." He joked, even as his mind raced. You quoted Lord of the Rings! You were sitting on his couch holding a rock he thought was the same shade as your eyes and you liked it!! He was done for. Completely head over heels fallen for you. Said he would never marry yet here he was planning his vows and everything.

"Seriously, Eddie, this is so sweet." Your hand grasped his. Your hand was smaller then his, fitting perfectly. Fingers interlocked hesitantly and then more surely. Eddie's eyes fell to your lips. Your tongue darted out slightly and wet them. And he started to lean in.

The air was thick, and not just with the tension, the anticipation. Your lips were milliseconds to coming in contact with his when Eddie's nose twitched as he caught a familiar scent. Your lips landed on Eddie's cheek as he turned so quickly to face the kitchen he gave himself whiplash.

Thick smoke started to waft out of the room. "Oh fuck!" He jumped up as the smoke detector finally started doing its job and screeched out an annoying beep. Eddie ran into the kitchen with you hot on his heels.

Eddie opened the oven door, smoke billowing out," SHITshitshit-" Eddie cursed as he slammed the door shut, coughing slightly. Your hand reached past him to shut off the oven before darting over to the window and throwing it open.

Eddie's eyes darted to the sink below the window. Stop, drop, and roll- wait no that was if you were on fire. But water beats fire in almost every scenario, right? Except oil, shit did he add oil? No, he didn't add anything except the food and the seasoning so it should all be good right?

"Stand back!" Eddie yells over the screeching alarm. Grabbing the pot holders, he throws the oven door open. Smoke billows past him as he makes a mad dash for the pot, grasping the handles and throwing it in the sink. He throws the faucet on, water pouring over the burnt food and pot.

Steam billows up with smoke, mingling in the air before flowing out the window. A hissing sound from the cool water hitting the hot pot fills the air. You fan the flames towards the open window. "Oh fuck." You cough as your eyes fill with tears from the smoke. Eddie winces as flurried apologies fall from his lips.

The pot, not on fire at least, starts to lessen up on producing smoke. Eddie deems it safe to leave and grabs your hand, dragging you outside. His hands on your shoulders guide you to sit on the steps as you continue to intermittently cough. Eddie rushes back into the kitchen, double checking that the oven was off, and quickly grabs a mug holding it under the still running faucet.

Eddie rushes back outside to you, almost missing the step and face planting. And wouldn't that have been the icing on the cake. Would that make Eddie or the embarrassment of faceplanting be the vanilla frosting? Who even created that saying? Cake was good and this was not good. Eddie shook his head of these thoughts as he sank down on the step next to you.

Eddie hands you the mug of water. You drink it in big gulps, a small dribble of water falling out of the side of your mouth towards your chin. Eddie wipes it away with his thumb as he apologizes," I am so sorry, I don't even know what happened."

"Is this Garfield?" You peer at the mug, as if Eddie almost didn't kill you. "Uh yeah, was in a rush, sorry I didn't grab like a nicer cup. I just ran out...to you..." "Don't apologize, I like Garfield," you mumble taking another drink of the water.

"Are you okay?" Eddie asks, hands running up and down your shoulders, eyes checking you over. "Think I hacked up a lung from all the smoke...," you rub your sternum," Man, my lungs do not like smoke...and you like that?" Eddie let out a nervous laugh," Yeah no sorry, only when its weed. Never really inhaled a straight fire before."

You look up into Eddie's eyes that are full of concern. "Well, I'd recommend like not doing that. But I'm okay, it startled me more then anything," You give a soft smile. "You sure?" "Positive." You knock his shoulder with yours.

Eddie's eyes search your figure, ensuring you aren't lying to him. You ignore him, opting to set the mug down on the ground. Fingers brushing against a dandelion, yellow and bright. You pluck it from the ground and twirl it between your fingers.

You're okay. You're holding a dandelion and you're okay. You aren't acting like you hate him. You aren't making excuses and leaving. You aren't leaving like everyone else-

Eddie's shoulders relax as the tension leaves his body. You're okay. Your relationship is okay. He didn't ruin everything. You're smiling at a fucking dandelion while his heart feels like it has run a marathon.

You're oblivious to his plight as you lean over and tuck the dandelion behind his ear," Maybe don't smoke that. Looks pretty on you." "Not that kind of weed." "Yeah dumb joke sorry."

A slow exhale escapes him as he shakes his head,"No it's good I'm just," Eddie waves his hand in front of him," like what the fuck just happened? I am never cooking again. I'll just take you to Enzo's. I fucked up. Sorry for ruining the date."

Your hand cupped his cheek as you ducked down to meet his eyes," Hey, no. You didn't ruin the date." Eddie rolls his eyes slightly," Almost killing you? Yeah, pretty sure i ruined it." You bump your knee against Eddie's, "it's not ruined and you didn't almost kill me. Small food fire, happens to everyone. I lit popcorn on fire once. Besides, if you did happen to kill me, at least I would have died happy and in love. And you'd be stuck with me cause ghost me is absolutely haunting you."

Eddie can't help but laugh slightly," Oh? You think you'd be a ghost and not get another chance at life? Be reincarnated or whatever?" "Well, even if I was reincarnated, I'd find you again."

Eddie scoffs, "C'mon, don't say that.. That's not even true, you'd totally be able to move on. You wouldn't need little old me." You grab his face and peer into his eyes," Eddie Munson, I will always need you. In this life and whatever happens after. You and me? We're it. Maybe it should be too soon to say, but I feel it in my bones. You're it for me Eddie. Together now, forever, and when everything ceases to exist we'll be in nothing together. I will always be with you because I will always love you."

You lean in and Eddie thinks his heart stops. Your hand holding his cheek in place, thumb lightly brushing back and forth. His eyes flutter shut as your lips finally touch his. It was soft and sweet, lips slowly parting and melding together in a dance that sent shivers down Eddie's spine. He sighed into the kiss as you leaned closer into each other. Your hands threading through his hair, his wrapping around your waist. Lips moving in tandem, tongues darting out tentatively.

You only part when you both are gasping for air. Soft smiles and longing glances shared as the sun sets. "I love you too." Eddie traces your cheekbone with his finger. "You better." You joke. Your combined giggles fill the air as you continue to steal kisses from each other.

The night may not have been the most romantic. Or gone to plan, like, at all. But it was one Eddie already knew that when he thought about he would be able to feel his heart swell with love. And as he kissed you Eddie thought, yeah you were it for him.

#Was gonna change my user from Jade but I have nothing that feel more like me (was going to be Jade for literal years and now it doesn't fit) #Maybe thats just the mental fog making everything not normal for me tho #Have yall burned anything before?? I remember so many times my family has...or maybe they just can't cook #Cheese fell off a pizza once and caught fire on the bottom of the oven...microwaveable popcorn when someone hit 5 minutes instead of 2 #None of them were fire fires but small things burning with lots of smoke #Be safe yall please learn fire safety and what to do or not do with kitchen fires #Anyways I love you all and I am going to go read everyone else's submissions okay byeeeeee #eddie munson x reader #eddie x you #eddie munson fluff #Eddie Munson x y/n #eddie munson/you #eddie munson/reader #Jade is Talking #Also yes you did everything Eddie planned to do...so it did happen according to plan just not Eddie doing it #ALSO ALSO I have found a rock in every shade okay green grey blue brown white black etc #So it is possible to find a rock in every shade okay pls dont be like green is not a rock IT IS or maybe I'm colorblind #I'm not I've passed colorblind studies (for work) many times

[luckyjadeofliyue]

Liyue Lantern Festival - Childe x OC.

Short Story. I got really inspired after finishing the fanart I made lol.

AGAIN, I AM NOT A WRITER. I MIGHT HAVE SOME GRAMMAR AND SENTENCE MISTAKES SO YEAH. YOU WERE WARNED :p

A cool breeze is always welcomed during this hot summer nights. Liyue has always been a busy city, but today is extra special. All-day long everyone has been preparing for the annual Summer Lantern Festival. Once a year, people around Liyue gather and celebrate this auspicious event with friends and family.

Liyue streets are filled with people; everyone excited and having fun. You can see some people dancing, laughing, singing, shopping and having the time of their lives. Children are running around with their lanterns on hand, screaming excitedly about having their wishes come true.

Jadiz only experienced joining this festival once in her life despite living in Liyue since birth. And it was only inside the Yu Clan Compound grounds as she was not allowed to leave the safety of their Clan's residence.

Jadiz walked towards the nearest stall selling lanterns, she looked around and saw a medium-sized white lantern with the lotus print in front of it. She had to tippy-toe to get it, gently taking it into her hand. She stared at the red lotus flower in front of it.

Lotus Flower, it's her and her late mother's favourite flower.

"Is it true that if I wished on a lantern today, it would come true?!", a younger 6 years old Jadiz asked the beautiful woman in front of her.

"Yes little lotus flower, as long as you believe it, then it will come true", her mother kneeled in front of her brushing away a stray curly hair in front of Jadiz's face.

A huge smile grew on Jadiz's face. "YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!", she screamed, jumping up and down in a place like a bunny. "Can I write my wish on the lantern now? Please, PLEASE!!!!", tugging on her mother's sleeve.

Her mother chuckled at her enthusiastic reactions. She handed over a small white lantern with the Lotus Flower print in front of it to the little Jadiz. "Here you go, my dear."

Jadiz took the small lantern, struggled a bit to balance herself. The small lantern looked bigger than it is on her tiny little arms. She struggled to walk towards the table and took a brush dipped in red ink and started writing on the lantern.

"Be careful with your spelling my love; you don't want the gods to get confused and not grant your wish", her mother jokingly said.

"I will!", little Jadiz replied, not even looking at her mother. She stopped writing to check her work; she rubbed her nose with the hand she used to write, smudging a bit of red paint on her nose. Her calligraphy work is more than impressive for 6 years old. "DONE!", she jumped up and excitedly.

"And what does our Lucky Jade wishing for?", a manly voice asked.

Little Jadiz looked up and saw her father walking towards her and her mother. She placed her lantern down and ran towards her father. Her father opened his arms to hug the Little Jadiz and carried her in his arms.

"Hello my love", her mother gave his father a small peck on the cheeks making her father put an arm around her waist and giving both of them a hug.

Little Jadiz' eyes glowed with joy and happiness. Even at her young age, she always wanted the kind of love her mother and father has for each other.

"So, what did our Lucky Jade asked for?", her father asked once again out of curiosity.

Little Jadiz gave her father a wide and bright smile. "I….."

"Would you like to get that lantern young lady?"

Jadiz came back to her senses and saw the shop keeper smiling at her. The old man was standing behind the stall and holding his hands together in front of him.

"Oh…uhhm", Jadiz started to pat her pockets trying to see if she has mora left. She dug deep and found nothing. She sighed sadly, "I-…"

"Here you go, keep the change", someone said beside her.

She looked up and saw a tall red head man with a mask on the side of his hair. The young man smiling giddily at her, looking smug and proud of himself from buying her the lantern.

She raised an eyebrow at him, not sure what to feel or say. Part of her wants to say thank you and be grateful, but the other part wants to walk away or punch that smug look out of his face.

"Thank you, Childe, you are so generous! You didn't have to!", Childe said sarcastically.

"I-will-punch-you in the face..", Jadiz glared at Childe still holding the lantern. She started to walk away from him. "I swear…One time…I'm gonna freeze his sorry butt in the spot..", she mumbled.

Childe couldn't help but chuckle at Jadiz's reaction. He loves teasing her so much because she might be a cryo user, but her temper is hotter than any pyro user he has ever fought. He started running to catch up with her.

"Jade wait up!", he laughingly said. He caught up with her, now walking side-by-side. "You know, you are so cute when you are mad".

"Well, watch me get freaking adorable", Jadiz glared at Childe walking faster, still holding the lantern.

Childe laughed out loud and matched Jadiz' phase; he didn't have to. She is so short that his regular walking speed is her faster-walking speed. "Come on, don't be too mad now, I might fall for you if you become adorable", he teasingly says.

She stopped all of a sudden that he almost collided with her. She turned around, eyes blazing, cold air starting to form around them.

"Uhhh….now now…", he nervously said. "You know I was just joking", he laughed nervously putting both his hands up in the air as a sign of surrender. Man, she is something else he thought to himself in a good way he silently added, trying to hold back a smile.

Jadiz stared at Childe, intending to freeze his ass after the last statement. 'Fall for her?' He really needs to stop teasing her like this. It's hard enough as it is to resist his charming ways; not to mention, he was just flirting with the female store keep at the fabric and clothing store a few minutes ago whic for some reason annoyed the living wits out of her. "Hmph", she turned around so fast that her hair hit his chest and the lower part of his face.

She heard him chuckle again. ‘I still don't get why he enjoys making me mad so much’, she thought to herself as she walked fast trying to get away from Childe. She stopped suddenly to avoid colliding with the little girl that tripped in front of her.

The little girl laying flat on the ground started to sob. She kneeled, placing her lantern on her side to help the little girl to stand up. "Hey there, you're okay", she gently said, trying to comfort the little girl. She then saw a scape on the little girl's knees. "Does it hurt?", she asked worriedly.

The little girl nodded while sobbing, trying not to burst into tears. Jadiz lifted her right hand, cold air formed around them, a lotus flower made from ice started to form on her hand. She put the ice lotus flower into the child's scraped knee and almost instantly the wound disappeared. "Better?", she smiled sweetly.

The little girl's face lit up and smiled. "Thank you, big sister!", the child said, giving Jade a small hug and then running away to her friends.

Childe was trying to catch up to Jadiz and saw the little girl tripped. He stopped on his tracks and watched Jadiz turn from a mad dragoness to a sweet, endearing lady. He couldn't help but smile, she looks so beautiful when she whether she is angry or not; but even more when she is handling kids. She has a gentle touch to her that kids seem to love (he does too).

He started walking towards her after the little kid run away to her friends. He held his hand trying to offer her some help standing up. He saw her looked up at him with those gorgeous jade coloured eyes. She hesitated for a second but ended up taking his hand. He pulled her up gently, but she lost her balance and had to use his chest to stop herself from falling.

Warm. Sweet. Lavender. He thought to himself as he accidentally had a whiff of her scent. He had to calm himself down as he stopped the urge to pull her closer to him. He didn't want to let her go but she already pulled away turning her back on him.

He cleared his throat and picked up the lantern on the ground.

Jadiz had to look away, she can feel her face getting flustered, it was hard not too... She had a whiff of his scent. He smelled like Morning Dew, Ocean and Rain.

‘Calm down, calm down, calm down’, she thought to herself as she tries her hardest not to blush. She knows if he saw her blushing, she will not hear the end of it.

"I know the perfect spot to light this lantern", she heard Childe say.

She took a deep breath and turned around to face him," Really?"

"Yeah, follow me!", she felt Childe take her hand and started running towards the Harbor. She couldn't help but look at this man who is basically dragging her.

After a few minutes of running, they reached the Harbor. They passed by groups of people trying to send their lanterns out as well. Childe finally stopped in front of a very tall crane.

She looked at the crane, looked at Childe, looked at the top of the crane and back at Childe. "Up…there?...", she asked while pointing weakly at the top of the crane.

"Yep", Childe grinned.

"I…You know I'm scared of climbing heights!"

Childe chuckled, he turned around and crouched, "Hop on", gesturing for Jadiz to hop on his back.

"I…can't we just do it here", she started walking towards Childe really slowly.

"Hurry up, or I'll climb without you."

"F-Fine…", she reluctantly agreed. She placed her arms around his shoulder and clump her legs around his waist. She felt his right hand, making sure she is secured on his back. Handing her the lantern so he can use his other hand to climb the crane

"Alright! Let's go!", he excitedly said starting to climb the tall crane.

Jadiz closed her eyes holding on to Childe tighter.

"Not too tight now, I have to breath", Childe chuckled once again as he started to climb up.

After a few minutes, they reached the top. He crouched again to let her down.

"T-thank you..", she shyly said. She never had any trouble thanking anyone, so it has been a mystery to her why she is having difficulty saying those 2 words to him.

Childe chuckled and sat down. She sat down beside him, she took her pen out from her leather satchel. Jadiz then started writing her wish. She felt Childe leaning over to read what she was writing. She glared at him and turned her back away from him.

"Hey! No fair! I wanna know your wish!", Childe protested still trying to read what she is wishing.

She ignored his protest and continued to hide what she is writing. When she finished, she took a match from her satchel and lit the small candle inside of the lantern. She stood up, closed her eyes, both hands on the lantern, making sure to hide her wish from Childe. She felt Childe stood up beside her as well.

Childe can't help but look at Jadiz. Her face illuminated by the light of the lit lantern. Her black curly hair partly on the way. A part of him wants to brush it away, but he resisted. She is such a mystery to him. One moment she is gentle, the next she is a fighter. She is a huge contradiction, an enigma. Probably why he is so interested in her, he could easily finish this mission, but he is enjoying her company. He wants to unlock all her layers, so far it has been such a challenge. Never before has any woman resisted his charm this long. Never before has any woman captivated his interest this long.

He saw her gently kiss the lantern before letting it fly into the sky. A part of him wondered how her lips would feel on his. Her lips were plumped, it looked so soft. He wanted to taste them, maybe nibble on them until she moans from pleasure. He caught himself imagining that scenario and had to stop himself before he starts getting flustered. He looked back at at Jadiz who kept her eyes on the lantern until it's no longer visible.

He cleared his throat, trying to regain his composure, "So…what did you wished for?"

Without looking, she answered, "Something I used to see every day but have lost..I wish that for myself someday...", her voice trailing to almost a whisper.

Childe can sense the loneliness in her voice even though she tried to hide it. Something inside him grew, it's something that he only felt for his siblings which confused him even more… It was the urge to make her genuinely happy… It seemed so strange. All he wanted to do before was to fight, to kill, to get stronger; then this girl came along and something inside him changed... It also doesn't change the fact that he knows he won't be able to do it…she is…after all…his mission...

#childe #chiled genshin impact #childesimp #childe fan girl #childe fanfic #childe fanart #tartaglia fanfic #tartaglia fanart #tartaglia genshin impact #tartaglia childe #tartaglia #tartaglia genshin #genshin #genshin impact #mihoyo #fatui #fatuiagent #fanart #fanfic #childe x oc #childe x reader #tartaglia x oc #tartaglia x reader #ajax genshin #genshin oc #genshin impact oc

[violent-ham]

The Artemis Fowl Movie

I wrote musings as I watched the movie. Here they are without much context but I’m hating the movie so much that I don’t care to go through and write a comprehensive review. Maybe later.

Also note that it’s been a WHILE since I’ve read the books. So. I’m aware that some of my nitpicking may be off.

Needless to say, spoilers for the movie.

Less than five minutes in. Artemis Fowl II… is surfing.

….maybe that wasn’t Artemis?

 They killed Angeline???

 Psychologist scene was almost spot on. Almost. ….maybe this won’t be as bad as the trailers made it look.

 They had me believing for a moment with his interactions with the psychologist. BUT THE VERY NEXT SCENE. Artemis riding a hover board IN JEANS. Artemis wouldn’t be caught dead in jeans.  The one time he wore them in the books he complained extensively about them.

 Fowl Sr.

 Movie Artemis to have a great relationship with his father who is TEACHING HIM ABOUT FAIRIES.

 Cliched rich absentee father.

 Oh sweet jesus Butler

 SAID BUTLER’S FIRST NAME IN HIS INTRODUCTION.

 So… they’re just gonna completely reinvent Butler. Alright.

 Tantrum over his father’s criminal empire. Book Artemis KNOWS THIS and is actively trying to rebuild his family’s fortune after the disappearance of his father YEARS AGO.

 Is that Koboi.

 Yer a wizard, Arty

 Let Artemis be smart and find out about fairies on his own instead of force-feeding us and him expositional dialogue. Let him be the clever genius he’s supposed to be.

 Really hamfisting the whole “THIS FAMILY IS SO IRISH” thing, aren’t they?

 I can only hear Olaf when Mulch speaks.

 I don’t like that they switched it to Mulch stealing Holly’s wallet from Mulch stealing the badge (?) off another officer and Holly retrieving it. Might just be nitpicky at this point though.

 Briar Cudgeon already in prison??

 Holly… other female LEP… Root… Holly’s whole story arch. Yeah.

 Holly gets a “Missing Father” plot too

 STOP SAYING DOMOVOI.

 NIECE. I can overlook the age down (unless they’re planning to try and romance them in the future. If there is a future). But… NIECE?? Juliet is his SISTER. Not his niece. Why was this a necessary change??

 Short hair… no jade ring…

 Already having the groundwork for The Book and finding fairies laid out for him…

 Explaining shuttles to THE experienced flyboy. Gotta get that exposition in somehow, I guess.

 Holly’s father is a thief too, just like Arty’s! Wonder where they’re gonna go with that… =.=

 Yeah forget keeping the civilization a secret and having underground docking stations for the shuttles, lets just shoot Holly out of a fucking volcano in full view of a major city and fly away unshielded.

 Arty’s gonna sit comfy while Butler, sorry DOMOVOI stakes out the tree to kidnap a fairy instead of wanting to see and make sure in person.

 “Pick on someone your own size!”

 Time freeze capsule.

 Time freeze for the rogue troll in Italy.

 Holly going rogue instead of just to refill her magic…

 Holly and Arty’s dads working together.

 Opal Fucking Koboi.

 Oh good, Arty decided to join DOMOVOI after all.

 Gah, those contacts

  “Not happy!” …my sentiments exactly, Holly.

 In a box, not a cell. Guess they’re not gonna go the route of “Holly breaks the floor of her cell to find dirt to restore her magic and WRECK Artemis’s day.”

 Arty sr. teaching Arty jr. about the dangers of fairies.

 The jeans are back!

 Very, very brief glimpse of Artemis in Arty. This movie needs more of that.

 “There are humans that are afraid of gluten, how do you think they’d handle goblins?” Ok that got me…

 Flannel and jeans. WHERE IS HIS SUIT.

 “I’m going to need the suit.” Oh. There it is.

 Arty firing a fairy gun and actively partaking in the fight.

 …………disabling the time freeze WITH AN ARROW. He’s not even allowed to be clever in escaping the time freeze/blue rinse combo at the end??? Will there even be a blue rinse?

 Also, why did the time freeze act as described in the book for Fowl Manor, but LITERALLY freeze time for the incident with the troll? What are the movie rules?

 Well at least they included the “While I’m alive” stipulation but… they’ve gone so off the rails so far I’m not sure it makes a difference anymore. There’s been no build up, no struggle between the fairies and Arty until he captured Holly five minutes ago. The reveal isn’t going to feel earned if they even go that route.

 Well they kept Mulch jamming his thumbs up a goblin’s nose to fry him in jail. So there’s that.

 Nope. No. Arty should be mesmered and Holly out of there.

 Portals between worlds. What movie are we in again?

 David Bowie is a Fairy.

 The scene between Root and Mulch got a laugh out of me. Small laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. Which is more than this movie deserves.

 Mulch unhinging his jaw was actually horrifying.

 But, they had to go for the comedic “pop out of a painting” instead of coming up through the floor. How did he even get into the wall if he was tunnelling through the ground? Comedy of sensibility, I guess.

 So much for “Dwarves can’t burp”

 Arty should be mesmered. AGAIN.

 Arty unlocking Holly instead of Holly escaping. They’re really pushing this forced bond between them.

 What was that reaction to getting punched! And not even a jab about lollipops from Holly.

 That’s not how allergies work

 “D’arvit.” My sentiments exactly, Commander.

 Mulch having pickpocketed Holly’s gun off of DOMOVOI gave me a chuckle. And the fact that not one of them said “How did you pickpocket that off of DOMMOVOI?” is surprising, but welcome. Seems like they forgot about “show don’t tell” up until this point. And something tells me that after this gag, it will be forgotten again.

 Was there a reason for jamming magic in the house when Holly is the ONLY magic user in there? Unless Cudgeon is actively trying to kill Holly. Which. ….yeah alright maybe. Guess that means Holly isn’t going to almost get pummeled to death by the troll if she can’t heal.

 Holly is consistently a damsel in distress instead of a badass LEP captain.

 How did Holly get the momentum to swing that chandelier thing across the room and through the glass?

 A lot of running, jumping, and dangling precariously off of things. Too many cut jumps, not enough troll fighting. What about medieval suit of armor Butler squaring off with the troll? Did they cut that too??

 Arty losing the gun due to recoil. That should have happened the very first time he fired it if it has recoil. Do neutrinos have recoil?

 Ah, so they blocked the magic as a plot device to make us believe DOMOVOI isn’t going to make it.

 “Buddy.” That shouldn’t be in Arty’s vocabulary. Especially when referring to DOMOVOI. Can’t even work in an “Old Friend.” Nope. Gotta go with “Buddy.”

 Magic unblocked, DOMOVOI saved. Wow, did NOT see that coming……. =.=

 Healing fatal wounds is supposed to be tricky even for trained medics to deal with, much less for a LEP officer to do in two seconds.

 Oh, they’re suggesting that he actually DIED. There was a whole scene about this in the third (?) book and being brought back from the dead had some serious repercussions for Butler. But nah, two seconds and he’s fine. Admittedly he was frozen for some time in the book. But still!

 Sooo… the time freeze exploding did nothing and everyone in the house is fine?

 Why does Holly trust Arty? They’ve really done nothing to earn each other’s trust

 Oh good, they’re friends.

 Forever friends.

 Ok, using the first lines of The Book as a spell… is the ocularis or whatever supposed to be the movie version of The Book?

 Ocularis ex machina, Dad is saved!

 “I’m Artemis fowl. I’m a criminal mastermind.” No, you’re Arty and lucky as fuck that the plot of this movie loves you so much.

 A FEW of the plot points are there. SOME of the scenes are there. It’s like they started to make an actual Artemis Fowl movie, scrapped it, wrote in some unrelated story and mashed the two together. This wasn’t an Artemis Fowl movie. This wasn’t even a GOOD movie if you take away the relation to Artemis Fowl. The acting is phoned in and just plain bad at times, like they just wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. The effects are pretty good in places but my god that does not make up for shredded scrap of a story it has. Artemis wasn’t allowed to be clever or in any way villainous, Holly wasn’t allowed to be a badass LEP recon Captain, Mulch… would have been fine if it were an actual Artemis Fowl movie, even if I could only hear Olaf when he spoke. Arty didn’t earn his “Criminal Mastermind” badge in this, not by a long shot. Waited so long for this movie and every apprehension I had after viewing the trailer was warranted. Just awful.

 They didn’t even include the sprite from the trailers in the movie.

#spoilers #spoiler #ArtemisFowlSpoilers #Artemis Fowl #Artemis Fowl Movie

[twitchesandstitches]

Dragonrezi Gets Even Bigger Comm

A commission for @alt-hammer, of the Dragonrezi from one of my earlier fic concepts of a fantasy AU that featured Vriska as a conquering giant sorceress and Terezi as a dragon monster girl she tried to wrangle into being her familiar,and Karkat as a plaything to placate Terezi; comm-er wanted to see some elaboration on it and Terezi getting even bigger! (A link to that earlier story!)

Featuring some implied JohnVris, this round!

--------

In the most magically scarred continent of the world, recent wars in the homelands of long-gone troll empires had left the whole place a chaotic mess, filled with ruins, warlords and all manner of danger. From one perspective, it was a bad situation; monsters formed from magic and taking shape from the most powerful spell-users around regularly came out of nowhere, most cities and towns didn’t last more than a few days, and it wasn’t uncommon for people to immobilize themselves by making themselves too busty to move with the wrong application of magic, which tended to have consequences for their villages.

But to those intent on putting some kind of order on the world, it was an opportunity. To build new empires, to uncover the mysteries of the old ones, and to grow strong.

(Terezi Pyrope felt it was best to bide your time, and steer the course of things. All of these things, she would do in time, but she would work with things first.)

Now, consider one of the more stable lands in recent times: the Cerulean Kingdoms, the Serket lands. Statues across its beaches, floating sea-cities and cliff-side realms portrayed the image of a sorceress queen, as impossibly curvaceous and busty as only the strongest of magic users were. In truth this sorceress and her friends, and rivals, were a hidden society and adventuring party when the times were right, and they all shared her distinctive figure as a consequence of sufficient magical power and expertise. Kanaya, scion of the vampires, her belly swollen with converts to vampirism… Aradia of the Megido necromancers, her own body eternally pregnant with the countless souls she gestated new bodies for in a form of resurrection. And the others, equally huge and curvy in their own unique ways, from Feferi the life-crafting witch to Jade the wolfish witch of the wilds…

And Vriska Serket, who hoped to be the biggest and most powerful to make her mark on the world, and trying so very hard to outdo her own dragon familiar, Terezi Pyrope.

The boundaries of her lands were easy enough to make out, as her magical palace flew over her lands. A grand construct of sapphire gems grown with her powers, black metal and shimmering stones imbued with raw magic, the gigantic citadel was unbelievably massive and it eclipsed some mountains as it flew over her lands and seas, though never past her boundaries, unable to move past the limits of her power. And, somehow, it was even bigger on the inside. Statues of herself stood at attention on the elaborately carved exteriors, a mirror to the ones in her towns and cities.

The statues did not quite do her justice; capturing the incredibly stylized robes, jackets and web-themed skirts of Vriska’s regal attire was a tricky enough affair, but to get across just how… buxom Vriska was? That was really not doable. You started with something shaped like a violin, made the wide bits as large as you possibly could, and then you made then even bigger than that… and by this point you gave up, because mere stone tended to crumble underneath the weight of such curves. She was thick, even by the standards of magical users.

To hear that Vriska Serket, queen of the sea-lands, might feel inadequate, was laughable. Who would she possibly feel skinny next to? And for an answer, they would point at the far, far larger statues of Terezi, which were not attached to the Citadel. They were the Citadel, at least its walls.

Within the Citadel, Vriska’s latest plan was coming to fruition.

Smirking in a way appropriate to the mightiest sorceress this side of the universities frequented by the Maryam Clan in their oasis on the other side of the known continent, she waved a hand at the twenty thousand undead soldiers carrying the artifact. She didn’t need to speak to command them, but she instinctively felt that there were some things you just had to do. “Put it down here.”

Zombies, mechanically-reinforced skeletons, the occasional feral ghost and a few enthralled mindless vampires (unrelated to the Maryam Clan, though possibly spawned from a similar process) all moved in a great mass and lowered the ancient arcane battery into a special pedestal. In a wave it clicked down, and they flowed away, their thousands of steps briefly obscuring the potent ritual patterns encircling the relic.

Here, in her floating citadel, Vriska was at her strongest. This was her place; arcane geometries channeled the power right into her, specially carved spires collected magic from the air and diverted it into the mystical foodstuffs that would be fed to her; the air itself rumbled with potential, and it discharged into her.

She smiled, fangs dimpling her thick lips, and strode off. Her undead minions (a gift from a friend, a necromancer called Damara Megido, who Vriska had helped with a serious academic question) trailed after her. It was difficult to tell if they could feel anything, but as her hourglass-shaped body moved, robes tightly conforming to her massive hips, their gazes were fixed on her. She went through a door shaped to permit her gigantic hips and breasts, and the undead followed, as did a small human all in blue.

Vriska stopped, and leaned down. Three hundred feet of troll leaned down, and her breasts hit the ground before her knees did. The human, John Egbert, stopped as a genuine valley of cleavage appeared before him and he peered up into the mightiest sorceress alive; famed for her ruthlessness, her limitless hunger for power, and so it might have been surprising for her rivals to see the indulgent look her face.

Vriska’s face softened even more as she picked him up, apparently on impulse; he didn’t seem to mind being held captive in a metallic prosthesis of magically resonant metals. Lips as wide around as a street to him pressed on him in a soft kiss, and he smooched her back as best as he could. Vriska put him down, and spoke. “John, gonna need you to stay here for a while until the ritual is complete.”

John nodded. “Okay, ma’am!” he saluted her, in the fashion he thought was expected of an apprentice to a magical teacher. “So… what do I do?”

Vriska made a grumpy noise. “Keep Terezi out of here! I just know that pain in my splendid ass is gonna show up and try to hog all the power boost for herself. So when, not if, when she shows up to, I don’t know, try to eat it or something, get her out!”

John saluted with a slightly worried expression. “I’ll… do what I can!” Vriska grinned, and left. Her building-sized heels clicked against the ground and her undead army followed. The door closed, with an appropriately satisfying bang. He had spent some hours weaving drama spells so get that sound just right!

He waited, dutifully, and marked the way the word-spells around the magical battery slowly increased. To pass the time, he tried to recall just where the thing had come from. Unfortunately history was not really his expertise; it was apparently a troll artifact from one of the bygone civilizations that hadn’t survived the sorcery wars of ancient times. He knew it stored magic (a truly horrific amount of it, and Vriska’s intentions were to deprive enemies of the chance to weaponize it, AND to also enhance her powers and beauty). And he knew that it looked a little bit like something he’d like to put on a stick and smack monsters around with. It had a cool look to it. It’d probably make a funny sound, too!

There was a small, teal lizard on the ceiling that had come there when he had been distracted. Privately, the lizard mused that maybe Vriska had a bit too much confidence in her human.

John contemplated the pros and cons of using it to make a magic hammer that would absorb magic but put some of that magic into making comedy sound effects whenever you hit something with it. The word-spell around it and all over the room were well along by this point, and they shone the liquid blue of Vriska’s magic.

He did feel the swell of enchantment, and he stepped back in surprise. The swell blurred his magical senses, and he experienced the mystical equivalent of something going ‘???’; all his more mystical senses went blank from overload, and he desperately stepped back as light flooded from the relic, briefly materializing into solidified wild magic. Fortunately, before it could erupt into any number of hazardous monsters or destructive disasters, it was grounded and safety channeled into the Citadel.

No, he thought, with a smile. Into the word-spell, and thus, into Vriska! He thought of all this power going to her… into her, and he goggled at the thought of when he’d see her next, at her full size!

She was three hundred feet now, and already such an hourglass-shaped beauty; he couldn’t imagine what she’d be like, but he did his best.

Thus distracted, he did not notice the lizard descending downwards and changing shape, expanding to a much larger form. He did hear, behind and above him, a very soft noise. He glanced up suspiciously, a faint suggestion of titanic movement drawing his attention, and saw nothing more. The walls and ceiling of the magic room vaulted high up, with many curving supports that would be ideal for strong claws to punch right into.

He paused. He didn’t recall that particular bit of ceiling looking so… leathery.

It unfurled, and the ceiling came down.

The world crashed about him, and as a looming force reached lazily for him, John squeaked as claws plucked him up. The ceiling hadn’t fallen down! Something really big, on the ceiling, just dropped down!

Or, to be specific, a really, really big someone.

The feminine form now filling up a good portion of the room was built on similar lines to Vriska but… bigger. Vriska had an hourglass body type, counterbalanced by her massive mane of hair, while the humanoid dragon, her gorgeous face a pleasing mix of troll and dragonish features, was… motherly. Girthy. A huge pair of wings swept around her, along with an enormously thick tail. Scales and golden shapes studded her body, from toe claws to horns, so that every inch of her shone, armored in her own splendor. A big belly propped up a pair of breasts even bigger than Vriska’s, and she had a lot of very solid muscles underneath the softness.

And oh yes; if Vriska was three hundred feet tall, than her dragon familiar, Terezi Pyrope, was… bigger. So much bigger, indeed. Terezi grinned at John, and around her the chamber telescoped outwards. There were potent enchanting spells to make rooms bigger to fit anyone who might be in them, but Terezi had a talent for pushing them to their limits. Her red eyes stared down at him, dull and blinded in some ancient paladin’s oath, but her smile was full of sharp teeth, and very snidely aware.

“So,” she said, as he realized too late that the little lizard in the room had been the exact same color as the teal monster girl sitting in the room right here. “You’re gonna stop me, huh?”

John wasn’t particularly scared, even in the grip of a dragon woman known to devour entire castles whole. Over five thousand feet tall from claw to horn bases, she looked very much like a troll; scales instead of chitin, her black skin tinted a vibrant shade of teal, and a thick dragonish tail sprouted from her massive backside just as a pair of huge wings furled around her so much like a fancy cloak. There were other signs; the crackling pathways of power along her throat and chest, where her breath weapons were powered up, the digitigrade legs just like a bird’s… and the big claws on her hands and feet. Bit funny to forget that, considering that he was pinched between them.

It was a bit like having some very pointy buildings hugging you into compliance. John wriggled politely. “Uh… yeah, absolutely! Let me up so we can have our fight!”

Terezi grinned at him. Leaning WAY over so he could see her. A truly buxom monster, she had to adjust herself so that her gold-studded breasts could shift out of the way, propped up on her big belly so they looked even bigger. Those boobs were huge, sticking out over five hundred feet out, the scales studded with the contents of an entire hoard to decorate her maternal body. She had to lean over just so he could see her, and his heart skipped a beat as she spoke, her enormous blue-green lips shaping so perfectly around her words. “Nah. Be a good boy and hold still so I can go do the thing.”

“Uh.” He lowered his fist. “Um. First, what are you planning on doing…?”

Terezi inclined her head at the artifact. “Guess.”

“...No way!”

She just grinned in reply, a clear ‘yes!’.

“Terezi, no!”

“Terezi yes!”

“I’ll stop you!” he cried valiantly.

Terezi smirked. “Vriska’s tiny hero rises to her defense! Honestly, I love it. You’re probably a great influence on her. Buuuuuut…. I don’t really wanna deal with that right now.”

She breathed out, and her breath was infused with the magic inherent to dragons. She cast a spell, not with lore or divine connection, but with her innate connection to the forces of magic, and her breath became a bubble. It flowed around John and he floated up into the air, yelling helplessly at her. The bubble contracted and twist as his wind magic tore at it from the inside, it bounced as he turned momentum into super speed and flight, but all his power wasn’t enough to overcome the micro-fraction of her power that she put into the bubble.

If she wished, she could have burned the continent to the bedrock without much effort. Sealing away an apprentice boy, even one in service to a living goddess-sorcerer, was hardly a challenge. But she liked to give herself something to test herself against later. “Tell ya what. As a present for standing up to me, I won’t just eat the damn thing. I’ll leave Vriska a TINY something. But all this,” and she gave one enormous hip a healthy, lusty smack, making various pats of her body jiggle enticingly. “Is a much better destination for its power than stroking Vrisky’s ego!”

“Kind of hypocritical for YOU To be talking about ego!” John said as Terezi lightly batted him with a finger that was, to him, larger than a building.

A claw bigger than a walkway smacked into him again and again, thoughtfully. “Okay that’s fair,” Terezi said, and then snorted. “But I don’t really care~!”

With a cheerful swagger, her tail smacking a few pillars around in such a way that she somehow carved her name into them like a signature, Terezi stepped right into the circle, so large that one toe filled up the whole thing. John beat and hollered at his little prison, and summoned forth the wind magic that was an expression of his fundamental tendency for powers of movement and direction both physical and abstract.

The bubble flew, at incredible force, right towards a patch of scales. Unfortunately that patch was on her butt, which was very well padded, and so he bounced off harmlessly. With such force that he impacted into the wall, cracking it, and there he was stuck. John’s powers just didn’t work if he was stuck!

Terezi’s thick, muscular tail waggled at him tauntingly, and swung up to slap her own butt. First the left side of one massive hip, and then the other, making it wobble and jiggle in hill-sized ripples; John blushed, angry and aroused at so much titanic butt. You could build a castle on all of it! And so, he was a bit too preoccupied with her dangerous flirting to realize that the blue magic lines were turning teal.

Magical colors were a personal thing. They indicated the influence of a magic user, the literal color of their soul as it entered the world. Reality WAS magic, shaped and codified into substance, concepts, forms. And color? Well, that was just light, but people saw color, and it meant things to them, and perspective was really all that counted in magic. So with magic users, the color of your soul shone forth when your power waxed mightily.

And when Terezi bothered to put even the slightest smidgen of effort, her magic made her shine like a sun.

Intricate patterns appeared on her scales and hide, mirroring the spell runes around her. (above her, Vriska on her interface throne froze up as she felt the trickle of magic being pumped into her assets dry up, and then only scraps being fed into her. Everything was teal.)

Terezi tilted her head back, a giantess big enough to destroy an army of demons with a single step or firm press of a finger’s claw, and breathed the power in. The artifact wobbled and then was violently tossed out of the magical circle as its power was promptly sucked out of it. Possibly by coincidence, it was flung right into John. It didn’t hurt him, just bounced off his bubble without any harm, but it was still loud and surprising enough that he was compelled to complain about it. He beat his hands against the bubble and yelled, but Terezi wasn’t listening.

(Upstairs, Vriska fumed as her body continued to grow, already five hundred feet tall by now, with boobs twice their original size… but she wasn’t getting as big as she expected. The power! The precious, delicious power… what had been river was now just a tiny stream, and where she should have been scraping against the clouds in her citadel’s magical environment, she was growing bigger so slowly that she could actually perceive things around her getting smaller. No! It was supposed to be bigger!

It was only through great force of will that she didn’t jump off and race downstairs to yell at Terezi. Who was absolutely, obviously behind all this! It was ALWAYS HER.)

Terezi was well aware of Vriska’s thoughts on the matter thanks to the magical link between familiar and sorceress that gave Terezi an insight into her thoughts. Unfortunately (from vriska’s perspective), this meant that Terezi could passively read her mind pretty much all the time, no doubt a reason how Terezi kept commandeering all her plans and sucking up her power gains. So Terezi ‘overheard’ Vriska’s complaints, and she gloated over Vriska’s shock at losing out on massive bust gains.

She blew a mocking kiss at John’s protests, and by sheer coincidence she started growing bigger, swelling upwards as her wiggling claws waved away the kiss. The magic flowered into her blood, bone and the core of magic at her center, and it flooded her with such power, so much that the only way to express it - was to grow!

The chamber rapidly got a lot more cramped as she expanded, slowly growing upwards. Already so large, Terezi grew right in front of John’s eyes, the magic pouring into her. Her tail slapped against the walls and cushioned her as her shoulders rose into the ceiling, despite the ceiling magically growing so you’d always fit into it; she was getting so big, so fast, she was outstripping it!

Four hundred feet, and upwards, her growth steady but very, very rapid. Her butt swelled up so that her fat tail was propped up, and several pillars were broken beneath its weight. Her butt kept swelling out, along with her hips, keeping pace with her expanding height; the expansion charms of the room were soon exhausted, and John could no longer see anything behind them but the lashing of her tail.

The magic flooded into her as she kept growing; another thousand feet piled on in a brief size burst, and by now it was plain to see that she was not funneling most of this tremendous potential into her size. Sure, she was growing larger, but… the growth was petering out surprisingly fast. As John watched, she wasn’t getting taller, her height getting more staggered. Where was it going.

The answer lay in her chest’s sudden explosive growth; her breasts swelled out faster than she was growing upwards, new scales growing to cover acres of new flesh between the patches of gilded scales. In moments, her breasts doubled in size, and she kept getting taller, her bustline not only keeping pace with her height, but surpassing its growth!

And they just kept growing; all the immense magic of the ancient battery, potentially to be used in war or some terrible misuse, now being pumped right into her bustline. Enough power to blow a country off the world was forced into her chest and milk production. Terezi cooed as her breasts hit the floor, rapidly growing so big that they were taller than she was!

The weight of her expanding bustline pushed her against the wall, her body rising up on her own bed-tier bustline. And since she was still growing physically more gigantic, this pushed her into the roof.

Terezi kept getting bigger, growing taller until she crashed into the floor, her wings and back cramped into the roof and too big to fit properly now, but she was still growing largely. Her breasts kept growing more rapidly by the second; John squeaked as a tide of teal filled up the room, a sloshing sound as if of an approaching sea getting stirred up as they smacked into place.

The walls creaked. Terezi and her boobs were still growing.

And though John could now see nothing, absolutely nothing at all but teal-tinted darkness, grow bigger she did. But now the last of the magic was greedily swallowed up by her magnificent body, her height finally stabilizing. Her breasts continued to grow in a few more shakes and wiggles, apparently hopeful for more, and at least they stopped. The room was now as good as a bra for her massive breasts, and Terezi sighed in contentment as her new body settled. Her butt pushing out behind her, her breasts big enough for her and a couple others of her to sleep on… a fitting temple to her glory.

Teal magical signs appeared all over her body, in languages no longer written anywhere in the world (so far as they knew). These two faded, and with that, the spell was done. The absorbed magic faded away, into Terezi’s rune-streaked body. She smacked her huge lips and licked a few scraps of quintessence off, patting a swell of breast bigger than some kingdoms. She kept growing, but in bits and bumps, not the smooth (if very fast!) expansion she had done before. About seventy-five hundred feet tall by now, and shrinking a bit as she willingly suppressed her power for the sake of it being really funny to spring on Vriska at the first opportunity, she cleared up some room.

Thusly, John was now able to see… well, not much, still. All he could see now was one toe-claw dominating his view of the universe, but he could feel her presence. In any case she picked him up, the tips of two claws neatly pinched his bubble and wrenching out of the wall.

“Well, check me out!” Terezi said sweetly, holding him like a little marble against the ceiling so he could see all of her. “How’d I do, huh?”

John saw nothing but… a sea of such massive, scaley, huge busty goodness… he clammed up, turning red. He loved Vriska with all his fierce heart, but… not even she was that big and gorgeous. He’d never admit it, but… he couldn’t lie!

Terezi giggled, and blew him another kiss.

The door slammed open and out came Vriska. With some difficulty, and at first there was a hint of massive breasts and a shoulder trying to force their way through the doorway, and then the doorway was magically transformed to allow her through, and through it came Vriska.

She was significantly bigger, John judged at once, with love in his heart and desire in his hips. Almost… a thousand feet tall, now! More than twice her original size, but compared to her original goal of approaching Terezi’s size, she still looked distinctly puny. Though it was hard to say that, when she now had a figure with hips that left the door way a ruin, and breasts with lower hemispheres around her hips. You couldn’t even see anything of her body above the waist, just two massive bouncy globes. They swelled up as Vriska drew in breath, and wailed: “TEREZI!”

Terezi flicked John right into Vriska’s cleavage, and somehow moved. In a flash she transformed, becoming a small lizard. With a cheeky slap of her tail she scurried away into the suddenly open hallways, leaving Vriska spinning head over horns with the impact of the John-projectile. “Thanks for the snack!” Terezi said, just to be cheeky. “Hope you don’t mind staying so skinny!”

Vriska howled in fury, and Terezi’s cackles echoed throughout the citadel as she exited it, and then her shadow eclipsed it, and all the kingdoms of the Serket was in awe as her buxom glory was revealed to them.

Dragons do love to show off their hoards, and Terezi’s body was a hoard for her!

#my writing #fics #queued #/ #// #/// #commissions #twitchy!terezi #twitchy!homestuck #twitchy!vriska #twitchy!john egbert

[jira-chii]

AF Alice Rank

In the AF Alice rank, Sakura (who plays Alice) tries to revive her theatre group using a magic key.

This post also includes an unnecessarily long analysis of the theatre group series in general.

Shichirin (I really hope I am pronouncing this right), was a famous theatre group, renowned for doing plays of popular fairy tales, whose members all turned into tamashii when Lost happened. Sakura seeks out Chihiro, hoping she will lend her an artefact (AF) that will help her find the missing members.

As it so happens, the Magic Key was recently completed. This powerful AF has the ability to transport its user anywhere they can visualise, by bending the space around them and creating a “door” which is basically a teleportation portal. However it requires a tremendous amount of willpower to control, and, as a tamashii has never used an AF until now, Chihiro has justifiable concerns.

But a Magic Key sounds perfect for a girl who plays Alice, and Sakura assures her she will be able to control it.

Ofc she doesn't, as Takuya and Yuki find out when they are asked to investigate a tamashii that has gone berserk.

Throughout the quest, we see various flashbacks of Alice with the rest of Shichirin, emphasizing how much she loves being in the group, and everyone in it. First, Kanzou (who plays Captain Hook), remarks that she will probably be good enough to replace him as the face of the theatre group soon. Then, Sakura stays back after normal hours to practise more after receiving some advice she got from Kuroe (who plays Tinkerbell). Her enthusiasm cause the other members to also stay back: Yoshiki (Playing Card) and Chizu (Queen of Hearts).

It's very obvious Alice loves the group and that's why she wants to revive them. But just the act of wanting isn't enough. As Chihiro explains when she catches up to us, Sakura’s image of where she wants to go is not strong enough; to make the key obey, Sakura needs to think about not just the act of reviving the group, but also what she wants to do afterward (seems very similar to the predicament of another character in main story). Essentially, the key needs her to have a clear vision of the future in order to behave.

Chihiro also informs us Sakura was close to another actress named Kaede, and apparently they made a promise just before Lost happened. It’s likely to be a clue to making the key behave, but it looks like Sakura has forgotten about the promise after the shock of turning into a tamashii.

We actually did see Kaede in one of the flashbacks. Kanzou didn't want Sakura practising when she should have been taking a break like the others, but he also wanted to acknowledge the work she was putting into her role. So he gives her tickets to see a different production of Alice in Wonderland, by a theatre group called Futaba.

Kaede is the actress of this other Alice. She sees Sakura practising late at night and decides to join her. Sakura praises her for her performance, but Kaede has doubts about her acting, something Sakura can relate to. They decide to practice together.

One day Kaede asks Sakura what she would do if her group hypothetically dissolves. Unlike Shichirin, Futaba is a small theatre group and so such a possibility is always looming over them. After some thinking, Alice replies with “I’ll revive them”, and Kaede agrees she would have given a similar answer. To both Alices, their theatre groups are like family: warm, fun and full of the people they love.

Kaede remarks that every time Sakura talks about Shichirin her eyes light up.

Kaede then says she’d like to see Sakura’s ultimate performance of Alice some day. Sakura makes a promise then and there that she will show Kaede her best Alice performance, as well as her beloved theatre family.

Sakura remembers the promise after some prompting from Yuki.

"That’s right, I made a promise! I can’t stop here!"

She gets the key to work, and awakens it by using it on us. Then she heads off to revive Shichirin.

"After I revive Shichirin, you guys should come watch our performance too!"

In the epilogue Chihiro apologises to Kirihiko. She had no idea the key would go crazy like that, although Kirihiko says Sakura’s will was actually quite powerful and she was able to contain the chaos very well.

Also, we get a hint that Kirihiko might know something more about the Shichirin tamashii?

"So, it’s the Shichirin theatre group. As expected of a member of the workshop I scouted out myself, you’ve selected a great tamashii."

Much Thinking about Nothing

On the topic of this quest, I’d like to take this chance to talk a bit (sorry I actually mean, a lot) about the theatre group in general, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. Because I feel these series of quests subtly shows just how clever the writers of this game are.

The theatre group Shichirin, comprised of a bunch of actors and actresses in costume, is one of the more distinguishable set of characters in Shoumetsu Toshi. They were a famous group, reknowned for their engaging plays. But they were bought out by the circus group Anglermain (sorry if I spelt that wrong)  and were involved in Lost shortly after that.

Prior to this rank, the only way you would know anything about them is through their advents (a rotating set of quests that are available to almost all players. There are two types: ones that give evolution materials, and ones that give you the tamashii. Shichirin advents are the latter).

Overall the main gist of the series is: Yuki and Takuya are investigating the theatre members to figure out what their last performance was going to be on before Lost. Was it Peter Pan? Or was it Alice in Wonderland? (who really cares tbh. Also they never find out.)

The Shichirin advents have a unique structure:

Sakura has a weird conversation with one of the NPC characters (like Geek or Researcher). She is actually just reciting her lines as Alice but they think she is actually talking to them for real.

Gameplay bit. Takuya and Yuki search for one of the members of Shichirin, and then fight them.

After defeating them, we see a flashback of them talking to Sakura off-stage. It hints at internal politics but as it’s “adult’s business” they tend to leave Sakura out of it.

I’m gonna give my thoughts on each of these, and then relate what we know back to the ranking.

1. Sakura’s convos as Alice are meta af

As mentioned, Shichirin advents begin with NPCs like Geek and Headhunter mistaking Sakura reciting her lines as Alice for actual conversation. The surreal miscommunication can insult, intrigue, confuse and bring new perspectives to them, highlighting the bizarre meta nature of storytelling, dialogue and words in general. Are Alice’s lines just gibberish? Or do they contain a more profound hidden meaning?

The interaction is multilayered, and can be viewed in many ways. First is the interaction between a “child” and an “adult”. For example, Scientist/Eiji dismisses her as a child for who a great scientist like him has no time for. But then she poses the question (or rather, recites her line): How is a dog and table similar? Scientist has something like an epiphany: “Wow I had never considered a perspective like that.” Then ironically when Sakura leaves he wants to chase after her to spend more time probing deeper into her mind.

The other example I like is Headhunter interpreting her words as accusing him of being greedy, which is really more a reflection about how he thinks of himself than anything else. Here we see a parallel between the “innocent” child who knows nothing of the real world, and the jaded adult who knows he is flawed, but also knows there is nothing he can do about it. In fact, Sakura’s innocence is also a key theme in the story of the theatre group, but I’ll come back to that.

Sakura is just an actress, so her lines actually don’t mean anything. But to her audience, they can get many different interpretations depending on their own personal context. It’s very similar to the nature of theatre and storytelling in general. Anyway, it’s all incredibly meta which is why I love it so much (for those who care, my favourite Shakespeare play is Hamlet for the same reason).

The other little thing I appreciate about this beginning section of each of quest is how Sakura’s lines suggest a nickname for everyone. E.g. Geek is Humpty Dumpty and Researcher/Yumiko is Caterpillar (for which she takes huuuge offense). There is probably a deeper meaning to these too, but again, different people will have different interpretations. That’s just the beauty of theatre.

Speaking of different nicknames, let’s talk about the actual tamashii themselves.

2. Every cast member has two names

Shichirin tamashii take on the name of their role (e.g. Tinkerbell, Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook. This also applies to Sakura/Alice, who isn’t even an advent tamashii). The first time we meet them in the advents, they are in costume and behaving just like the character they are acting as. It really is just like interacting with the actual character from the fairytale. It is also a good indication of how passionate they are toward acting, to have their tamashii show forms like that.

So it feels like a very abrupt change when, in the flashbacks at the end of the quest, we see them using their real names (which, until now, we've never seen used anywhere else). Sometimes their personality completely changes too (just like real actors). Thus, there is a clear distinction between what happens “on-stage”, and “off-stage”.

This ranking quest capitalises on that by almost exclusively using everyone’s real names. And this really highlights that these are actual people with authentic interactions. Maybe it is because they behave so differently from when they are on-stage, that their relationships seem so genuine. It gives the feeling of watching a “behind-the-scenes” of a movie or something. And by only seeing things through Sakura’s viewpoint, we get the sense that this is a very close-knit family, without even seeing any of their faces.

3. Something foul is at play within Shichirin

Sakura’s feelings for her fellow cast members, her family, are definitely genuine. However there is a lot she doesn’t know about the happenings off-stage, hinted at in the advents. The overly positive way she announces she will “revive Shichirin” at the end of the ranking also does not bode well.

In the advents, Sakura is treated like an innocent child who knows nothing about the true world of adults. Which I guess by proxy means we don’t really know what’s going on either. There’s something about “taking sides” (Alice in Wonderland vs Peter Pan?), the possible dissolution of the group, and, by far the most interesting, the eventual sale of the group to the circus group (and front for the organisation) Anglermain.

Kirihiko’s words at the end of rank seem to be foreshadowing that we may learn more about Shichirin in the future.

Lastly, can I just say I’m really glad they finally explained Kaede, because having two tamashii called Alice had me confused for so long.

#Shoumetsu Toshi #af #alice #analysis

[charmspoint]

I know you said they don't have a concrete story yet, but would you be ok with telling us more about Zan and Ghost? They seem really interesting

Anon you don't know what you unleashed its like past 1am here but I could talk about them forever.

This is gonna be under the cut because nobody has to be subjected to this.

General quick point: Both of these started off as bnha oc's but then reached that point where I was like 'yeah, I want them in their own story' so rn their powers are just powers with no wider context since I aint got that story

I'm gonna start with Zan cuz he's older by creation and my fav oc atm. For him we have TW's of child abuse and neglect, familial death, trauma, drug abuse, depression and anxiety, though I'll be running through this points as quickly and non graphically as I can cuz...I'm not gonna make you read my thesis so it should be fine.

His full legal name is Kazuya Moriyama but he goes by Zan Mori, he's 24. Zan was created to be two things 1. Character design with a fully body tattoo 2. Someone to use a power I came up with but didn't match with a character yet.

Here's that power, yes I have a copy paste off it:

Nightmare fuel is a power that terrorizes everyone, including its user. Zan’s sweat contains a special kind of chemical that when smelled causes mild to severe hallucinations, paranoia and other fear responses by interacting with victims brain chemistry. However, this chemical is only contained in sweat that he produces as a result of fear so, for example if he goes running in the gym, nothing bad will happen. The strength of the power depends on how much Zan himself is afraid and how much sweat he is producing. A weak dose will only result in sense of unease, a feeling of being watched, escalating through general paranoia, with its worst manifestation being complete loss of touch with reality and intense hallucinations. It's odorless and since it’s a chemical can be stored for later use. The last stages of it are very hard to reach because they require for Zan to be at similar levels of severe distress. It affects him as well, often resulting in endless loop of him being afraid, activating his power because of his fear, the power causing more intense fear and so on.

So here is where we start to build.

Zan's backstory hinges on him developing this power very early on in his life, as a result of mutation that his parents were not ready for. Kids get scared of things, a lot, especially when their own power feeds back into that fear. His family quickly spiraled from it, going from trying to figure out how to help him to neglecting him to dying very bloodily in front of him as a result of the constant psychological distress. After that he was cycled through different foster and youth homes with pretty similar result before striking it on his own basically as soon as he could.

Zan's main motivation is to find a way to get rid of his power. He hates it, hates what it represents and how it essentially stripped away his ability to connect with anyone. He doesn't control it, he doesn't activate it, it simply happens to him whenever he gets distressed and as someone with deep seated anxiety caused by that very same power, he gets distressed a lot.

He self-medicates. He self medicates a lot. I don't really have the world planned out but it's very much a world where powers are a new thing and the society just doesn't have systems in place to catch people like Zan. So he basically keeps himself high as much as he can, to numb himself out so he doesn't feel anything so he doesn't get scared so his power doesn't get activated.

When I created Zan, I expected him to be a very jaded, angry, abrasive character and in some ways he is. He's very slow to trust and tends to keep away from people. His first instinct is to mock and insult, he dresses like an emo reject, he's absolutely covered in tattoos, he's a dark humored pessimist and just not the kind of person you want to be around for long. He's also probably one of the most empathic characters I have on the roster atm. He's like, a natural big brother. Any kids younger then him, fuck older than him but awkward and unsure, he's instantly adopting. Fuck everything else, his kids now, he'll make them lunch and make sure they get to school. Zan is more so abrasive out of need than out of actual malice or bad attitude. He does want to be close to people he just knows how that always ends so keeping away is a lot safer. He is genuinely very loving and soft when he lets himself be. He's not great about advice but he's a good listener and the type to throw everything on the backburner to come and help a friend out. He is inherently kind, he just doesn't allow himself to be so very often, unless someone damn well takes a chisel and digs it out of him.

Fun fact time:

He's got a knack for painting and idolizes Van Gogh

He's got a cat named Shikei who he picked up after it got run over by a car, it likes only him and wants to see the rest of humanity burn

Here are his established tattoos, yes I have a copy paste for that too:

Full body tattoo in shape of a jungle of thorns crawling over his entire body, save most of his face. The whole piece is done in eerie, cold colors, with a sudden splash of warmer color here and there, the thorns themselves being colored in misty and muted blues and greens. Over his heart, there is a tattoo of a birds nest, but the nest is breaking apart, suffocated by the thorns clustering around it and breaking into it, its branches drenched in blood, the baby birds in it barely even noticeable. Along the length of his spine and over the width of his hips an ornate cross of st. peter is painted, also crumbling, red spider lilies breaking through the frail rock. His shoulder blades are covered in sunflowers, strikingly bright on the cold surface of the thorns and painted in Van Gogh style. There is a chain of daisies lines across his neck and down to his chest, covering an old scar and a tiny ring of roses over his ring finger. On the nape of his neck, two butterflies are pinned by the thorns, appearing to still be alive and in agony as their bodies are pierced. A silver snake slithers through the thorns on his right arm, though its shade helps it blend in with the color of thorns, it’s body a tiny bit coiled, considering should it strike or not. On the back of his left hand there is a tiny leaf bug, trying to hide amidst the bare thorns and on the outer shell of his ear, mostly hidden from view by his head, is a ladybug, wings spread like it is about to fly away. A swarm of blue butterflies paint the silhouette of his lungs across his skin and two koi fishes circle each other endlessly on his hip. In thorns climbing up and down his neck, there are tiny fireflies, just barely bright enough to be seen. Two thin thorn branches separate themselves from the cluster on his neck and climb across his temples, their thorns appearing to be piercing through his skin and letting blood flow.

The tattoo is still in progress.

This was the brief summary.

Ghost! Ghost is a lot newer than Zan, I only made them at the start of this year so they are a lot less detailed but they hit the ground running. Their tw are mostly prostitution and existentialist feelings but I'm not getting into anything in detail.

Their full name is Ghostown Verb and yes they did name themselves that. They are 27 and their power is Forget me not, as I said previously, as soon as they are out of someone's line of sight, to that person it's like they never existed. The memories of meeting them return as soon as they are back in the field of vision but uhh you can see how it would be super easy to lose a child like that.

Ghost grew up on the street in a kind of do whatever you can when you can how you can attitude. Turns out it's really hard to get help from anyone when they can't remember you as soon as they stop looking at you, which includes but is not limited to social workers, well meaning passerby, police, foster homes and landlords. The name and face for the paperwork doesn't exist and people just find themselves grasping at nothing, feeling like they are forgetting something but not knowing what it is. It works in some ways, shoplifting is a lot easier when you're sure that you can just turn a corner and be safe, but it's mostly just a hassle. Ghost is homeless most of the time and when they were old enough for it their career of choice became prostitution simply because it's pretty much the only job where the customer doesn't need to remember you after they're no longer looking at you and it's not like Ghost has to answer to any boss who would have to either.

They had not had a kind life but they are the let and let live type. They don't stress a lot about things and generally take everything in a fly. They are very extroverted, very loud, very friendly. They form friendships fast because they know they'll lose them fast and same goes with love affairs. They live in the moment because for everyone else the moment is the only place where they exist. Loud fashion, loud words, loud actions, provocative and noticeable, they just want to be seen by people, remembered by people, they want the attention on them even though they know it's useless. Much like Zan they also have no control of their power so all they can do is live with it. At least it doesn't bring anyone any direct harm, they are grateful for that much.

But it does leave them displaced, unanchored. They don't have any support system, no family, no long term friends. The system can't even remember them for long enough to decide it isn't equipped to deal with them. They flitter through peoples lives, there one moment and gone the next. The biggest impact they can hope to have is the nagging feeling of having forgotten something.

It's not like they are exactly sad about it, their main mentality is just not to worry about things they can't change. These are the cards they've been dealt with and play those cards they shall. At the very least they are having fun with their life, doing whatever they want with no one remembering them long enough to stop them.

But it's a lonely existence with no viable human connection. That much does get to them.

Fun facts!

They have a tattoo of a forget-me-not on their shoulder, I haven't decided do they have it before the plot whatever it is starts, or do they get it cuz Zan's influence.

They like to make their own clothes when they can, though having a stable enough place to be for a long enough time is rare.

Their biggest fear is that when they die nobody will remember to look for their body :)

That was a brief rundown of these two! If you made it to the end damn congrats I love you

#anon #oc talk #I CAN TALK A VERY LONG TIME ABOUT MY OCS THIS ISNT EVEN THE DEEP DIVE #it might look like i like ghost less cuz i got way less for them but bls remember that zan is like....fuck like 3-4 years old #probs 3 as he is #4 if we count the thrown away beta design #ghost was born in February this year he's not even a full year old what a baby #ahhhh but anyway thank you for asking im always super excited to talk about my ocs #thank you for letting me geek out!!!! #i am NOT going to spell check all of that rn its almost 3am if i wrote something badly you'll have to live with it #zan mori #ghostown verb #they should have their own tags they deserve it #zan #ghost

[pervincetosscobble]

finished my young justice rewatch here are some Thoughts And Feelings (this is a very long post sorry to mobile users)

let me begin this post by saying bart allen is my one and only true ultimate favorite, and also if you’ve ever wanted to see (um, hear) me cry you can do that now thanks to bart allen

i was surprised by how much some of my opinions/faves changed tbh? i was. god, i was 13 the first time this show aired and 15 when it ended, so it tracks that now, 4-6 years later (???!?!?!?!?) things won’t be the same, but some changes were. significant

i’m adopting conner, for starters

conner loves sociology. pry this headcanon from my cold dead hands, motherfuckers

conner also knows a lot of really weird pieces of trivia

conner was a good student but also didn’t care about school

i remember not being really into conner/m’gann the first time around but i was kind of taken in by them in s1? these two kids trying to find their home in a world that wasn’t made for them.

conner and m’gann had a lot of date nights themed around Get To Know Earth Culture

some of these involved bioship travels and, like, day trips to paris just because they could

some of these were like. improv lessons and pottery classes.

i’m also still not super happy about the hints that they get back together post-s2. like. i hope they become friends again, that’d be good, but i refuse to believe conner would be okay with dating her again after what she did the first time.

point that has only just occurred to me: in the beginning of s1 conner is vastly uncomfortable with telepaths. by the end he’s totally okay with it because of m’gann. and i’d bet money there’s a point somewhere mid-timeskip where, because of her, he was no longer okay with them anymore.

one the note of the timeskip: five years seems RIDICULOUSLY long to me, especially considering that every plot-significant change happened “in the last few months.” like, what was the goal? aging dick up to nightwing? five years is SO MUCH missing lore, so many stories they could’ve fleshed out. make it two years. hell, if two is a squeeze, i could’ve gone for three. but five years?? nah, dude.

the best thing about the timeskip was domestic wally/artemis, which, like, i was totally enamored with them, so much, and their relationship development, and everything about them

i also liked kaldur’s character a lot more this time around, although i’ve got to say i’m not wild about them basically fridging tula?? (i’ll admit to not being super familiar with aquafam lore, so i don’t know how true to the comics that is, but they didn’t have to do it in the show) like, i know that it turns out he didn’t really go mad with manpain grief and turn evil, but i think there’s an equally powerful story in tula being injured and recovering in a world where she thinks kaldur abandoned her, in kaldur having to lie to her face instead of using her memory as justification

in general i think s2 could’ve benefitted from some trimming? i love all the freshmen, i really do, but it wouldn’t have been the worst thing if there were a few less of them.

alternately - and i know, networks and whatever - if s2 had been two seasons, or even had half a dozen more episodes, i think it would’ve benefitted from that, too

gotta say, the light gets old real fast. or at least, like, the whole “everything got super fucked” “no, everything went exactly as we planned it” things. like, you’re telling me the team never once threw them a curveball. never. really

13yo dick’s shenanigans and wordplay were a lot funnier when i was 13

now that i am an adult i feel..... a little more skeevy about canon-era jaime/bart than i did when i was 15 and i actually knew 13-year-olds who were dating 16-year-olds and saw nothing wrong with it? but i maintain that they have a solid friendship and definitely end up dating once they’re in their twenties

zatanna is my hero

this show vastly, vastly underutilized raquel. it’s a damn shame.

you know who else was great? mal. mal definitely saves puppies in his spare time and knows three languages and at least seven forms of martial arts and every teammate’s abilities and fears and favorite colors and everything there is to know about karen

artemis/zatanna is good

you know how jade just showed up and was like “yo roy look at our daughter”?? i like the idea of jade just, like, casually dropping lian’s existence into daily conversation.

“i miss alcohol now that i’m pregnant,” jade says. artemis chokes.

“this mission can’t take too long, i told the babysitter i’d be back by 9,” cheshire says. “the what,” sportsmaster shouts.

i still ADORE the runaway team, including og!roy, and man, i didn’t come out of this rewatch shipping a lot, but i love the idea of the runaway squad being kind of a tangled poly mess. ed is dating roy and asami, tye is dating asami and virgil, asami loves all her boys and understands why roy isn’t interested, etc.

like this fic for the disney film descendants

but also, like, in general, i really fucking love these kids

this show has a lot of really weird dad plots, which is strange for me bc my dad and i used to text after every episode, but also in general it’s interesting seeing the vast range of potential dads. for instance:

clark “i didn’t ask to be a dad” kent, who eventually transitions into an apparently passable dad? it’s not clear

black manta, who is morally a shitheel but also one of the most supportive dads on this show

barry, who definitely wanted to be more of an uncle than a dad

lex, who wanted to buy his genetically-experimented kids’ love

ollie, who really had a hell of a time

and of course dinah, who is the best mom and probably the best parent on the entire damn show

(also bruce, who didn’t do much dadding, but damn if i didn’t tear up at him talking to dick/tim/babs before he left earth)

gar logan is the team’s adoptive little brother. all of them, but especially the original six. and probably also zatanna and rocket.

i’d be able to go into more detail if we had more goddamn information about who joined the team when, which we don’t, because five year timeskip

but anyways since gar and m’gann are pseudo-siblings they’re closest, and then gar also loves conner, because who wouldn’t love their sister’s cool boyfriend?

conner is overwhelmed and kind of pleased by this

after conner and m’gann broke up gar was very worried that his sister’s cool ex-boyfriend wouldn’t want to hang around him anymore

conner did. conner and gar are basically brothers.

gar loves the entire original team, period

also i wanna throw it out there: ik there was a show-specific comic tie-in. i have read none of it. so if i say anything that doesn’t mesh with that it’s because i don’t care a ton about the comics? the show is probably better anyways

god i think that’s just about everything? so to wrap up this extremely long post i’m gonna go out of bulletpoint style here

i’m excited for s3! i really am. i can’t wait to see what they do with it. but also i’ve been convinced since i was 15 that the very last scene, with darksied and apokalips (which i deffo just spelled wrong but anyways), that scene only exists bc the producers were like “fuck it, we’re getting cancelled, might as well go all in” and just threw garbage in to make it seem like there was a conspiracy

like, this is a deep cut here, but there’s an episode of phineas and ferb that ended with a “next time” that was a series of nonsensical dramatic scenes, and then they tried to make an episode out of it and it was basically gibberish, and i’m really concerned that’s what’s going to happen here

but tldr i did enjoy this show a lot, and i’m glad i had the chance to rewatch it, and if anyone has their own thoughts to share y’all are welcome to hit me up!!

#textposting #THIS IS SO LONG I'M SO SORRY #i have a LOT of thoughts and feelings about young justice apparently!!

[imajojoke]

Chapter 2

Roger’s wall

Joanne and Maddox were walking through the modern city of dallas. It had changed quite a bit after the technical upgrades and guards were put in by the governor. The governor was more or less forced to put them in place after the ruler came into power. Joanne and Maddox stopped by a small coffee shop to get a small snack while searching for somewhere to keep themselves safe for a bit. They were fugitives from the law. There were wanted signs being put up for Joanne. She had to change her look up on the way to the state.

“One Mango Dragon drink please. And uh. . . what do you want Maddox?”

“How about like. . . I dunno. . . Just a latté I guess. That works for me.”

The two sat down at a table, and their drinks were served. Joanne was trying to keep her eye out for anyone who seemed suspicious. Basically, anyone worked for the government and seemed like they were sent to kill her and maddox. It has been a while since the last attack at Ottowan high, so they believed they were safe. . . for now.

Joanne took a sip of her drink as the two spoke, talking about hotels they could stay at for the night. They were sure that they could find something that would work well. “How about we stop at the Fitz hotel? How does that sound?”

“That sounds fine. I’m sure it’ll be nice.” Joanne sighed, and looked around the coffee shop. The two had finished their drinks, so they might as well leave. They had already paid, so there was no reason not to.

The two took a pit stop at the hotel. They checked into the hotel. “How long you want the room?” The receptionist asked them in a tired, annoyed tone. He obviously didn’t like this job. “Uhm. . . for tonight and tomorrow morning.”

“Huh. Have fun with your quickie.” Both Joanne and Maddox looked repulsed by this comment. They were tempted to mess with him. Very tempted. That’s what they did. Joanne made him blind for a short time, around five minutes. This might not be favorable if a fight started in the next five minutes, because she is limited to only being able to use a single effect at a time.

The two walked up towards their room, passing by the stairs, when a sudden rise in the stairs occurred. Joanne fell over and onto her face. It could have just been a creaky floor board, but there wasn’t any movement or creak when she had stepped onto the stair. That was incredibly strange. They might as well put their guard up.

The two summoned their stands, making sure to be as careful as they could as they went up the stairs. Suddenly, a spire shot out from one of the sides, shoot straight towards Joanne! Joanne swiftly brought up her stand, blocking the incoming spire, tearing it to shreds. But that was too slow. She didn’t see the second spire coming from behind her. She was hit square in the back, causing her to fly forwards and onto the ground.

“There must be an enemy stand user nearby!!” Maddox sent out D2Y to find the user. It moved slowly through the rooms, leaving him vulnerable to a spire. Joanne quickly applied the physical feeling of healing to herself, but her decision caused a severe injury to be dealt to Maddox while she was distracted with healing her broken arm. She ran towards him quickly and removed the effect and applied it to Maddox, without a second thought. Maddox was thankfully still conscious, allowing him to continue the search. But what was found wasn’t a user, it was a stand. It looked grotesque. . . It seemed to be made of white bricks, with scratched in X’s for eyes, and mouth that was closed at the moment, but when opened would reveal a gaping, red glowing hole.

The stand was horrifying. It’s limbs were long, and it looked as if it was malnourished, almost like the user was not taking care of themselves mentally, denying themselves any kind of positivity and closing off everything. The stand lunged towards D2Y, it’s limbs flying towards the stand. The physically weak D2Y quickly avoided the oncoming assault, and launched a counter, hooking the stand in the face. It didn’t do too much, but it disabled its acts for the moment being, allowing D2Y to continue its search for the user.

As soon as D2Y got out of the close range of the stand, it quickly regained computer and opened its gaping maw, letting out an incredibly loud screech. It jumped up towards the roof, swimming through it and towards D2Y, who had managed to find the user on the 5th floor. The stand reached the user and D2Y.

“Oh. You’ve found me, sitting in my bunker.”

“Why are you doing this?! Are you another government agent?? Why are you after Joanne?”

“Boss told me she could threaten his rule, or something similar to that. He just doesn’t want her alive.”

The man seemed tired. Jaded. He seemed as if he was lacking something crucial. . . Emotion. He seemed to be attached tightly to the government body that was obviously eating at him. Maybe that’s why his stand manifested as a malnourished creature made of white bricks.

“I’d recommend you stop trying to stop me and just let me kill the girl.”

“She is my best friend. Why would I allow that?”

“. . . Suit yourself, I guess. The wall will take care of you.”

The man’s stand, now dubbed the wall, lunged at D2Y, but D2Y quickly lunges at the man. D2Y traveled into the man’s headspace, and intended on taking him down from the inside which is usually what occurred when attacked by D2Y, but the terror of the man’s life. . . Rejection, an overbearing mother, and at the very end of it was a strange voice.

“Come here, Roger. I know what has happened to you. Rejection, loss, isolation. . .”

“. . . Who the hell are you?? Why the fuck are you talking to me??”

“I am . . . The president.”

“O-oh, shit, I apologize. I-“

“It’s ok. Do not apologize. There is no need. I see great potential in you.”

“. . . What?”

Roger took a step away from the president, obviously confused. He brought out his stand, nervous as to what the president might do. Flesh buds? Hypnosis? What? The president realized how frightened the poor, cold, shaking man was. He smiled, holding his hand out.

“. . . Ok.” Roger took the presidents hand and walked down the alley with him. They weaved through the alleys, passing through streets, through bars like the braying mule and several different karaoke bars. Then they found a terrifyingly tall spire of a building. The president’s home was on the top floor. They stepped into the beautiful lobby, and the president, who was dressed casually in basically nothing but a tight tank top and shorts, walked into the executive only elevator.

Many things took place in the penthouse of the president. They had several drinks, Roger got a job as an assassin, and Roger. . . Well, he liked the president. Then D2Y came from the memory. The president was using Roger.

“Roger Floyd . . . You do re-“

“What the hell. . ? How do you know my name??”

“. . . My stand, do you dream, has the ability to penetrate people’s minds and observe them from the inside. Learn all about the victim. Basically do anything from the inside.”

“. . . You’re dangerous. Very. You could have learned the president’s identity. . . Not even I know. I somehow forgot his identity only moments after I left the penthouse.”

“That’s strange. . . Anyways, you do realize that he was using you as a tool, correct?”

“I don’t care. I’ve lost everything. All I have is the president.”

He glared expressionless at D2Y and used his stand to grab it by the neck. It’s gaping maw opened wide. It was terrifying. The glowing red insides. . . It seemed like maddox’s life was about to end. Then, suddenly, Joanne kicked down the door, brought out her stand, and hooked the user in the face with her stand, omega. While D2Y was with Roger, Maddox had told Joanne the room number and the floor. Maddox was just buying her time to get to the room.

D2Y was dropped by the wall. An eighteen year old was able to take down a 25 year old. Joanne’s omega was retracted, and she glared at Roger. She was ready to beat down on Roger. Roger’s eyes opened and he observed the eighteen year old. “. . . How old are you?”

“. . . 18? Why?”

“. . . He sent me after a person whose life has literally just begun. That’s. . . He knows how I feel about assassinating the young!”

Joanne was. . . Confused. So who ever sent Roger after them knew of this man’s values to never murder anyone too young to die, but sent this man after her anyways. It would be a tad strange if Roger’s side changed in an instant because of this sudden realization, considering that he believes that all he has left is the gov-

“I’ll join you and your friend. The president has done something wrong. I’m sure you both know where he lives, correct? He’s the one that has been sending us after you for. . . Some reason. Something about you being a threat to his stranglehold over America.”

“. . . Why? Why is an eighteen year old girl a threat?”

“I’m gonna assume it has something to do with your stand. from what I’ve heard, your OMEGA, and his stand are similar in abilities. They can both create certain emotional feelings and physical feelings, from the rumors that I’ve heard.”

“So the government knows how my stand works.”

Joanne sat down and took a deep breath. Maddox entered the room and retracted D2Y. This has been quite the odd two days. It’s only going to get stranger.

End of chapter 2

[lucaumbriel]

The Last Jedi spoilers (and a huge wall of text) under the cut

The opening was way too similar to Empire Strikes Back, the Rebellion, sorry, the “Resistance” has just destroyed the First Order’s big bad weapon, but despite this the bad guys are stronger than ever (no, seriously, they apparently have defacto rule of the Galaxy or something now, because apparently the destruction of one system means the entire Republic is gone somehow) and the good guys are on the run.

Rey is seeking training from Luke, which is also a plot point lifted directly from ESB, but is done in a completely different way so it’s not something I hold against the movie. The training itself, however, is lack luster and feels more like something you’d see stretched out across an entire episodic season crammed into as little screen time as possible between everything else that’s going on. And I really didn’t like how they started going the route of “well, the Jedi need to die, but that doesn’t mean there are not going to be any more force users”, like they were going to have Luke get Rey to gut the tradition and legacy and keep everything else to sort of found a brand new order without any of the “you should fear the dark side because it’s the dark side and don’t ask questions about it because you shouldn’t be asking about that” and the removal of emotions and attachments and so on, and then go right back to “actually, nah, Rey’s gonna tell Luke that the Jedi are cool and that’s gonna change his mind and he’s even gonna acknowledge her as a jedi cause the jedi are cool and we wouldn’t want to stray from that or anything even though Kylo explicitly said he’s not gonna be a sith”. Like, there were so so many other arguments Luke could have used to show how the Jedi are not the undisputed good guys (just look at the people who try to say how “the jedi are the actual bad guys” cause they steal babies and enforce a specific lifestyle and doctrine and anyone who doesn’t agree with everything gets thrown out, instead of just “the Jedi were egotistical, they all died cause Palpy fooled them”, which is the single weakest argument for “the jedi weren’t actually that good” I think I’ve ever seen and that entire scene just feels pathetic and annoying).

Which brings me to the next bit and my major criticism with the movie: they try to do to much. It feels like two or three movies, or most of a Netflix mini-series crammed into two and a half hours. It doesn’t let you really digest anything that’s happening and everything from the subplots to the main plot feels rushed and there are a lot of little things (like the fight between Luke and Kylo) that feel really tacked on despite them actually being pretty important overall to the story. Like, they could have stopped the film at several points (most notably after everyone got in the base), but it’s like they kept coming back with “and one more thing” (the bad guys have a canon that can blast through it, which actually would have made an interesting cliff hanger, if this were the Netflix mini-series it feels like), and then “one more thing!”, and then “one more thing!”

The conflict between Poe and the Admiral feels unnecessary. Yes, Poe was wrong to go behind her back, and more wrong to try and mutiny because the Admiral did actually have a fully fleshed out and usable plan that would have worked perfectly if Poe hadn’t sent Finn and Rose off to infiltrate the flagship and allow the code breaker to betray them for money, but his actions were still justified because instead of explaining the plan to him or anyone else, she intentionally kept him the dark and obfuscated what she had planned for no reason what so ever, seriously, there was no reason she couldn’t say “we’re going to load people in the shuttles, yes, I know they’re shielded and unarmed and will never outrun the destroyers, that’s why I’m going to stay behind and pilot the cruiser, we’re gambling on them not looking for smaller ships, so this should provide a decent distraction, the shuttles will be going to a fortress world were they’ll have enough power to contact our allies”, but no, she never says that, instead she just tells him “trust me” and “hope” and when he finds out about the shuttles she blows him off. Yeah, Poe is a hot head and all, but she’s a shitty leader if she can’t be asses to explain a simple plan to someone who you have no indication of being a defector or spy or anything else. The entire time it feels like either she’s the traitor like Poe thinks, or she’s trying to trick a traitor by using Poe or some shit but there’s no actual payoff to the entire subplot except “Poe was wrong and should have blindly trusted his leader who’s first conversation with him involved her verbally bitch slapping him and acting like he’s been nothing but a detriment to the entire Resistance.”

Over all, the film feels like an action movie, with a lot of space battles, amazingly choreographed fight scenes, lots of big loud energetic moments like them crashing through the casino, it doesn’t feel like a Star Wars movie so much as an abridged season of Clone Wars or Rebels.

Oh, and how can I forget Rey. She continues to be a Mary Sue, never suffering any real complications or failings, even in this film, her absolute biggest fuck up, getting herself captured thinking she can turn Kylo to the light side and together defeat Snoke, results only in Kylo killing his only superior and acquiring supreme control over the First Order, and then she escapes with no real consequences otherwise. And if you say “well putting the immature, hot headed, egotistical, man-child in charge of the First Order instead of the highly powerful, nearly all seeing, calm, collected, and very powerful mastermind who put the First Order together in the first place” a bad outcome from this and something that has in any way actually strengthened the Order, especially since we already see the conflict between Kylo and Hux growing worse and worse with every scene they’re in, then I don’t really know what to tell you except maybe watch the movie again and actually pay attention.

The fight scene between Kylo and Luke was awesome, though, again, very action movie and, like I said above, adds to the list of “they tried to do too much in one movie”. I like that if you pay attention, you can see that it was pretty obvious he was never actually there. Not only “how did he get into a base there’s supposedly only one way out of” but “how did he even get there in the first place?” the only ship we see is the sunken X-Wing that’s probably been there for way too long for it to still be usable, and then not only is he not even scratched by the ATs, he doesn’t even have any dust on him period, he’s using a lightsaber that we just saw sundered, and he’s adamantly refusing to even block Kylo’s attacks. The dice thing, however, was stupid and makes no fucking sense at fucking all. I was waiting for him to say the line, but he never did, you’re supposed to become more powerful that he could ever imagine, damn it.

Luke’s ascension also feels kinda tacked on and forced, epic as it was. Makes me think they were planning to kill each of the main three at the end of their particular movie. We’ll see how that holds up...considering.

Kylo’s continued indecision was good, as was the twist with him killing Snoke and then taking command instead of turning. I also liked the fact that he used his apparent execution of Rey to cover his actual execution of Snoke, which reminded me of the “you will kill Luke Skywalker” thing with Mara Jade in the comics, though I am a little disappointed that after everything from the first film, this is all we get with Snoke unless he revives himself somehow. Which would be stupid, honestly.

The fight scene with the honor guards was awesome, though Rey continues to prove that someone who grew up fighting rats on a farm with a staff is a match for much better trained fighters. I was fine with the scene, up until she and Kylo were both being choked out and she’s the only one who figures out how to escape and then gets to save Kylo. With everything else on top, it just adds to my dislike of her writing as I’ve discussed above. How Kylo finished off the last guard was awesome, though, and everyone in the theater cheered cause it was awesome.

All of this, and any other things I might have forgotten, I still loved this movie and it was great. Great fight scenes. Great space combat. The casino scene with all the aliens was great. Luke was great. Leia was great. That scene between Luke and R2, especially once he played the message, was great. Rey, Finn, Poe, and Rose maybe not great but they were ok. The scenes that reminded me of other movies, comics, TV series were all great (except maybe the elevator scene that paralleled Return’s Luke/Vader scene, that just felt kinda weird). The pieces were all great, it’s the bits between them that are more...eh, and while some of them are necessary, others, like I’ve said, feel tacked on or fall into “and one more thing” near the end.

Overall, I would rate this as one of the better Star Wars movies. It’s better than Empire (the filler of Star Wars), and definitely better than most of Clone “I hate sand”/forced romance Wars. If it had been a mini-series instead of a whole movie or some of its points had been cut from here and put in some EU materials or another movie somewhere, I think it would have come out better because they would have had more time to flesh things out and work with more of the points they raised up instead of it feeling rushed and crammed together. Empire, for its faults, still handles its two plots better than Last Jedi handled it’s three or four.

#tldr: i liked it but it had its problems

[starwarseureviews-blog]

Star Wars EU Reviews: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Yeah, yeah, I know; this is supposed to be Star Wars EU Reviews and I am reviewing new canon material. The only thing I can say in my defence is that May 25th was the first of the last seven days of the month and it just seemed appropriate to do all seven movies to fill in the rest of May. And, to be honest, I really like The Force Awakens anyway. I must confess to liking both the New Canon and the Expanded Universe. Do I like them both equally? No, but which one I like better is a subject I will get into at a later date. For the time being I am going to review the latest film in the main Star Wars saga.

Since episodes I through VI are universally known by the fans who read these reviews I thought it best to avoid reviewing their respective stories and instead discuss my feelings on the films in general and my overall impressions of them. However, since The Force Awakens is more recent I am going to review it more like I do my comic reviews and go over the plot in more detail. Obviously this means there are going to be spoilers in this review and if you haven’t seen the film yet (which I kinda doubt by this point) it may be best to turn away.

For the rest of you who have seen the film or at the very least those of you who don’t give a womp rat’s butt about spoilers here goes:

The Force Awakens is set 30 years after Return of the Jedi in a galaxy so far away that there are no Yuuzhan Vong around, Chewbacca is still alive, and the Solo family only had one child. And there is not a sign of any Mara Jades, Kyp Durrons, or Jaxxon the Green Rodents to be found. If Disney’s axing Jaxxon from the canon infuriates you then avert your eyes from The Force Awakens.

The story opens with the opening crawl declaring that Luke Skywalker is missing and General Leia, who is leading a Resistance against an evil organisation called The First Order, has dispatched her best pilot Poe Dameron to find him.

On the desert planet, Jakku, Poe Dameron (played by Oscar Isaac) receives from an old man named Lor San Tekka (Max von Sydow of Ingmar Bergman fame) a star map which will reveal the location of Luke Skywalker when combined with additional maps. The other maps are thankfully all stored in R2-D2’s memory banks so the Resistance doesn’t need to go looking for them, but getting this final piece to R2 may be harder than it sounds. Their meeting is interrupted by a sudden attack of First Order Stormtroopers led by a Dark Side user (he’s not a Sith, remember that) named Kylo Ren (played by Adam Driver). With Kylo is a chrome plated stormtrooper named Captain Phasma (played by Brienne of Tarth herself, Gwendoline Christie). To prevent the First Order from getting the star map to Skywalker Poe gives it to BB-8, his ball-shaped astromech side kick. He tells the droid to get as far away as possible and find a way to get the map to the Leia. Lor San Tekka is soon killed and Poe Dameron is captured and taken to Kylo’s Star Destroyer. Kylo Ren orders Captain Phasma to have all the villagers from where Lor San Tekka resided to be executed, but one of the Stormtroopers named FN-2187 (played by John Boyega) is too horrified by the carnage to take action and watches in silence. Meanwhile, BB-8 wanders the desert when he is nearly captured by a junk dealing alien named Teedo before he is rescued by a young woman named Rey (played by Daisy Ridley). She, who can understand astromech language, reluctantly lets the droid follow her, but resists at first only giving in when the little robot tugs at her heart strings by making wimpering sounds. Why she didn’t want BB-8 following her in the first place is beyond me since the droid took up little space and it wasn’t like she needed to feed it. Rey lives by herself in an abandoned ruin that was once an AT-AT and she makes a living scavenging parts which she sells to a dealer named Unkar Plutt who gives her meager payment which she spends on food. She has lived on Jakku since she was a little girl and she hopes some day that her family will come back for her. Spoiler: They don’t.

Elsewhere, Poe Dameron is being interrogated and tortured by Kylo Ren until he is forced to reveal the location of the map. When Kylo finds out that the map is located in a BB unit he informs his colleague and rival, General Hux (played by Domhnall Gleeson). While preparations are made to return to Jakku, FN-2187 finds Poe Dameron and busts him out of his cell. FN, whom Poe nicknames Finn, decides he wants nothing to do with the First Order and he defects. But, lacking the training to pilot a TIE Fighter he recruits Poe Dameron to help him. How a low ranking stormtrooper whose specialty is sanitation knows that there is a high-profile prisoner aboard who is a pilot for the Resistance is beyond me. He was not there when Poe was captured and he was ordered to shoot everyone in the village. Either the First Order is fairly open with their intel or some water cooler gossipers are overdue for a good Force choking.

They steal an X-Wing, but they are almost instantaneously shot down and crash on Jakku. Finn survives, but Poe Dameron is nowhere to be found and Finn assumes his new friend is dead. He treads through the desert until he reaches Niima Outpost where BB-8 and Rey happen to be. BB-8 spots Finn and recognises the jacket he is wearing which he scavenged from the crash. BB-8 tells Rey that that is Poe’s jacket and she charges at Finn with a big stick and knocks him over with it. She demands to know where he got the jacket and he tells her that he is with the Resistance and the jacket belonged to Poe Dameron who gave it to him.

But, before any introductions can be made they get attacked by low flying TIE Fighters hellbent on retrieving BB-8 and the map. Rey, Finn, and the droid escape inside the Millennium Falcon which just happens to be in the possession of Unkar Plutt and take off. Just moments after going into hyperspace they get caught and are tractor-beamed into a large cargo freighter. The Falcon is then boarded by none other than Han and Chewie themselves who are pleased to have their old ship back. Apparently in the past several years the ship had passed hands from thief to thief and having tracked it down, Han is intent on claiming it back. When Han sees that Rey, Finn, and BB-8 are not the original thieves he decides not to lock them in the brig. And when he learns that the droid is carrying a partial map to Luke Skywalker he tells Rey that years ago Luke had tried to start a Jedi academy, but a young student rebelled, turned to the Dark Side, and destroyed it all. Luke felt responsible and he fled in search of the first Jedi temple. Kylo Ren, the boy who rebelled, who we learn is Han and Leia’s son had worshipped Darth Vader and sought to mimic him. He joined a Dark Side cult called the Knights of Ren and changed his name from Ben Solo to Kylo Ren. Han became devastated over his son’s betrayal and left Leia to return to a life of smuggling. Leia continued leading the Resistance against the First Order which is being led by an evil being called Supreme Leader Snoke (voiced by Andy Serkis of Gollum fame). The origins of Snoke, the First Order, and the Knights of Ren are not elaborated on in this movie and barring reading the new canon material I feel that most of the information that is missing is going to be expanded upon in The Last Jedi.

After Han discusses the state of the Galaxy they are suddenly boarded by pirates who are bent on collecting a bounty on Solo’s head. This goes poorly for the pirates, however, when Rey accidentally opens all the cell doors containing Han’s cargo. The cargo happens to be giant man-eating rathtars which are basically huge tentacled monstrosities that make the dianoga in the trash compactor in A New Hope look like a kitten. While the unfortunate pirates are getting devoured by the rathtars our heroes escape in the Falcon and leave the cargo ship behind. They head to Takodana to meet a thousand-year old alien woman named Maz Kanata who runs a bar that hosts a variety of unsavoury patrons, but is a good and friendly source for information. Like Lor San Tekka she venerates the Force while not being a Force-sensitive herself. When the main characters arrive she detects Han’s presence almost immediately and shouts his name across the bar. You know, because that is what friends do. They loudly and obnoxiously declare the presence of their friends with bounties on their heads in a seedy bar. This goes exactly as one would expect and while Maz and Han converse several patrons secretly dispatch messages to the First Order notifying them that BB-8 and by extension the map to Luke are here. Maz tells Rey that she has the power of the Force within her and that she can use it to fight the First Order. Rey refuses as she still believes her family will come for her on Jakku. She storms off but starts to hear a child crying in the bar’s cellar. She goes down to investigate and finds that the sound is emanating from a wooden trunk in a closet. She opens the trunk and finds inside an old lightsaber. When she grabs it she is suddenly plunged into a Force vision in which she sees her younger self dropped off on Jakku crying for those who abandoned her to come back. This is followed by images of Luke sitting by R2, Kylo killing students at the Jedi academy, and visions of locations such as Bespin. When the vision ends she is accosted by Maz Kanata who tells her to take the lightsaber which once belonged to Anakin and Luke Skywalker. But Rey refuses despite Maz’s pleas that Rey’s future is ahead and not behind on Jakku. Maz tells her she needs to stop waiting for someone who isn’t gonna come back, but Rey doesn’t want to hear it. I am not sure why Rey is so upset. I would have been relieved persoanlly. If I was in some seedy backwater bar and heard a child crying in the basement my first assumption would not be that it was Force vision.

Rey runs off into the woods and around this time the First Order arrives and attacks Takodana. But before doing so they demonstrate the full power of their new super-weapon, Starkiller Base. This weapon is a planet whose core has been converted into a device that can annihilate several planets at once. With this weapon the entire Hosnian Prime system (It’s not Coruscant so you can stop saying that!) which is the current seat of the New Republic is wiped out. Han, Chewie, and Finn manage to get out of Maz’s bar and the old woman gives Finn the lightsaber Rey wouldn’t take. Finn who is trained in melee as well as blaster combat proves effective with the blade and takes out several stormtroopers with it (TRAITOR!). However, in the end Han, Finn, and Chewie are captured by the overwhelming forces and Rey is abducted in the woods by Kylo Ren who takes her to his Star Destroyer; though Han and his gang are soon rescued by the Resistance who fly in with a squadron of TIE Fighters. These are led by Poe Dameron who is alive and well. After the First Order flees a Resistance shuttle lands and out comes General Leia and C-3PO who is sporting a red arm. Don’t ask; the canon explanation is really quite stupid. After a brief bonding moment Han tells Leia he saw their son carrying Rey away. The heroes all head to the Resistance base on D’Qar and discuss plans to destroy Starkiller Base. Finn who has by now fessed up to being a former Stormtrooper claims that he knows the inner workings of the facility and can help them not only rescue Rey, but also destroy the base. The base is heavily shielded which protects it from attack, but Han and his friends devise a plan to infiltrate the base and plant explosives that would shut down the shielding system. They take the Falcon to the base and get to the surface of the planet by taking advantage of the shield’s refresh rate. The Falcon has a rough landing but they all make it in one piece. Inside the base they find Rey who had already escaped by herself using a Jedi Mind Trick on one of the guards (fun fact: he’s played Daniel Craig in an uncredited cameo!). After Maz told her she could use the Force Rey apparently decided to try it by using her guard as a test subject. After Han and Chewie plant the explosives Solo sees his son Ben walking along a catwalk. Han calls out to him and tries to convince him to come home and leave the First Order and the Knights of Ren. Kylo feigns remorse and offers to let his father take his lightsaber. Unfortunately, when Han make a grab for it Kylo Ren ignites it and the blade penetrates through Han Solo’s chest. The wounds are fatal and the last thing Han Solo does before he dies is take his hand and gently touches his son’s face before falling off the catwalk to his death. While I am not the biggest fan of how Han is killed off for reasons I will get into later, I do like this scene as it shows how Han feels about his son. Touching his son affectionately was his way of showing Ben that he forgave him and still loved him at the end. We see Han Solo grow in the Star Wars films from a cynical self-serving scoundrel to a loving father who firmly believed in the good of the Jedi and the Light Side of the Force. Chewie roars in grief and immediately ignites the bombs effectively shutting down the shielding network for Starkiller Base. The Resistance then attacks and destroys crucial segments of the base causing it to explode and begin falling apart. As the forests of the planet begin to quake and come apart Rey and Finn encounter Kylo Ren for one last time on their way to the Falcon. Finn tries to take him out in lightsaber combat but is easily overcome by Kylo’s superior skills and he is wounded and rendered unconscious. Rey draws upon the Force a second time and Force-pulls the lightsaber to herself. She then fights Kylo Ren in a duel that is both raw and rough demonstrating both of their need for further training. Rey eventually gets the upper hand and slashes upward and strikes her enemy in the face. He survives but is badly injured and she and Chewbacca take Finn back to the Falcon to escape the base that is falling to pieces around them. As they leave Snoke tells General Hux to retrieve Kylo Ren so he can finish his training.

While Chewbacca is aboard the Falcon weeping for his lost friend Rey pilots the Millennium Falcon back to D’Qar. At the base R2 takes the map and adds it to a larger map revealing that Luke Skywalker is on a water planet consisting of small islands called Ahch-To. There Rey takes the Falcon with just herself and R2-D2 and finds the ruins of an old temple. She climbs the steps and after several hours she finds an old man in a Jedi robe standing looking over a cliff. He turns around and looks at her revealing himself to be the long lost Luke Skywalker. Rey opens her pack and takes out his lightsaber. The same lightsaber he lost on Bespin thirty years ago. She holds it out to him with a look that is almost pleading in its intensity and he looks at her with a quizzical and somewhat sad expression as she holds the weapon toward him. Before Luke utters a word the film ends cutting to credits and leaving its audience two years to wait for him to say anything.

Now what did I think of The Force Awakens? Well, I liked it a lot. I think it is a step in the right direction for the Star Wars films which had hitherto degenerated into convoluted plots with little to no character development and an overabundance of CGI and green and blue screen photography. Episode VII uses more practical effects and actual sets, balancing state-of-the-art special effects with old methods that have withstood the test of time. The story is very reminiscent of the original trilogy and the characters have colour and interesting characteristics unlike the Prequels which tended to ignore the characters in favour of expanding the backstory. Some have complained that The Force Awakens borrowed too heavily from A New Hope and while I can see what they are referring to I never saw it as an issue. The Phantom Menace does the same thing if you really think about it and I think at this point it should be realised that Star Wars is like a musical composition or an epic narrative poem that repeats and rimes themes, motifs, and ideas to form a rhythmic symphony. The echoing and repetition is a part of the natural flow of the narrative. I do, however, have reservations about Starkiller base. It seems a bit cheap to add another super weapon to the mix. The Death Star II was an unoriginal and unimaginative bit of overkill itself and Starkiller Base is no better. The fact that it is bigger, can destroy more than one planet at a time, and is built inside of a planet is not a major difference to me.

Speaking of Ben Kenobi I find it a bit odd that Han and Leia decided to name their son after him. Leia never knew the man and Han only met him briefly while spending the entire time mocking him for his “hokey religion”. It was Luke who connected with the old man, not Han and Leia. I think the old EU made the smarter choice in having it be Luke who named a child Ben and not Han. They might as well have had Han name his son Owen or something. It just doesn’t make sense. I also seriously dislike the way Han is killed off. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with Han Solo’s character dying. Done correctly it would have added a dimension to the story that would have been both meaningful and emotional for the viewers and the characters. But, this is not the case though. There is no real sacrifice and Han seems to achieve no end that benefits his friends. He is simply tricked by a false redemption and killed for it. Han didn’t die saving anyone. He didn’t die doing something that benefited the heroes or the Resistance. He just died. And the revelation that he had not been with Leia at this time also negatively affects the impact this scene could have had. I am not sure why the writers even thought we wanted to see this. Why would they think we, the fans, wanted to find out the love story between Han and Leia fell apart? It would have been better if Han had remained with Leia and stayed with the Resistance. That would have added a stronger meaning to his death and a deeper sense of loss. Han Solo’s death was a missed opportunity and I was disappointed with it.

I am also a bit perturbed by how much use of deus ex machina is in the story. Finn meets Rey and BB-8 by accident because they just happened to be in the same outpost at the time. They steal the Millennium Falcon which just happened to be there. They meet Han and Chewie who just happened to be near enough in the sector to track it. They go to visit Maz who just happens to have Luke’s old lightsaber. A bunch of pieces fall into place so easily in this movie and I am uncertain if I should just explain it away as the “will of the Force guiding destiny” or lazy writing. Oh wait, this was co-written by the writer and director of Star Trek Into Darkness. OK, so lazy writing it is.

But seriously, for the most part I have had no issues with the story and I found it a welcome addition to the Star Wars saga. I like the characters, new creatures, and space ships; and I like how Kylo Ren contrasts Luke in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. In those films Luke struggled with the temptation to turn to the Dark Side and resisted until he made a final resolution to be a Jedi by tossing his lightsaber aside. Here, Kylo does the opposite. Ben Solo is tempted by the Light Side of the Force and resists its pull. This is a concept we have never seen in Star Wars before and I find it a unique take on an individual’s relationship with the Force. And like Luke he makes a decision to demonstrate his final resolve. In this case, by slaying his own father.

There is another complaint that I have with this film that I also share with Attack of the Clones: The music. John Williams is a master composer and all of his Star Wars soundtracks are masterpieces. However, some of them are less good than others and Episode II and Episode VII’s soundtracks are sort of the black sheep of the bunch. The music in both of these films are not that memorable and only a few tracks stick out to me. Also I am not sure if I am the only who noticed this, but the first note that plays when the words STAR WARS appear on the screen doesn’t sound the same way it does in the other six episodes. Listen and compare next time. It’s a little different.

Another thing I have noticed that few others realised is relating to Kylo Ren’s name. When I first heard the announcement that his name was going to be Kylo Ren I was appalled. The reason was because I had watched some of the old 1980’s Droids cartoons when I was a kid and I distinctly remember there being a villain named Kybo Ren. He was a portly, mustache-twirling, midriff-showing pirate who always referred to himself in the third person. In a word, he was ridiculous! The fact that the villain in The Force Awakens is called Kylo Ren cannot be a coincidence and the decision baffles me. That would be like making a movie about a badass action hero and then naming him Dorrest Gump! It’s such an odd thing to do.

If The Force Awakens seems to lack something to the viewer; whether it be the lack of memorable music, unique planets, or a story that expands on the lore in a major way, I understand where you are coming from. I have similar gripes. Episode VII takes too few risks. The planets are mundane and are not much different than anything else we have seen before. The music sounds tame and standard. And the plot feels small and less epic than the last few Star Wars films we have seen. There is a certain characteristic dullness to The Force Awakens’s aesthetic and the more I watch the movie the more I become aware of it. It hasn’t led me to hate the movie or even put it on a par with the Prequels, but I do think it has some lacklustre aspects that did hurt it inevitably. However, I am truly expecting more from The Last Jedi and I am excited to see where we are taken next in this galaxy far, far away. Despite its imperfections The Force Awakens is a refreshing revival of the Star Wars films and it is an awakening we have all felt. I believe Episode VII is only our first step into a larger world.

Stay tuned Friday for a review of Star Wars Classic Marvel #64: Serphidian Eyes and may the Force be with you.