#so anastasia SAVING him and redeeming him through love would be A+++

[my-current-obsession]

Me, delusional, foaming at the mouth:

ISH ROUTE??? POTENTIAL ISH ROUTE? PLEASE?

#even if tempest #otome #just saying his love for norna is kind of what made him turn evil #so anastasia SAVING him and redeeming him through love would be A+++ #and the game even implied it would/should happen! she literally told norna to leave ish to her #and then just... ignored him in purgatory to pursue her own happy ending #so we were ROBBED and deserve a proper route with him (and not just a Q&A session) #if nothing else i hope he's got a big role again because i want to see and hear more of him #tetsuya kakihara did GREAT work with him. i'm most familiar with fran from code realize #but holy shit he popped off in this role. there's just an energy to it - sometimes malevolent sometimes playful #and i just WANT MORE. ideally he gets a route but failing that make him a prominent character regardless #for the record i'm ALWAYS greedy for more love interests in any game #(in this game alone i also desperately want routes for maya and hugo for instance) #but he's one of a small handful who truly seems like he SHOULD have been and just. wasn't. #so until the FD comes out and shatters my dreams i'll hold onto hope

[surprisebitch]

Finished Lostbelt 1!


Wow I have so many thoughts.. where do I start.. 
First of all, I really love how the story is a huge improvement in comparison to the singularities. When I finished the Singularities, I was skeptical on how the story can continue or extend from here? It seems like there’s no way they can come up with something without it feeling redundant and boy did Lostbelt 1 prove me wrong and it is through how a Lostbelt differs from a Singularity and this blew my mind.


Throughout Lostbelt 1, I felt that the atmosphere was heavy and I was predicting an impending tragedy and damn it is tragic but not in a sense that “just for the sake of being sad”. It’s due to how the Lostbelts are designed and how it affects its inhabitants and I love how you can feel this from every character.


Let’s start with the Yaga.. the furry werewolves who are tragic creatures and live the way they do because that is what they were raised to be. It’s interesting to see how the Yaga survive through survival of the fittest and this caused them to abandon kindness and empathy. Patxi really was a great character to show this because we got to see his development from underestimating humans like all Yaga to embracing happiness. And the way this happens is so natural that it was like a beast getting taught how to be human. It was also nice that we got to read his thoughts as he narrates most of the story.


I also have to highlight how this lostbelt made me not dislike any character including the antagonists in the story. I actually sympathized for them and was very touched. Like the fact that I became teary-eyed from their last moments speaks a lot how the writers blurred the lines between antagonists and protagonists because Kadoc and Anastasia’s motives are valid too. Kadoc wanted to prove himself capable and a skilled master by carrying out what was assigned to him in his own way because he always had an inferiority complex. And it was so touching to see that Anastasia was always there supporting him and bringing the best out of him. And I hated that I had to destroy that or take that away from Kadoc. 


Besides that, I also love how every character’s lore got explored, highlighted, and redeemed, such as Avicebron. Seeing him acknowledge his sin from Apocrypha and deciding to sacrifice himself to repent is so powerful and really erased all the resentment i had towards him. Like it was already interesting to see him get summoned as your servant and to see him just be the maker of golems and a clever one. But to see that final scene was truly wow. I also really love Salieri and Mozart’s interactions and how it was full of angst and love. Salieri being an Avenger made so much sense too and was explored fully. We really got to see a character express his love through anger and resentment. Not towards Mozart but the situation they are plagued to experience everytime they meet. Even Ivan’s final words and how he yearns to experience the love he had with the wife he misses. Like no one here is really bad but are just doing what they feel is right and just.


Also, I want to talk about Nyalter because this LB really made me glad she came home to me twice. Nyalter being torn about her decision to betray us so she can save the children. Like, I finally understood why her alignment in the FGO universe is “Evil” because her thought process defies conventional human logic. And I love its complexity because she is selfish and selfless in a way. The reason she wants to save the children even though the outcome is harmful is due to her experience of abandonment and because she wanted to genuinely save them from that. Despite how irrational it is since why would you let children survive in a world devoid of kindness and where they could be killed? Deep down she knows the Lostbelt is not a good world but she did not want the children to experience the pain she felt of being abandoned and she wanted to be a hero for them because no one was.


Finally, I wanna talk about the setting! I really loved the eternal ice setting. I also love the artwork in the scenes and how the challenging boss fights are designed. I enjoyed the fights and the Master vs. Master battle most of all. It really made me have to think and strategize. I love being able to make my team of servants work and clear challenging fights. It’s so satisfying.


TL;DR: Play Fate Grand Order because the story gets better as you progress. It really goes up from Camelot. And I can say this single Lostbelt is the best chapter I’ve experienced so far.

#fgo #lostbelt

[hafanforever]

Thoughts on redeemable characters? Are there characters that you liked or would like to see redeemed? And do you think there are characters that got a redemption arc without deserving one? Doesn't need to answer based on the latest movies, you can consider Disney's old material too.

Like in real life, I believe that characters in fiction are only truly capable of redemption if they prove their worth to be so, through their actions and behaviors. In other words, they MUST show true remorse, regret, and be sincere if they apologize, or even do heroic, selfless acts that contradict their previous actions. But main antagonists of Disney animated films almost never show or do that after their evil deeds, and if there was a chance that they would change, it wouldn’t be instantaneous or happen in a very short period of time.

So I know that there are Frozen fans who wanted Hans to appear in the sequel and redeem himself, but he has not proven himself as such in the ways I mention. As I described in this analysis, I have never once believed that he was capable of redemption due to his crimes. Did he ever show regret? Remorse? Did he ever apologize for his deeds? NO! And Disney obviously felt the same way about Hans’s incapability of redemption and did not resort to it in the final cut of Frozen II, which satisfied me. To the possibility of Hans ever being redeemed, I say this:

As far as I can remember, I personally don’t recall seeing many Disney films, new or old, animated or live action, that had bad characters redeeming themselves with a dissatisfactory redemption arc. Furthermore, for any Disney villains who do not die at the ends of their respective films, I think at the moment, Robert Callaghan from Big Hero 6 MIGHT be a possible candidate for redemption. I say “might” because he did everything he did out of grief and rage over when he thought he lost his beloved daughter Abigail forever. However, Callaghan’s rage consumed him to the point that his own morality disappeared. His actions made him murderous, even wanting to kill any people who were witnesses to his deeds, and no longer caring for the safety or lives of innocent people he endangered. This was shown in how he coldly and callously blamed Tadashi’s death only on Tadashi himself, saying that running into the burning building that he (Callaghan) started was his own mistake.

Before Abigail’s disappearance, Callaghan was a good man. She was the most important person in his life, and he loved her dearly. When it was thought that she died, he became consumed with rage and revenge, bent on destroying those who wronged him, making his love for her and loss of her the only true reason for his motives. By the end, when Abigail is saved and wheeled into an ambulance, Callaghan is arrested and put into a police car. He manages to see her one last time from a distance, and subsequently hangs his head down. This hints that he may be feeling remorseful for his actions, since Abigail was alive after all and everything he did was for nothing. Callaghan’s true love for Abigail and his seemingly regret for his actions upon discovering she was alive all along shows that he is more human than most Disney villains. I’m not sure if I’d say that I would like (or even love) to see him redeemed, but I’m not closing the door on the possibility, either, based on everything I described about him.

One example of a redeemed (or at least, redeemed enough) Disney villain is Amos Slade in The Fox and the Hound. Now Amos is not truly evil like many other Disney animated villains; he is very gruff, grumpy, bad-tempered, and hunts and kills animals for sport. But at the same time, he has a softer side which is shown with how much he cares for Copper and Chief. It’s only when he blames Tod for Chief almost getting killed that he lets revenge consume him and make him obsessively determined to kill Tod at all costs. And after Tod saves Amos and Copper from the bear, then Copper refuses to let Amos kill Tod, Amos realizes how Tod saved them and what his obsession led to, and so he decides to spare Tod.

Now there is one Disney villain who got a (sort of) redemption arc without really deserving one: Anastasia Tremaine from the 1950 Cinderella in the so-called “sequels”. Part of my hatred of this concept is that those films are very inferior to the original film, both in stories and animation, but it’s largely because I do not at all consider the sequels to be canon. Though Walt Disney Animation Studios and many Disney fans also feel this way because, unlike The Rescuers Down Under, Ralph Breaks the Internet, and Frozen II, the Cinderella sequels (and all those other direct-to-video/DVD sequels) were produced by DisneyToon Studios and not WDAS, so they are not considered to be official sequels, anyway. So because the Cinderella sequels are not official ones, Anastasia’s redemption isn’t canon, either (I go into more details about this topic in this analysis). If you want to look at things canonically, in Cinderella, Anastasia shows absolutely no qualities to prove her being worthy of redemption. Therefore, it just doesn’t seem like the nature of Anastasia in the sequels really fits together with Anastasia of the original film. Did Anastasia get a redemption arc? Canonically speaking, no, but it all really seems to be more based on different fans’ opinions of whether the sequels are true sequels, and thus Anastasia’s redemption being true, too.

#Miscellaneous Disney #Disney #Disney Villains #Disney Villain #villains #villain #Hans #Robert Callaghan #Amos Slade #Anastasia Tremaine #redemption #mylovesnotfragile #submission #my stuff #mine

[kyloskyber-blog]

Return For Love

Request from evanfan96: “My other idea I have is the reader knew Kylo before he turned, like they grew up together and trained with Luke. She reunited with him when she agrees to go with Finn back to StarKiller Base to rescue Rey. She confronts Kylo in the forest and ends up hurt instead of Finn being hurt. Going into TLJ, she wakes up and she finds Kylo by her side. He tells her he came back because he was afraid that he lost her and he wanted to be with her”

—

You didn’t know why you stuck around anymore.

The Resistance had never felt like home for you. It’d always been wherever Ben was.

You’d grown up with him, he’d even sneak you into his hut when he was a Jedi apprentice.

But he had changed.

You sighed, walking out of the underground Resistance base. You felt a hand on your shoulder and spun around.

Leia.

“I know it’s hard for you, (y/n).”

You nodded. “I’m worried that I’ll lose him forever. I have to try and change him.”

Leia shook her head and smiled sadly at you, “it isn’t your job, (y/n). I know he’s gone. I don’t think anything can be done.”

You were about to reach the Falcon when you felt yet another hand on your shoulder.

“Poe?”

He squeezed your shoulder.

“Are you sure you want to do this? It won’t be easy.”

You breathed in deeply and nodded.

“I need Ben,” you breathed out. “I love him.”

Poe nodded. “I know. Just don’t get yourself hurt, okay?”

Poe has always been like an older brother. Maybe that was why he’d never liked your love for Ben, even from the start.

You boarded the Falcon and sat next to Finn. You’d only just met him, but something told you that you could trust him.

“You alright, (y/n)?” He asked.

“Yeah. I’m just nervous..”

The Falcon jumped to lightspeed and suddenly, you were crashing onto Starkiller Base.

You should’ve dressed warm. You didn’t know the planet was all snow.

You watched Kylo Ren kill his father.

You shook your head. No. He couldn’t have.

Suddenly, Finn grabbed your arm and tugged you out of the Oscillator.

You ran with Finn and Rey. The second you heard the crackling of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber, you knew you should have stayed back in the Falcon with Chewbacca.

“We’re not done yet,” he said. “It’s just us four now, Han Solo can’t save you.”

Rey glared at him. “You’re a monster!” She spat.

Then he threw his hand out, and she flew into a tree.

Finn ran to her.

You didn’t run with him. Rather, you moved to Kylo.

“Ben-“

“I am not Ben anymore, (y/n).”

You sighed. “Ren. Come back, please. I need you. I still love you..”

You saw the conflict within him.

“I can’t-“ he started to talk, but suddenly Finn charged at him with the lightsaber and they began to fight.

You stood back, in disbelief.

And then, it seemed as if no time passed as Finn fell to the ground.

You wanted to shout at Kylo Ren to stop, but you couldn’t. You weren’t under any force control. Just too scared to move.

Then he fought Rey. At this point, you were on your knees, crying.

You didn’t know what to do.

Until she was about to strike him down, possibly killing him-

“Stop!” You yelled. Rey turned to you. (Y/n), he’s evil!”

“No!” You then ran. Why could you move now?

You stood between her and Kylo, who was now kneeling in the snow, hands clutching at his side.

He was bleeding to death.

“(Y/n)?” Rey was in disbelief as you turned to help Kylo.

“Baby? Please, keep breathing.”

You ran one of your hands through his hair while the other was over his gloved hand that clutched at his side.

“Just breathe... come with me, please, baby...”

His eyes were glossy, and suddenly, they were wide open.

“Ben?”

You’d been knocked out by Rey.

Kylo was in a Resistance cell now. His lightsaber was taken, and a guard was by the door at all times to ensure he didn’t try escaping.

But he didn’t want to.

He wondered if his mother was on this very planet. In this very base.

He’d been questioned by multiple people, Poe Dameron included.

He didn’t say anything but tell them he would stay with the Resistance, if it meant being with you.

And suddenly, they were being evacuated from the planet. He was brought aboard a ship.

Kylo stood at the entrance of the ship, dumbfounded.

Why were they letting him roam about?

Leia spotted him.

Ben. He was there, standing at the entrance of the ship. Bandages wrapped around his dark clothing.

She walked over to him.

“Ben? Did you truly come back?”

He frowned. “I am Kylo. I do not deserve a redemption.”

Then Leia frowned. She thought she had her sweet son back, but now he seemed to be left with depressive thoughts only.

“Ben-“

“Kylo.”

Leia sighed in defeat. He hadn’t lost his stubbornness.

“Fine, K-Kylo..” she didn’t like saying this name. “You’re... back.”

Kylo suddenly was overcome with emotions as he practically threw himself into his mothers arms.

“Mother-“

“Shh... you’re home now...”

“Where is (y/n)?”

Leia smiled at him. “She’s alive. But she’s been knocked out for quite a bit...”

“Take me to her, please...”

You gasped as you woke up. Where were you?

You turned to see Kylo passed out beside you. He had come home, then?

You kissed his plush lips, after not having done so for years...

after a moment, he woke.

“Ben?”

He yawned and sat up.

“Baby?”

Why was he ignoring you?

“I’m not Ben anymore. I’ve told you.”

“But-“

You were confused.

“I’ve done far too many bad things. I cannot be redeemed, even if I have come home to you. I do not deserve a redemption. I am Kylo Ren, a criminal. Ben Solo was a good, young Jedi...”

“I don’t understand...” you said.

He finally looked at you. “I may have returned to you and the light, but I cannot be forgiven. I will always be Kylo Ren, a murderer...”

You tossed your arms around him.

“I don’t care what your name is, B-Kylo... as long as you’re here is what matters... but why did you come back?”

He sighed as he looked into your eyes, and you stared right back into his sweet honey-brown eyes.

“I realized, when you called me baby.. I needed you. You threw yourself in front of a lightsaber for me. I don’t know what I would do if I had to be separated from you again. And when she knocked you out like that... I couldn’t stay with the First Order, not when I didn’t know if you’d live or not.”

You smiled at him. “Oh, Kylo...” you kissed him. “I don’t know what I’d do with you. Every day I wondered if I’d ever see you again. I love you...”

“I know.”

Not too long later, with Kylo helping the Resistance, the First Order was destroyed. This was months later, and no matter how many times you asked, Kylo told you the same thing. He would always be Kylo Ren, a criminal.

With the First Order gone, the Resistance had for the most part split up, people returning to whatever family or friends they had.

You, Kylo, and Leia had gone to Naboo. People like Poe, Finn, and Rey had gone there too.

The six of you all lived in a large home in Theed. For some reason, they all liked being together in one home. You and Kylo? Not so much, especially when you guys couldn’t get well... privacy...

One day, Kylo asked you to marry him. The wedding was in Lake Country, where you and Kylo would soon live together.

It wasn’t long until during a dinner party, you and Kylo pulled Leia aside. You told her together that you guys were expecting a baby.

Leia was overjoyed, she ran out to the dinning room, yelling how she’d be a grandmother.

Everyone congratulated you and Kylo. Some not being as, well, open as others.

And for the rest of your life, you’d spend it happy, with Kylo Ren and your baby twins. Anakin and Anastasia.

They were beautiful, amazing little children.

This was your life.

And it was amazing.

A/N: Thank you SO much for requesting! Tumblr mobile only allows a certain amount of words, so I hope this isn’t too short. I had a lot of fun with this <3

#kylo ren #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren imagine #star wars #request #kylo ren fanfiction #kylo ren/reader #star wars imagine

[inkdreamt]

Mal’s Official Divergence Post!

As many of you guys know, Mal is a prominent character on this blog.  I’ve finally seen the 3rd movie (went to see Anastasia last night and recorded D3 for later). 

Please keep in mind that, for my canon, D2 takes place 2 years after the events of D1, and now D3 takes place 2 years after the events of D2.

 So, since I’ve seen other people doing this, I am going to tell people where my Mal diverges from the D3 script:

Okay, first of all, Mal would never never never NEVER ever come up with the idea of the barrier being closed for good.  She might begrudgingly agree with it if someone came up with good reasons to do it, but she would never suggest it herself.

Mal apologized to Audrey, Jane, and Fairy Godmother for the events of D1 shortly after the post-coronation party.  It probably took a few days with Audrey, it would not have taken four years.  It would have been awkward, at least two iterations of “I’m really not good at these things”, but it would have been honest.  Mal never wanted to isolate Ben from his friends.

She would have told Evie immediately exactly what happened.  She might put herself to blame for the barrier becoming permanent, but it would be guilt by proxy.  Mal’s sense of guilt is one of her stronger emotions, and she often sees things as her fault when they’re not.

That conversation with Uma was a lot longer.  About EVERYTHING that happened between them.  The assumed attempt on her life when they were children, how horrible Mal had been to Uma as an attempt to prove to her mother that she could be just like her (because that’s what most of that was).  They might still have their issues, but they’re in a much better place then what they had been.

The Ember absolutely works for Mal, she just doesn’t know how to use it.  If she had been trained in it, she might have been able to save Audrey herself.

The Ember had only temporarily drained Mal of her magic.  It returned her magic the moment she got her hands on it and it crossed to the magical side of the barrier.  What was the issue in the movie wasn’t magical, it was psychological.  Mal no longer had confidence in her magic after the Ember had stolen it, and her magic reacted as such.

Mal would have had a lot of hesitation with the idea of marriage.  Not because she didn’t love Ben, because she does, she absolutely does with all her mind.  Marriage is not a good thing on the Isle, and it generally meant the end of a relationship.  She would probably say yes in public because she doesn’t want to make a scene and potentially hurt Ben, but the moment they were away from prying eyes, she would start freaking out until Ben could reassure her that it wasn’t going to be like that.

Things I liked from the movie:

Hades.  Going into the film, I despised the idea of them changing Mal’s father from the random weakling human that Maleficent called her father in the books to Hades, who is literally immortal and the king of the Underworld.  But there are some qualifiers that come with him being her father that I feel like we should address.

Mal is a demigoddess, which means she has powers that go above and beyond being a fairy, half or otherwise.  Her magic would undoubtedly be stronger because of this.

Fire is a very, very easy thing for Mal to manipulate.  While this doesn’t go so far as having her hair light up on fire every time she’s emotional or doing magic, you can bet that she uses magical fire almost subconsciously. 

This explains why her magic is so ingrained with her emotions.  Like in Hercules, Hades’ fire flares up when he gets emotional.  Mal is the same way with what she uses.  Her fairy genes are often taking precedence in her magic, but she has her mother’s temper, and her father’s powers.

This also explains the progressive turn to blue that Mal’s hair does.  After the temporary stealing of most of Mal’s magic, Mal was left with only the parts of her that came from her father.  And her hair started to show it.

There is a lot more power in Mal than Mal even knows.  She knows she’s strong, stronger than perhaps her mother.  But that was without her knowledge of what it means to be Hades’ daughter.

Post D3:

Now that the barrier is open for good, a team of magic users are built to protect Auradon from magical threats.  That being said, it takes a long time to break the general stigma against magic.  The first thing she succeeds in is getting fairy godmother to open up a magic class for those who wants  to learn how to control their powers.

Maleficent wakes from the lizard form three months after the events of D3.  Mal immediately assumes she’s seeking revenge and Mal pulls out the Ember to ensure her mother doesn’t do anything too bad.

This is the moment where Maleficent gets a chance to redeem herself, however.

Mal and Hades work on their relationship.

Ben and Mal have more stuff to work through for their relationship.

Ben and Mal’s wedding, and Mal’s coronation, takes place on Christmas that year.

#malpics #descendants rp #descendants 3 rp #descendants 3 spoilers #tw: spoilers

[lunacanis99]

Mantle of Flames NPCs

Yes I know I said it's be on thursdays and Monday's but I feel like it's important to get some base info out there. Warning this one will be long. And expect another one today or tomorrow explaining the lore of the world and the plot so far.

So here is a list of a good bit of the NPC's in MoF. Or at least most of the important ones.

-Bao Moonclaw: High Elf Emperor of the city their centered in (called Alamoa) and leader of the council. Very overworked and the party constantly almost ending the world does not help.

-Anastasia Moonclaw: Human wife of Bao. A sweet girl who enjoys flowers and is very protective of her daughter.

-Grendel Moonclaw: Tiny half elf child. Like 8-10 (I'm not very good at remembering ages) who loves befriending everyone.

-Inari Belladonna: Human sorceress. Council's Master of Magic. Chaos aunt to the group and also the first council member the group met and befriended. Also a disaster lesbian.

-Kythor: Teifling rouge. Council's master of secrets. Very elegant but not afraid to kick ass. Interacts with the party the least.

-Toxan Bacrath: Black dragonborn barbarian. Council's general. The large friend that gets strong so he can hug all his friends really well. Once threw Canary 20 feet.

-Carric Hilahila: Highelf cleric of Correlon. Council's master of religion. Sweetness incarnate. Currently dating Mairon after helping resurrect her, forming the perfect diabetes couple. Used to be named Carric Vax.

-Warryn: Gnome bard. Council's master of Import/Export. Happy Scottish party boy who loves talking to the party. However, they forgot about him for 27 sessions, until Jet berated them. Now is a favorite council member.

-Raven: Human(?) Shadowmancer. Council's master of public relations. Took over the council position after Zeanna turned traitor. Edgy boy who is actually a living rift to the shadowfell barely held together by the magic of a fiend. Constantly at risk of basically exploding and opening a giant rift.

-Erabus Nerezza: Woodelf monk. Council's master of the mines. Took over the council position after Vistra's death. Used to be an adventurer till her whole party was killed fighting the tarrasque. Now is a Proxy (a person that can come back after death but loses a part of them each time, like Althaea) and trying to help the party.

-Buck: Human bard. Leader of the high guard of Alamoa. Full name is Buckamire Archibald Kingsley. Currently dating Canary and took full responsibility for anything the party does in the eyes of Bao.

-Kyofushin: Aracanalolth wizard/archivist. Kyo for short. Was supposed to be a one off shop keep character but the party instantly adored him so he became a major NPC. Died about a year ago giving his life to save Canary then the party went to hell to rescue him. Basically the mom to the party. Everyone's favorite NPC.

-Mordred La'Fae: Human fighter. Buck's apprentice and head high guard in training. Somehow Neutral Good despite being incredibly Lawful and focused on Justice. Hates Alistair with a burning passion because he knows how evil Alistair actually is. (The DM calls him a Cassandra). One of the DM's favorite NPC's.

-Ressa: Cloud dragon. Yup. The group befriended a cloud dragon. She's very old (described as beyond ancient) and mute and a sweet girl. Basically the grandma of the group.

-Haeldriia: Drow wizard. Was the big enemy of the first arc as she used to be a drider, but the party cured her and now she's a sweet girl who is in love with Inari but to guilt filled to make a move.

-Morgana: Human fighter. A high up member of the high guard. Took over as head when Buck was temporarily kidnapped. Also was Alistair's mistress for a while. That didn't end well.

-Lilith Wardein: Human Paladin. Eldest Daughter of Alistair and Maev. Seemed to be following in her father's footsteps but now, with a budding crush on Mordred, might be dragged towards the light of good.

-Sam Altava: Hybrid Gunslinger. Used to be a skyrate (Sky pirate) but ran away as a child and then was raised by Kyo. Invented guns and then started dating Raven. Really hates his sister but would still die for her. Honorary member of the party.

-Tazd Nightwind/Shepard: Drow elf Rouge/gunslinger/cleric of Paelor. Oh boy has he been through a lot. A teenager member of the cult that was originally tortured by the party for information before he escaped and returned later to fight the party. They failed to kill him and he left the cult to become Sam's apprentice where the cult poisoned him for turning traitor and the party had to save him. Became a sweet boy adopted by Canary who just wants to pet horses but keeps getting dragged into the party's drama. Basically, this boy has been through too much, let him rest.

-Kovu Nightwind: Drow rouge. Older brother to Tazd. Very very edgy and refuses to accept his adoption from Canary but lives on her farm anyways to be with his brother. Would sell any of them out for a corn chip and they know it.

-Maev: Human witch. Insainly powerful witch. Don't mess with her. Or cheat on her. Alistair.

-Zeanna: Gnome hard. Used to be a member of the council but turned traitor to help the cult. Now seems to be working with the big bads of the whole campaign. The party really really hate her to an insane degree despite only meeting her like 3 times. But she got away, so she must die.

-Lynn Altava: Hybrid Fighter. Captain of the skyrate ship the DawnRunner. Sam's little sister. Bit of a chaos bitch but has never actually wronged the party despite threatening to multiple times.

-Neer Altava: Half angel Fighter. Lynn's first mate. Chaos boy who will die to protect his friends and gets himself into trouble a lot. Got captured by rival skyrates once. Once jumped off a cliff showing off only to clip his wing so Jet had to save him. Currently training Jet to be a better half angel.

-Aiden: Head angel of Bane. Father of Neer and has a very complex sympathetic background, asks tough to hide it but just loves his son.

-Shadow: Head angel of the Raven Queen. Mother of Jet. Stoic and quiet and fiercely loyal to the Matron. Try's not to show how much she cares for her son.

-Zephyr: Winter wolf. A winter wolf that was guarding a dungeon and they befriended and brought back to town. Now has a whole pack including his pup, 2 winged wolves, a wolf dragon hybrid, a Druid, a dire wolf, a giant owl, and the cloud dragon. Is a tired dad that doesn't know how he ended up leader of this mishmash pack.

-JewlClaw: Green dragon. A new addition to the story. A beyond ancient green dragoness loyal to Tiamat that killed the cousin of Mairon before making a deal with her so help free her from her mother in exchange for any redeemable favor. (With some minimum restrictions)

Bonus guest characters, aka other players that came in for a few sessions:

-Valefar: Drow warlock. Absolutely ridiculous drunkard and betrayed the party twice to help the cult. Was part of the big bad fight of the first arc.

-Titus: Aquabant monk. Tired skyrate who didn't want to be responsible for this ridiculous party. But they kept dragging him along. Also really wanted to punch a dragon but kept rolling horribly.

-Shadow Dragon: Dragon of growth wizard. A quiet girl with a confusing name. Just there for the chaos but ever one of the rare lines she uttered was absolutely scathing.

Mantle Party, feel free to add any I forgot!

[sprnklersplashes]

Season 7 Characters

I am a good bit of the way through season 7 now, so I thought I’d share my thoughts on the characters. Overall, there’s no character I outwardly dislike (except Gothel but I’m meant to dislike her), but I only really like two characters, Drizella and Robin. As in, these are the only two characters who engage me on an emotional level. Everyone else is just sort of..... there. I am leaving out Rumple, Regina and Zelena because I’m lazy as fuck I have made my opinions known about them already and nothing as really changed. I am also not doing Naveen/Drew or Anastasia because as much as I like them.... they barely qualify for characters.

Anyway, if that didn’t put you of, then let’s-a go!

Drizella Tremaine/Ivy Belfrey- Oh my precious, crazy Drizella, you stole my heart in episode 6 (Wake Up Call) and have kept it. I think the main reason she is so sympathetic is because she has a relatable backstory-I’m sure a good number of people in the audience can relate to the frustration of being the second favourite child and living in the shadow of an older sibling. And Adelaide plays her so amazingly, small upset, dejected looks at her mother’s indifference to her in Hyperion Heights so that you can’t help but be on her side, even when I learn she is evil I still sort of rooted for her to make her mother regret what she did. Even after she drugs Ana, her tearful “I don’t want to die” made my heart ache for her. Wrong decision, completely wrong decision, but I can so, so get where she is coming from with it. I like how her arc centered on family and making amends with her sister. And then her redemption came and sent such a compelling character to hell with “well you ended up not hurting your sister for your own gain so good for you, don’t worry about us,your victims,  just go live your life.” Oh Drizzy, I wish I could have given you the redemption you so richly deserved. I also would have liked less focus on Henry, because their relationship felt sort of random. And more exploration of her relationship with Ella.

Robin Hood-Mills/Margot- I’m so happy with how they used Robin. I find her such an interesting blend of the LWM and the Enchanted Forest, like watching her use the word “jerkwad” to a troll hunting mob in the Enchanted Forest. And I find her to be the most realistic character; her struggle with finding herself and her identity, the contrast between the “popular girl” she was in high school which just gave her a superficial happiness, and then finding her true calling as Robin Hood, doing something worthwhile, was so nice to watch. I cheered when she picked up that bow! And same in Hyperion Heights, Margot’s conflict with her mother is something very realistic, they never communicated enough. I also like her sense of humour a lot. And how she stands up for her beliefs and fights for the little guy-or girl, Alice, in her case-like a real Robin Hood. However, I don’t like how most of her main development took place in flashbacks, an issue I have with most characters. And I do find her present day character to be a bit... two dimensional. But hey, I have more episodes to go, so I could be wrong. I’d like to see more of her as a character, but from what I have seen I feel like she mainly exists as Alice’s love interest.

After this I think my reviews/analysis/whatever we’re calling this post are going to be less in-depth because Drizzy and Robin are the only two I really care for.

Rapunzel Tremaine/Victoria Belfrey- Well damn if season 7 did one thing, it was make a sympathetic villain with Victoria. I did find her a bit “knock off Evil Queen” until her backstory was revealed in 7x09. The whole theme of that episode was Punzy’s love for her family and even as a villain she is still doing everything because she loves Ana. My favourite kind of villains always have a sort of code or justification that makes them think they’re in the right. In a way, she reminds me of s1 Rumple, who kept his love for his son, but was still corrupted and evil with it. A moment for her that sticks out a lot is when Gothel has kidnapped and bound her and yet her concern is still for Ana, the first thing she does when she sees her is ask her if she is okay. That right there is some complex characterisation; she’s evil but with a tiny nugget of goodness left inside her. Now her redemption is where she falls down; she starts to realise that she should have focussed more on Drizella and less on the deceased Ana, which was good, and she saved Drizzy at the cost of her own life, but like I said before, Drizella was one out of many victims who never got any closure, most importantly Ella.

Lucy Mills- I do think Lucy is a lot like her father and that’s why I like her so much; her belief, her drive, and her sass. She isn’t really the most complex character there is, btu she’s just so loveable. She sees the best in everyone, even Tremaine (even if I sideeyed that part because come on bb). I don’t know what else to say about her; I can’t really say I love her development because imo, there is not much development to love, but who doesn’t love a funny, heart of gold munchkin running around believing in people all the time?

Tiana/Sabine-Well she’s... a good person. I like her development in becoming “her own knight in shining armour”. But like..... That’s sort of all their is to her. I do like her, she’s cute, her relationship with Naveen is adorable. She’ confident and strong but.... there isn’t a whole load of depth to her. Or maybe there is and I just forgot. I would say “I can’t believe ouat messed up the Princess and the Frog” but... it’s OUAT. She seems to fulfil the role of “supportive best friend” more than she does her own character arc.

Ella Mills/Jacinda-Okay for one thing-Dania does not deserve the hate she gets. She is a fine actress. Leave her alone demons. That said, she’s kind of like Tiana for me. Yeah she’s a good person but there’s not much depth to her. I feel like her lack of a backstory is bad for her because it makes it hard to sympathise with her. Sure we know she had a hard life but we don’t see it. I like her more in HH funnily enough, despite overall preferring the EF flashbacks. Watching her fight for Lucy is pretty cool to watch. The narrative fucks her over a lot, especially when t comes to Tremaine and how she did not once factor into her redemption arc despite being hurt severely by her.

Wish Hook/Detective Rogers- Sigh. Like Ella and Tiana, he’s a good person who deserves a happy ending, but that’s really all there is. He gets a little bit of complexity in 7x13 and 7x16 (I think), which is nice. They did skip over his redemption arc, which works for story purposes, but part of what I loved about Killian was his redemption arc. My favourite moments of his were him showing how much he had changed so WHook doesn’t fit that for me. I sort of see him as fundamentally the original character but less-less flawed, less self loathing, less redemption arc (that’s not grammatically correct but let’s move on). They also seem to have taken away the cheeky and sarcastic humour, which may make him more appealing to some people but I miss it. Objectively he’s pretty unproblematic, which I think in a way makes him boring, but undeserving of all the hate the CS fandom throws his way. He also gets manipulated and used a lot, which does make me feel sympathy for him. His scenes with Alice, young Alice in particular, are cute. And I do like that he stopped drinking. He’s a good man who deserves happiness probably more than anyone else, but kind of a watered down version of OG Killian. Don’t get me wrong, I tried really hard to love him but... I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Who knows, maybe at the end of the day, I did jsut see Killian as a prop for Emma, which is why I feel little attachment to a version that isn’t with her.

Henry Mills Swan- Henry is one of my favourite original show characters, so what drew me to this season was a grown up Henry. I am glad that despite being an adult, we still have that cute nerdy wide eyed dreamer of a kid. He does some things and I just think “that is so freaking Henry” like his fist pumping and Star Wars references and using his lunchbox as a weapon. And a lot of his child personality is still there, still an optimist who believes in people, but I feel like he’s matured a bit now. At the same time, he wants to be like the kind of heroes he read about and grew up with. He wants to give Ella a special ring like his grandparents had. I’ll admit there re bits where I don’t feel that he is Henry, but I think that’s because there is such a big jump between Gilmore!Henry and West!Henry.

Alice Jones/Tilly- I went in expecting Tilly to become my favourite, which is weird now because I am fairly neutral on her. I find it interesting the way she sometimes acts like an overgrown child because I think it is a way of showing how emotionally stunted she is, which is pretty neat. She is definitely very cute and makes an eccentric, bouncy kind of Alice, which is what I do think of when I think “Alice In Wonderland” (although my Alice knowledge is limited to the animated film and the Tim Burton one so I may not be very knowledgeable in that respect). I like her dynamic with Robin a lot. She isn’t really that well developed but she is fun to watch. I also wonder sometimes if her eccentricity and “strangeness” for a lack of better word is just her hiding how upset she is. I don’t really have anything else to say about her.

Gothel-To be honest, Gothel seems fairly one dimensional. There is very little to her. She wants to kill everyone because people killed her family. I feel like the writers have kept trying to make villains “bigger and badder” since s5 and then Gothel was just overkill. She has pretty much 0 redeeming qualities, which is cool, she’s the bad guy, but I don’t know, I think it just comes off as pretty shallow. Maybe a “she was always evil” story a la Cruella de Vil would have worked better? I will give it to them that she is very very creepy sometimes. 

Dr Facilier/Samdi-I love how on the one hand, he is so, so like his animated counterpart but with enough uniqueness to stand apart. Daniel plays him so amazingly, his movements are so fluid, he’s charming but there’s a danger to him. He is a slimy little bastard (kinda like a... frog. See what I did there?). He intrigues me but I don’t see much to him. But he does remind me of s1 Rumple with his deals and general tomfoolery. I’ll come back to this section ocne I have watched more of s7, but for now my general perception is that he is fun to watch but I don’t see much below the surface.

#ouat s7 #drizella tremaine #robin mills #rapunzel tremaine #victoria belfrey #lucy mills #tiana ouat #ella mills #wish hook #henry mills #gothel #dr facilier #lotta shit going on here #long post for ts #if you're on mobile

[lavanderstarcatcher]

At the Beginning || SeungChuChu Childhood AU || Part VI

A guide how to be lazy, the author? Me. Sorry, this part refelcts a few of my opinions on books and movies (and I hopefully don’t offend anyone (to be sure, check warnings).

Warnings: there is cursing, there is mention of 16-year-olds watching porn (only mention, there is no context, at all, surrounding porn), there are very vague spoilers for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince,  Mark of Athena and House of Hades but won’t spoil the book for ya if you want to read it.

Life is a road, now and forever, wonderful journey

I'll be there when the world stops turning

- Anastasia - At the beginning

 They had an important test upcoming Monday. Seung-gil had studied, and biology was one of his best subjects. Phichit, however, hadn’t studied yet and his biology grade was cry-worthy. So, Seung-gil was supposed to tutor Phichit and save his sorry ass for flopping the upcoming test. However, Phichit had different priorities.

 The library was pretty much empty. The few people who were there were studying, the rest had opted to go home. After all, it was well past four on a Friday. Everyone had something better to do — Seung-gil included. His newly released copy of ‘Fearless’, which was the second book in the series, was lying on his nightstand, ready to be read. That thing was actually the reason Seung-gil had bothered to study in advance, now he had the entire weekend to read the book. But he couldn’t let Phichit fluke his test, it wouldn’t sit right with him. Prioritising his best friend over a book used to feel wrong — he wouldn’t have done it years ago, but nowadays. No, he couldn’t, taking into account how much Phichit meant to him.

 “I don’t like him,” Phichit said as he peered over his study book.

 Not bothering to hide his gaze like Phichit, Seung-gil watched the only other duo in the library. They were sitting pretty close to each other. A bit too close his mind supplied, but Seung-gil ignored it. He wasn’t Phichit — he could let go.

 “Leo is a good guy,” Seung-gil said, pushing Phichit’s head down so he was eyeing his notes instead of the other students. “And he’s Guang Hong’s tutor. If you were better in Spanish, you could have done it. But your Spanish is cry-worthy.”

 Phichit let out a scandalised gasp. “You think my Spanish is bad — have you ever heard your own?”

 “I have, and it’s terrible, but I no longer have Spanish classes. However, we have a biology test coming up, and someone hasn’t studied yet.”

 Thankfully, Phichit looked guilty.

 “Fine — still, if he dares to break Guang Hong’s heart—”

 Seung-gil swatted the back of Phichit’s head. “He’s fourteen, leave him be.”

 “Really? You aren’t rooting for him to get a boyfriend?”

 “No, not really,” Seung-gil lied.

 It was a bit of a lie. Seung-gil wasn’t rooting for Guang Hong to get a boyfriend per se, but he had approved of Leo. The extensive Facebook stalking had helped, a lot. Not that Phichit knew that, and Seung-gil had strategically erased all evidence (aside from his notes on Leo — also known as Leo de la Iglesia — who he had stored in a folder called ‘porn’. There was no porn in that folder, but nobody would look at a sixteen-year-old weirdly if they had a porn folder. He knew Phichit had one). So, yeah, he cared about his friend’s happiness, but he wasn’t going to meddle with it like Phichit was planning on doing.

 “So, you’re telling me that you don’t know anything about Leo, at all? I mean,” Phichit grinned innocently. “I know that he is a second-year student — but he looks a bit old. Our age at least. So do you think he’s held back a few years?”

Seung-gil had little redeeming qualities and a tonne of issues — and one of those issues was that he was a know it all. He was willing to fight anyone to get thing his way, especially if his way is correct. Another issue is that his brain-to-mouth filter, at least around Phichit, was shit.

 “He’s fifteen — second year. Not held back a single year. He is an average student, he mainly has female friends and is openly bisexual, and he isn’t too old for Guang Hong for gods’ sake — please focus on your homework. We have a test next Monday, and I want to finish my book.”

 And he had just run his mouth, and Phichit was going to have a field day. Because he basically admitted that he had Facebook stalked Leo — which showed he cared.

 “Knew you cared,” Phichit said gleefully. “Actually knew it beforehand, but I like to rile you up. You know, I was curious what kind of porn you watched — turns out you hide all your dirty secrets in your porn folder aside from actual porn.”

 Shit. “How did you know my password?” Seung-gil asked, feeling fear coursing through his veins. It was Phichit’s birthday — which friend has their best friend’s birthday as their password? None. But the count of people who had their crush’ birthday or name as their password — oh dear. He was screwed.

 Phichit’s grin was a bit forced. “I didn’t, you forgot to sign off.”

 Thank gods.

 “Yes, fine, I care. Now, study.”

 It didn’t work — but hey, Phichit was willing to do anything to avoid having to study, so Seung-gil shouldn’t have been surprised.

 “I’m studying,” Phichit said, staring at him with a big grin on his face. “I’m studying you, or more like how you are still single. The older girls — the one who actually are looking for a stable relationship — like sensitive guys. The ones that won’t make fun of girls their feelings, or who don’t judge them for dying over the Hunger Games movies and the hotshot actors.”

 Liam Hemsworth was pretty handsome, his mind kindly supplied. On the other hand, Thor.

 “I don’t care that much about the movies — the books are better,” Seung-gil said, ignoring the urge to mention that yes, there were some hotshot actors. He hated puberty, and Phichit’s voice narrating his thoughts. Gay thoughts. He really should consider coming out because this was getting annoying. On the other hand, he didn’t want to lose Phichit. The closet was a pretty safe place.

 Phichit rolled his eyes dramatically. “Not all book-based movies are bad. The Harry Potter movies are pretty great.”

 “The Harry Potter movies are okay — but you were there, you’ve seen the animosity that was the Percy Jackson movie — I can’t believe they’re making another one.”

 Softness and comfort smoothed out Phichit’s teasing expression. “I know — but you’re biased. I only have seen you throw a book twice — which both were a Percy Jackson and Harry Potter book might I remind you — and I lost count of how many books you’ve read.”

 “Well,” Seung-gil crossed his arms and glaring at Phichit. “Some books are meant to be thrown with. The Half-Blood Prince still has scarred me for life and—”

 Phichit nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that one was bad, but it was nothing compared The Mark of Athena. Your bloodcurdling scream when you threw the books across the room is still etched in mind. I thought the main character died, at best.”

 “They might as well have died,” Seung-gil said, feeling himself tear up a little. He hated that book — it taunted him, and he seriously wondered how he had resisted the urge to set it on fire. “I hated that ending.”

 “Hey, at least be happy that nothing happened to him. I know you’re attached to him.”

 Wiping away the dampness before they could start to form tears, Seung-gil smiled thinly. “Don’t jinx it — there are still two books to go.”

 A loud cough burst their happy little bubble, causing Phichit to yelp, nearly toppling off his chair, and Seung-gil instinctively checks the clock. It was well past five — his parents would kill him if he missed dinner.

 “Guang Hong,” Phichit wheezed, voice high-pitched and filled with guilt. “You gave me a near heart attack.”

 A fourteen-year-old shouldn’t look this done with his life. But Guang Hong did look like that, tired, a little frustrated and annoyed — if frustration and annoyance were even two different things.

 “Phichit,” Guang Hong mimicked. “I’m the mean one? You are distracting Seung-gil, who is willingly tutoring you. You know how he gets when you talk about his books."

 Phichit shrugged innocently under Guang Hong’s accusing gaze. It shouldn’t make sense — as Guang Hong clearly wasn’t blaming him — but Seung-gil felt himself grow flustered, a healthy dose of shame washed over him. He was so predictable, one word about his precious books and he was gone.

 “Yeah, well, you were more distracting,” Phichit argued. “So, you and Leo?”

 “Oh seriously,” Guang Hong sounded annoyed, looked annoyed, and he was also flustered from head to toe. Poor guy. “Leave me and my love life alone till you get your head out of your behind and fix your own.”

 Seung-gil hated the meaningful look he got from Guang Hong — because he somehow knew. Like, Seung-gil had never mentioned he is romantically interested in Phichit. On the other hand, after knowing each other for almost ten years, being joined at the hip and Seung-gil being very, very gay, this conclusion wasn’t too farfetched. (It wasn’t hard to figure out, considering the fact he never really liked women, at all. He just hadn’t come out of the closet yet).

 “My love life is perfectly fine,” Phichit grumbled. “I have a hot date with biology and maybe this guy,” he gestured to Seung-gil. “If he’s still willing to tutor me.”

 Rubbing his eyes, Seung-gil let out a deep sigh. “More like torture you, but fine. Just don’t whine when I call you out of bed at 2:00 in the middle of the night after finishing a book.”

 Phichit beamed. “Deal.”

 ~*~

 “We have a test tomorrow,” Phichit used as his greeting.

 He loved Seung-gil, he really did, but it was well past midnight, he had been sleeping just fine, and tomorrow they had a test early. This wasn’t the time for a phone call.

 “Technically today,” Seung-gil answered, voice filled with emotions that had nothing to do with the upcoming test. He sounded like he just—

 “Are you okay?” Phichit asked, flicking a light and sitting upright in bed. “It sounds like you have been crying.”

 Seung-gil sniffed, followed by a muted noise that most likely was him blowing his nose. “Regretfully started the book today,” Seung-gil explained.

 Oh. Okay yes, that might explain a lot.

 “Did they die?” Phichit asked.

 “No,” it was odd to hear Seung-gil talk with a tight, emotion-filled voice. “It’s something else — but that doesn’t matter. I have to tell you something.”

 Phichit hummed as a go-ahead. It wouldn’t be the first time Seung-gil had stopped mid-book and ranted to Phichit about whatever was bothering.

 “I’m gay.”

 Phichit seriously wondered where he learnt that many curse words, but that didn’t matter because right now he was mentally cursing up a storm. Because he didn’t see that coming — which made him a horrible friend. An awful friend. Because Seung-gil was his best friend and he never had realised it, though it all made sense.

 “I’m sorry,” Seung-gil said, voice shattered into many delicate pieces. “This must be awkward for you, but I decided that you deserved to know, you’re my best friend and—”

 “I should be sorry,” Phichit blurted out, effectively cutting Seung-gil off. “You’re my best friend, I should have noticed, but I didn’t. And the sad part is that everything makes sense — the fact you never liked girls to begin with,” taking a deep breath, he forced a few tears back. “I shouldn’t even be allowed to call myself your best friend.”

 Seung-gil sniffed, which was followed by a chuckle. That Phichit was surprised was an understatement — because he heard Seung-gil laugh and cry within ten minutes and it was like an early Christmas miracle though they didn’t really celebrate Christmas.

 “You don’t mind?” Seung-gil asked. “Me, you know, liking men?”

 Phichit snorted. It was such a stupid question. Ten years of friendship weren’t going to be ruined by the fact that Seung-gil came out as gay. Heck, Phichit was actually happy Seung-gil confessed. Because suddenly the puzzle that was Seung-gil made a lot more sense. The interest in men, the support he offered Guang Hong after coming out, his crush on several fictional characters, always male characters. Phichit honestly wondered how he could have been so blind.

 “Mind? Seriously, I’m actually happy that you trust me enough to tell me — what prompted you, to know, confess?”

 “I’m glad,” a brief pause. “It’s well past two — do you really want me to keep you awake for much longer? It will be a long explanation.”

 Sleep sounded tempting, though, on the other hand, it was Seung-gil they were talking about. Seung-gil had sacrificed so many things for Phichit’s sake, so he supposed that he could return that. “Sure, tell me.”

#seungchuchu #Seung-gil Lee #phichit chulanont #guang hong ji #leoji #Yuri on ice #yoi #fanfiction #fanfic #childhood #childhood friends au #atthebeginning

[tomeandflickcorner]

OUAT Episode Analysis- The Garden of Forking Paths

So now we have the third episode of the new season.  And I hate to admit it, but I’m having trouble figuring out the meaning of the episode title.  I know it’s a reference to a poem, and I get the garden part was probably a reference to that community garden that Lucy loves so much, but what was the Forking Paths bit referring to?  The tunnels beneath the garden?  When I hear the phrase ‘forking paths,’ it makes me think of a person making a decision that leads to parallel lives.  Like the Doctor Who episode ‘Turn Left,’ which showed how things would have turned out if Donna had decided to take a job her mother had selected for her instead of going to work for H.C. Clemmings.  By not going to work for H.C. Clemmings, Donna never met the Doctor, and that ultimately led to a post-apocalyptic world.  But I didn’t see anything like that in this episode.  It was more of an episode of deciding if the end really did justify the means.

The episode starts off with showing what happened with Parallel Cinder when she showed up at the rendezvous point where she was supposed to meet Henry.  Before Henry could show up, Parallel Cinder discovers she’d been followed by some of the royal guard, who believe that she murdered the prince.  Parallel Cinder is saved by Tiana, who had also followed her from the ball.  Tiana explains that she’s part of a secret resistance movement and that she attended the ball to spy on the prince.  But with the prince dead, the resistance is now more determined than ever to bring Parallel Evil Stepmother down.  Tiana invites Parallel Cinder to accompany her back to their camp, and she ultimately agrees.  But not before leaving behind one of her glass slippers as a sign for Henry, to show him that she had been there.

In the morning, Tiana proceeds to show Parallel Cinder around the Freedom Fighter Camp, and introducing her to the other Freedom Fighters.  They’re momentarily interrupted when Henry, Regina and Wish Killian appear on the scene.  They managed to locate them after Regina finally got her locator spell to work. The trio decide to join forces with Tiana’s Resistance, so she fills them all in on how their Intel discovered Parallel Evil Stepmother has been smuggling all manner of magical artifacts into her home.  But the most mysterious object was a strange coffin.  Tiana asks Parallel Cinder if she’d ever seen this coffin, since she’d lived there, but Parallel Cinder says she doesn’t.  However, you don’t need to have Emma’s superpower to tell that Parallel Cinder was hiding something.

Sure enough, Parallel Cinder sneaks off that night and breaks into Parallel Evil Stepmother’s mansion, quickly discovering the location of the magic coffin.  But Parallel Evil Stepmother appears, revealing that she knew full well that Parallel Cinder would show up.  It comes out that the coffin contains Anastasia, the other stepsister. We’re told that something happened to Anastasia when she was only 14.  We currently don’t know what, but Parallel Cinder feels that she’s directly responsible for her stepsister’s current state.  All I know is that I’m going to be one unhappy camper if this is going to turn out to be a rehash of how Snow blamed herself for what happened to Daniel.  Because Snow didn’t deserve to be held responsible for that.  Cora was the one who manipulated and took advantage of a little girl’s naivety and outlook on the importance of having a mother.  Snow was just as much of a victim as Regina and Daniel was.  So I’m REALLY hoping that Parallel Cinder isn’t blaming herself for Anastasia’s current state because of a similar reason.

Anyway, Parallel Evil Stepmother states that she has a way to revive Anastasia.  All it would require was the Heart of the Truest Believer.  In other words, she plans to sacrifice Henry.  And it was while writing this that I noticed the possibly unintentional callback to the Neverland arc.  Parallel Evil Stepmother proceeds to try and blackmail Parallel Cinder to do her dirty work for her by placing a spell on her gloves that would, I guess, enable her to remove Henry’s heart.  She tells Parallel Cinder that if she doesn’t do as she’s told, then Parallel Evil Stepmother will make sure everyone else suffers.

Parallel Cinder returns to the Freedom Fighter Camp, visibly conflicted over what she has to do.  Though, would she even have been able to remove Henry’s heart?  I seem to remember that, at the end of the Neverland arc, Regina had placed a protective spell around his heart, which would ensure that no one could ever take his heart again.  I suppose it’s possible, however, that the writers have forgotten about that plot point. After all, it’s been almost four years since that episode first aired.  In the end, however, it doesn’t really matter, as Parallel Cinder decides she can’t harm Henry.  They may have only just met, but Parallel Cinder already cares for him.  Instead, she basically plans to pull a Huntsman by taking the heart of a carpenter Freedom Fighter and making Parallel Evil Stepmother think it’s Henry’s. Before she can go through with her bait-and-switch, Regina suddenly appears, announcing she’d noticed that Parallel Cinder had snuck out of the camp.  Regina basically gives Parallel Cinder this whole speech about how she’d come to learn about how the end doesn’t justify the means, and ends up talking Parallel Cinder out of giving into Parallel Evil Stepmother’s demands.  When morning comes, Regina gives Parallel Cinder another lecture about the importance of forgiving herself for whatever happened with Anastasia.  I can’t quite remember exactly what was said, unfortunately.  It’s times like this that I wish that foreverdeaming.org would post transcripts for this show again.  They haven’t posted one since the end of the Patchwork arc.  But either way, I guess this means that Regina is going to be filling Snow White’s role in this new adventure.  I don’t fault people for taking issue with this.  While I haven’t found a reason to dislike Regina in this season so far, it would have been nice to have actually SEEN her come to the realizations she apparently had instead of just being told that she has.  She always was notorious for seemingly learning her lesson but then backsliding whenever something didn’t go her way.  In the end, Parallel Cinder decides to stick around instead of imposing exile on herself, and she officially joins Tiana’s Freedom Fighters alongside Henry, Regina and Wisk Killian.

In the present-day storyline, we see the first official meeting of Henry, Roni/Regina and Rogers/Wish Killian’s resistance movement.  They’ve determined that Victoria/Parallel Evil Stepmother has a new scheme involving buying building permits.  It’s revealed that Victoria plans to pave over the Community Gardens, that flower field that Lucy loves, and put up expensive condos.  Rogers, while doing surveillance for the resistance movement, witnesses Victoria slipping a cash-filled envelope to the head of the construction company. Obviously, this means that Victoria is paying off the construction company or something to that effect.  Rogers later corners the businessman in a restaurant and arrests him for accepting bribes.  But he later witnesses Weaver/Rumpelstiltskin releasing the businessman from jail. This angers Rogers, as Weaver has just let a criminal go free.  But Weaver counters this, saying that he released the crooked businessman because of….reasons.  Something to do with how the businessman had too strong of a connection to Victoria and that essentially gave him a ‘get out of jail’ card.  Or maybe because Roger’s investigation of the businessman hadn’t been given an official stamp of approval.  It was some sort of bureaucratic red tape crap.  Either way, Rogers is visibly unhappy about how things turned out.

But the main focus of the episode is on Lucy and the Community Garden.  Jacinda, knowing how much the gardens mean to her daughter, follows some advice from Roni/Regina and puts together a petition, believing that if she gets enough people to sign it, then it can overrule Victoria’s official decree to pave over the Community Garden.  The response to the petition proves to be overwhelming, with people practically lining up to sign Jacinda’s position.  But Victoria, proving she’s the worst, approaches Jacinda and bribes her into destroying the petition.  She tells Jacinda that if she gives up on her crusade, then she and Lucy would be allowed to live together in one of the condos.  The temptation of being allowed to be with her daughter again proves to be too much for Jacinda, who ends up burning the petition.  Unfortunately, Lucy witnesses this and is devastated, announcing that if sacrificing the Community Garden is the price of them being together, then she’d rather remain separated.

Jacinda then spends a few minutes feeling miserable about how things turned out.  But then Roni/Regina once again gives her a pep-talk, inspiring her to simply put together a second petition.  With this act, Jacinda manages to redeem herself in Lucy’s eyes, and the Community Garden is saved.

Meanwhile, we get a related subplot with Henry.  He spends the majority of this episode with Lucy, who is speculating that Victoria’s determination to pave over the Community Garden is because something is hidden beneath the garden, and that Victoria doesn’t want it to be found.  In other words, we’re getting a huge callback to the S1 episode when Young Henry traveled down into the mines to find the proof that the curse over Storybrooke was real.  They even have Lucy point out the parallel, which was great.  All I know is that Emma’s going to have a field day when Henry tells her about this adventure.  Henry finally has an idea of what he put her through during that ordeal.

Thankfully, we don’t quite get to the nail-biting point that we got with the S1 episode.  Henry and Lucy don’t get trapped in the tunnels beneath the Community Garden the way Young Henry and Archie did.  But while Young Henry hadn’t been able to locate Snow’s glass coffin, Lucy is able to find something- a shard of glass.  Immediately, she speculates that this is a shard of the Glass Slipper, and that showing it to her mother will help her remember who she is.  But after Jacinda is able to save the Community Garden with the second petition, Lucy decides that her mother doesn’t need the reminder of who she really is anymore.  Instead, she chooses to let Henry hold onto the Glass Slipper Shard, telling him that it will hopefully help him remember that they’re his missing family.  And that the story states it’s the Prince who has to use the Glass Slipper to find Cinderella.  Unfortunately, after they part ways, Henry stumbles across a cemetery that contains tombstones for Lauren and Abigail Mills.  So Henry’s probably thinking that these are the graves of his wife and daughter.  Looks like its one step forward and two steps back for Henry at the moment.  Though I wonder why this curse chose the names Abigail and Lauren.  Is there a significance to those names?

In the final moments, we see Victoria bringing Anastasia’s coffin down to this secret underground chamber. It’s revealed, to no one’s shock, that Victoria DOES remember that she’s Parallel Evil Stepmother.  We also see she has some woman I’m guessing is a witch chained up in this underground chamber.  Is this the same witch who took Wish Killian’s daughter?  That remains to be seen.  But Victoria and The Witch have some sort of power-play going on.  Even though Victoria is confident that she has The Witch as her prisoner, the Witch insists that she’s the one with the upper hand. Either way, we learn Victoria is still planning to resurrect Anastasia.  But she now plans to use Lucy’s heart in the ritual instead of Henry’s.

So, we now have a motive for the main bad guy.  And a clear deadline.  Because Victoria is now clearly planning to sacrifice Lucy, which gives us some actual stakes.  Congrats show.  You’ve done your job at making Victoria a formable enemy we want to see defeated.  And I really want to see Henry reunite with his real wife and daughter.  But it looks like next episode will be a Rumpelstiltskin centric episode.  Hopefully, that will be okay.  I tend to be underwhelmed by those episodes.  But who knows?  Maybe this time, they’ll impress me.

(Click here to read more Episode Analyses)

#ouat episode analysis #ouat 7x03 #henry mills #parallel!ciinderella #jacinda #lucy mills #wish world! killian #detective rogers #regina mills #roni #tiana #victoria belfrey #parallel!evil stepmother #detective weaver #rumpelstitskin

[justinsearchofparadise]

Anastasia’s Letter

                                            Preface

      In the hopes that I really am, for the most part, a decent writer i’ll continue the ‘girl’ series. Maybe this will be one of my best series or writing collections. Maybe not. If you are at least able to get one thing out of my series and nothing more then let it be this; take the chance. This piece will be a little different. That’s a lie. All of the pieces in this series will contain something new. Whether it be the form of writing, tone, or impact on my life. Nevertheless, if you believe that you are one of these people odd’s are you might be right. Then again Staten Island isn’t that small so don’t be offended if there is no story on you yet. If we meet and it moves me in some way, you’ll get one.

      Huh, now where do I start with you Anastasia? We have not had so many encounters but for the encounters that we did have you sure did steal my focus. Albeit that maybe isn’t such a hard thing to do since by nature i’m a curious person. There was something about you though. Something that I saw in myself. I just knew in the moment I saw you that you had such a spark in you. A spark that comes from happiness in its most basic form.

                                                                  Part 1

       It couldn’t have been more than 2 weeks before graduation when we met. Our mothers knew each other from work and had formed a friendship so in due part I must thank them. My mother gets call on a Saturday evening. It’s from your mother. I over hear parts of the conversation because my mom had decided the best time to talk was during lunch with the kids. They talk for what could not have been more than 10 minutes. I know that because in the time it took my mom to finish the conversation I had already finished most of my lunch. I hear my mother say bye to yours over the phone. “Guess what” my mother tells me. “What’s up, who was that?” I replied. “My friend from work just invited us to a birthday party that she’s throwing for her son” mother says. “A birthday party? What do you mean by us?” I questioned. “The family! You, your sister and the baby.” she replied. “Oh ah. I have to check my schedule. You know since graduation is right around the corner I don’t want to miss out on anything important.” I told her in liar’s complete sincerity. Let me explain. Ever since I could remember I did not like going to parties. Parties just seemed like a waste of time to me. That and I wasn’t exactly the most social butterfly of the bunch. So with those things in mind I didn’t really have an interest in going to this birthday party. It would just be another way for me to see how bad I am at getting to know people. “Well, if you find out that you don’t have any plans that day I would really feel good if you went with me that way I won’t have to be alone if your sister cancels at the last minute” my mother replied.

                                       ��                             Part 2

             As the week went by I did my usual thing. Wake up late for school. Contemplate missing first period because i’m passing it with a solid grade. Take the lovely brisk morning walk or get dropped off by my mom even though I lived about 15 minutes away from the school so walking wasn’t really a problem but hey don’t judge me. Laziness is a very serious condition! School was really becoming greater and greater as each fleeting moment of it passed. It really is a shame that I didn’t appreciate all of those fleeting moments. Having forgot completely about the party I made plans with myself. I would sleep in the entire weekend and binge Netflix. Friday night comes around and as my mother gets ready to go to sleep she tells me “So you’re gonna come with me tomorrow to the birthday party right?”. “Oh, um, yes?” I replied. “Good, we have to be there by 12 so get up around 10:30 to start getting ready” she said. “Crap. I just set myself up what the hell am I doing. Ahhh” I thought to myself. As I cancelled my spectacular plans with my good ol friend pillow and Netflix, I know had to deal with the situation at hand. As I began drifting off into a state of sleep, thoughts began to pop up in my mind. Images of what the party would be like. A park full of people celebrating. Loud music. Good food. An awkward me. Then sleep hit me.

                                                                  Part 3

      It’s the day of the party and i’m still contemplating if I should just blow it off. “What the hell am I gonna even do there? I don’t even know the kid.” I told myself. As everyone in the house began getting ready, I was dragged into the mosh pit of that chaos and eventually ended up willingly going. That morning my sister and I had argued about a very touchy subject. I won’t tell that story now, i’ll save it for her story. Since the party was being held in the Bronx I volunteered to be the navigator for the trip. Never again.

                                                                 Part 4

      The trip to the party was a long one. I was half asleep and trying to not get us lost which made it even more of a struggle. When we eventually got to the location we spent about half an hour trying to find parking and eventually having one of the party guests come out to find us since we were on the wrong side of the park. What a great first impression! Following the party guest in his car we eventually ended up on the right side of the park. When we found parking it started raining. It’s like every force of life just did not want that day to end up being good. I guess the universe can work in mysterious ways. As my family and I walked over to the party we were being drenched in rain which made the situation even more weird. There were three parties being thrown in that park that day. One of those parties was a father's day get together and the only reason I know that is because they had signs all over saying how great it was to be a father and others that said having a great time with other dads. You know, the cheesy dad stuff. The second party was just getting set up but it seemed like a birthday party too. Maybe the balloons were for something else and I was just oblivious to the writing on them. The third party being thrown in that park was what my family came for; the birthday party of Anastasia's brother.

                                                             Part 5

      Walking up to the tent that their family had set up was a bit awkward. The floor was muddy since we were in the grass, our clothes was drenched because of the rain, and they had no idea who the hell we were. With the exception of my mother of course. I followed my mother and sister into the tent since I didn’t want to be the first person everyone stares at. Walking into the tent I looked around to see who was there and if I could maybe try talking too and that’s when it happened. A young lady who was sitting with her face towards the park suddenly turned around and had a giant smile on her face. That was the first time in awhile that a girl took my breath away. She had one of the greatest smiles that I had ever seen. She was a brunette. She was Spanish. She was beautiful! She got out of her seat and began introducing herself to everyone of my family members. “Hi nice to meet you. I’m Anastasia and you are” she told me. “Hi! Uh my name is um” I muttered. “I’m sorry, what was that?” she replied. “My name is Rick” I responded. “Nice to meet you Rick, you and your family can help yourselves to the food” she said. “Same here and thank you!” I replied. “What a good first impression Rick! You can’t even act normal around a girl like her, you’re hopeless!” I thought to myself. Having such a awkward first encounter with Anastasia I decided to not even run the idea of getting to know her. She probably thought I was weird or had some sort of social problem. For the next couple of hours my family and I spent the time sitting and conversing with each other and playing with my nephew. Anastasia’s family begins playing volleyball and ask us if we want to join in. “Yeah let me just take off my jacket” I told them. “Great! Now I have a chance to redeem myself and show them my awesome volleyball skills!” I thought to myself. I spent the next fifteen minutes trying to correctly serve the ball and failing each time. Then my mighty savior, my nephew, came running to my side and made me leave the game to go play with him. In hindsight, i’m not really sure why I agreed to play volleyball. I was horrible at it in high school and never took the time to actually learn how to serve. What made me think that I could show off my non existent skills? Oh yeah, I was trying to impress a girl. The party continued for a couple of more hours in which I enjoyed playing with my nephew and conversing with my family. One thing I forgot to mention. Throughout my time at the party I would catch Anastasia glancing at me. I didn’t pay too much attention to those glances because she had a man, who turned out to be someone attempting to get out of the friend zone, by her side the entire time! So being the gentleman I was, I tired my best to not look at her. Well at least tried not too. Then again those looks that we shared carried some weight. It was finally time to leave the party. My family and I shared our goodbyes and appreciation for the invite to the birthday party. I told Anastasia goodbye for the first and last time. Now you might be saying, “Did you really write an entire story around a girl that you met once!” and the answer to that would be yes. The story actually starts after we met, it isn't a long run but it is worth talking about because it made me realize that I did have boundaries regarding girls.

                                                             Part 6

      When we left the party I had already accumulated my list of questions for my mother regarding Anastasia. I began with the most obvious question “Who was that girl!”. “That's my friends daughter” my mother said. “She’s beautiful!” I replied. “I’m not sure you should be looking in that direction” she replied. “She has had a rough couple of years and has just recently gotten over a bad relationship” my mother added. “Wow, well I mean we could just be friends and not look into anything else” I told my mother. “She would really appreciate that. She needs friends in times like the one she is going through” mother said. So with all the intentions I had of maybe seeing something through with Anastasia I knew it couldn’t be anything more than a friendship.

                                                              Part 7

      A week after the party my mother calls me over to her room and tells me something that shocks me. “So my friend just called me and said that her daughter wants to come to your graduation” she said. “What the hell” I blurted out. I had just met this girl and her family and she wanted to join in on a family day! It caught me off guard but at the same time I was feeling extremely excited to see her again. It was going to be graduation so I was forced to look nice regardless but with this new information I was going to try extra hard to impress this girl because I knew that she would look beautiful so I had to match that! I spent the week leading up to graduation trying my best to think of the best conversation topics and anything that could make her interested in me. To my behest, life would throw me another curve ball. The day before graduation my mother gets a call from her coworker. The call lasts for what couldn’t have been more than 15 minutes. “My friend’s daughter got into a car accident, she’s not going to make it to your graduation tomorrow” mother said. Well of course something like that would happen! I have the best intentions for her and life screws it up! Graduation day comes and passes. At the end of the night my mother receives a call. She tells me that it's from her coworker. “Her daughter has a graduation gift for you and wants us to go pick it up” she said. We head over to their house to pick up the gift. On arrival my mother asks if I want to go inside with her and I told her no. “I've had a long day and I'm really tired, I'll just wait in the car” is what I said. “Sure thing! I'll be able to see how her daughter is doing and see if she's in need of something” is what I should have said. My mother comes back from their house with a blue gift bag that had a lining of glitter around the top of the bag. I waited until we got home to actually check what was in the bag. When we finally arrived at our house I decided to shoot Anastasia a text. It was a thank you message. Nothing more, nothing less. She responded back saying that it was no problem .It took me a week to open the gift from Anastasia. For whatever reason I just couldn't get around to opening it. Maybe I was afraid to see what was inside. Maybe I was looking to deep into what the meaning of the gift actually meant. Maybe I'm just an asshole. The bag contained two shirts. One blue and white horizontal striped shirt and the other was a static looking shirt, almost like the static you would see on old televisions. The black and white fuzz. The gift was a very kind gesture on Anastasia's behalf, probably one that I didn't deserve.

                                                                   Part 8

      I struggled to continue writing this piece because I didn't necessarily have a motivation to finish it. With my other pieces, something triggers a reaction in me that makes the writing come easy but it was different for this piece. Anastasia was someone who had a profound impact on me. Not in the fact that her looks could kill, but in the fact that I wouldn't be able to have a relationship with someone like her. Anastasia had an immense amount of baggage. This baggage shapes the person and gives them a new perspective of what to expect from people and what they don't want in a relationship. She made me realize that I couldn't be selfish in an attempt to dating someone like her. Someone with an immense amount of baggage. It would selfish of me to think that I could handle her needs and wants or give her something that she's looking for even though I know that I can't. Anastasia saved me from my own selfishness. One that could have led down a bad road. One with more deception or unmet expectations. That is why this piece exists. Anastasia showed me a part of me that I didn't know was there. A part of me that could rationally see that I wouldn't be able to make her happy and be fine with not exploring what could have been. The possibility of something good coming out of delving into the dynamic we had was too much of a risk. Realizing that I did have a good part of me that actually wants the best for the people I met was really eye opening, for the time being. I would later realize that the part of me that couldn't be selfish and risk hurting someone would be slowly pushed aside by a friend and show me something about myself that I didn't want to acknowledge.

                                   Don't fall for the illusion of a moment.

                                   For the sake of everyone, don't be selfish.

                                                                                                                   -R

#love spilledink ink writer life illusion write #spilled ink #spilled thoughts #spilled words #story #commentback #writer #writers of tumblr #writers of instagram #i share with you #my life #enjoy

[gracewithducks]

If it’s not okay, it’s not over yet. (Genesis 45:1-15)

It is really, really difficult to watch a movie with my seven-year-old daughter Michaela. It’s hard to watch a movie with Michaela, because either one of two things is true: either she’s seen the movie before, or she hasn’t.

 And I hear you nodding, yup, those are definitely the two options, but what’s so bad about that? Let me tell you.

 See, if Michaela has seen a movie before, she is absolutely insufferable about it. She’s the biggest spoiler-giver, plot-twist-ruiner you’ll ever meet… “Wait for this!” “What that!” “You might think that he’s a bad guy, but just wait…” and on and on she goes,and even if you’ve already seen the movie, she still will narrate it to you with glee… and friends, if there are any songs, she’s going to sing along with every single one. Whether she knows the words or not.

 When she’s seen the story unfold before, she is pleased as punch, because she already knows how it’s going to end.

 But for every movie she knows by heart, every story she’s an expert on – there are many more she hasn’t seen yet. And for Michaela, new movies can be very stressful; because she is an empathic little girl, because she cares and feels so very deeply, Michaela is always so very, very worried that this movie is going to be the one without a happy ending.

 She hides her face; she cries and frets; she asks, desperately, “Is it going to be okay?”

 And because we’ve told her so many times, she’ll say, “Movies always have a happy ending, right? If it’s not okay, it’s not over yet?”

 Okay, so she hasn’t watched Old Yeller yet. Nobody tell her. Because my daughter has seen enough pain and sadness in this world, and she finds a lot of comfort, when she’s faced with even more pain and sadness on the movie screen, in knowing that everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, then it must not be the end yet.

 So Simba finds his way home, and Elsa thaws the ice, and Cinderella marries the prince, and Anastasia finds her grandma, and the Ninja Turtles defeat Shredder, and the von Trapp family escapes over the mountains. Bad things happen, but in the end, it’s all okay. If isn’t not okay, it’s not over yet.

 It’s a pretty good rule of thumb for the movies. And it’s a pretty good tagline for Joseph’s story, too. Joseph is sold into slavery, he’s falsely accused, he’s thrown into prison where he’s forgotten about for years… and if I were Joseph, there would have been plenty of times when I would have been tempted to give up, to weep and wail and wonder, “Why me?” But we never see Joseph doing any of that. Instead, he gets cured of his childish pride very quickly, and sets out to be honest, diligent, and faithful, wherever he ends up. He’s a trustworthy and faithful servant. He’s an honest and model prisoner. And even there, he finds ways to help others, to use the gifts God has given to bring some light into the darkness and hope into a hopeless place.

 Somehow, Joseph keeps going. Somehow, he finds the faith to believe: this is not where my story ends. It’s not over yet.

 Here’s the thing, though.

 I always get nervous, when I get to a story like this one. I get nervous, for exactly the opposite reason that other stories make me nervous: so many times this summer, you’ve heard me cringe as we faced a shocking and unfamiliar part of the first family’s story… but today, today we are faced with one you might have actually heard before. I know that I remember hearing this story, or at least this part of the story, many times, always with the bottom line: what you meant for evil, God meant for good. People do bad things, but it’s okay, because it’s all part of God’s master plan, and it will all work out in the end.

 How many times, in our worst days, does someone tell us, “God has a plan”? “This is all a part of God’s plan”? “The Lord works in mysterious ways”? It’s like – God is the scriptwriter, and sure, you’re in a really, incredibly dark and devastating and terrible part of the plot… but God just has a dramatic eye, and so God is building tension so it will be all the more moving when you get your happy ending in the end.

 Bad things happen, just so God can make the happy ending even happier.

 After all, that’s even pretty much what Joseph says: “Don’t worry, my brothers. Don’t feel guilty at all for wanting to kill me, for selling me into slavery, for letting our dear dad think I’ve been dead for all these years. Don’t worry, because it wasn’t you who did all those things – it was God; God sent me here, so that I could save your lives, and the lives of a whole lot of other people, when this famine came.”

 And I don’t doubt that that’s what Joseph believes. I don’t doubt that he found great comfort in knowing that all the suffering in his life wasn’t pointless. Or at least, that’s what Joseph chooses to believe: he chooses to see his life through a lens of hope, trusting that, no matter what happens – the best, and the worst of it – God can redeem it; God can find a meaning for it all. But my goodness, didn’t he ever even wonder if God might have found another way to do it? Couldn’t God have saved the people from famine without Joseph having to be sold into slavery, dragged away from his home in chains, falsely accused by his master’s wife, arrested and thrown into prison, meeting the king’s cupbearer and baker there, interpreting their dreams for them, so that after forgetting him for many years, the cupbearer suddenly remembers Joseph and recommends him to the Pharaoh, who is being troubled by his own strange dreams of fat cows and skinny cows and cannibalistic ears of corn, so that Joseph is rescued from prison, able to warn the pharaoh of the great coming famine, and entrusted and empowered to make the necessary arrangements to set aside food so no one starves once the hungry years come?

 It’s a foolproof and straightforward plan, yes? And it certainly wouldn’t have been easier for God to, I don’t know, give Pharaoh a clear warning in his dream: “Hey, a famine is coming, get ready for it!” … or give an Egyptian the power to interpret the dream, or arrange for Joseph to interpret the dream without having to languish in prison first. Or, you know, God could just not send the famine, maybe? Wouldn’t that be easier than playing puppet-master with so many lives and dreams? That would work, too.

 And that, my friends, is why I shudder when I hear the underlying moral of this story to be: isn’t it great that God has such a wonderful master plan.

 So if that’s not the moral of the story – what is?

 It helps if we remember the bigger story we’ve been discovering this summer: while we’ve moved to the scale of kings of countries, this is still the story of a single family, Abraham and Sarah’s family, the family God chose to change the world.

 When God called Abraham, God said, “I will bless your family, and through you, all the families in the world will be blessed.” God invited Abraham to be a part of a new vision, a new dream, a kind of world where people go beyond looking out for number one, beyond just securing a future for me and mine, beyond competing for limited resources – where families bless each other, where neighboring communities share resources, where people live like they really do believe that there is more than enough to go around.

 That’s the dream that led Abraham and Sarah to leave everything behind and cross the known world: a dream of abundance, a dream of a world of peace and wholeness in a whole new way. But even from the beginning, they got it wrong. Abraham was willing to risk his wife’s honor and her life in order to preserve his own. Sarah couldn’t make room in their family story for Hagar and their son Ishmael. Abraham and Sarah’s remaining son, Isaac, couldn’t find enough love or enough blessing for both of his sons. And now one of those sons, Jacob, has so pampered his son Joseph that his other sons felt like they had no other choice but to get rid of the brat, selling Joseph into slavery and letting their father believe for years that his favorite boy was dead.

 This is the supposed to be a family of abundance, a family whose very motto – “blessed to be a blessing” – reminds them that it’s not just about them. But in every generation, they’ve lost the plot.

 And now they’ve reached a turning point: is this where the story ends? Or is it a story that really does keep going, to all generations?

 Because we could feasibly call the promise fulfilled at this point; Joseph, in his rise to power in Egypt, has managed to save countless lives, by convincing the Pharaoh to put away enough grain to keep the people going through the long, lean years. Peoples have travelled from far around and found food – including Joseph’s own family, and many, many others. When considering this widespread famine, a disaster averted by one of Abraham’s great-grandsons, we could reasonably say: all the families of the known world have been blessed.

 This could be where the story ends; God could wash God’s hands of this messed-up family and start over again. And Joseph himself isn’t helping.

 I know, I said before that Joseph has matured and grown through his years of suffering. He’s not a spoiled bratty little brother anymore; he’s a grown man, a husband and a father, the second-most-powerful man in all of Egypt, a man who nevertheless knows and hasn’t forgotten how it feels to be forsaken in the pit, to be far from home, to be penniless, powerless, forgotten, and alone.

 And when Joseph’s brothers walk back into his life, he’s right back there again.

He remembers. He remembers listening to them bicker over whether or not to kill him. He remembers how they turned their backs and counted their profits while he was dragged away in chains. And the fact that he’s all right now doesn’t undo all the heartache and the pain.

 When Joseph sees his brothers, he starts to toy with them, savoring how the tables have turned. He accuses the brothers of being spies. He throws them into prison. He keeps one brother as hostage, sending them to bring their youngest back as “proof” that they’re not spies… and the brothers struggle, they drag their feet, because their youngest brother is Benjamin, the only other son of Joseph’s mother, and their father’s new favorite, who – after losing Joseph – dad now won’t let out of sight. Just to complicate it more, Joseph plants evidence on the brothers, so that they are afraid of being arrested as thieves. He forces them to come back groveling, bringing gifts to appease his temper… and he feasts with them, and just when they think all is well, he plants evidence on their youngest brother, and arrests Benjamin as a thief. But this stranger isn’t unreasonable: “I’ll just keep the thief as my slave,” he says, “and the rest of you can go back to your father in peace.”

 And he sticks in the knife, and he turns it. Because these brothers have sworn on their lives to bring Benjamin back safely; they know it will break their father’s heart for good if they come back without him.

 And maybe Joseph is testing his brothers, to see if they’ve really changed: to see whether, to save their own skins, they’ll leave another brother behind in slavery. Or maybe Joseph is just being cruel because he can, bringing back on his brothers a measure of the suffering they heaped on him.

 Either way, I can only imagine him standing, secure in his own power, waiting to see what the brothers will do.

 There is silence. A breathless pause. And then Judah steps forward.

 Judah, an unlikely spokesperson for this broken band of brothers. Judah, whose idea it had been to sell Joseph into slavery all those years ago. Judah, not the oldest brother, not even a son of their father’s favorite wife. Judah, who is in almost every way just one of the extras in this story, one of the surplus sons mixed in to add to the drama and heighten the tension –

 Judah steps up. And Judah says, “Please. Please. This, our youngest brother, is our father’s favorite son, his comfort in his grief, the joy of his old age. If we go home without Benjamin, our father may well die.

 “I can’t go back without my brother. So please, my lord, please, keep me instead. Let me become your slave, and let me brother go.”

 And just like that, Judah changes everything.

 Instead of sacrificing his brother, instead of doing whatever he can to get ahead – Judah says, Let him go; take me instead. Let his suffering fall on me. Let me take his place.

 Judah does what Isaac couldn’t, what Jacob couldn’t, what even Joseph couldn’t do yet: he loves his brother as himself. He puts his brother ahead of himself. And the family story starts to change once more.

 It’s this speech by Judah that makes Joseph cry out, “I’m your brother; it’s Joseph; it’s me.” It’s this offer by Judah that convinces Joseph to reveal himself, and to embrace his brothers, and to forgive them, and to invite them to come and build their homes and settle their families alongside his own.

 Judah finally gets it: it’s not about competing, tooth and nail, at any cost. It’s about sacrifice. It’s about standing together. It’s about love. And love changes everything.

 Joseph may be the hero of the story, the one who saves the people from famine, who keeps the faith and graciously offers forgiveness in the end. But friends, years later, generations down the line – when the messiah is foretold, when the birth of the Christ is linked to the promises of Abraham, we don’t trace the family line through Joseph. We don’t trace the line through Rueben, the oldest brother, nor through Benjamin, the other most beloved son.

 No, Jesus is a great-great-great-grandson of Judah, the brother who laid himself aside, the brother who realized that love is more important, the one who loved his brother more than he loved himself.

 This is where the story changes. This is where the sun comes out from behind the clouds, where Michaela comes out from her hiding place, because this is where we start to see that somehow, it’s going to be okay. I still maintain that it’s been a roundabout and unlikely way of getting here, but here we are at last: Joseph saved from slavery, the people saved from famine, the brothers reconciled, and soon, the whole family reunited once more.

 Everything changes, when Judah chooses to stand with his brother instead of against him. And still, in our own families, and in the world today, everything changes when we choose to stop competing and to stand together in love. To say, my brother’s problem is my problem. My sister’s struggle is mine, too. My neighbor’s need is my need. We are in this together: and instead of abandoning each other, we choose to stand together. And we will make a better story, together.

 It’s always okay in the end, we tell our daughter. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end yet. Sometimes, you and I know, “okay” is a long time coming. But this is the promise and the hope of our faith: that God will never abandon or forsake us; and the terrible things that happen to us, they aren’t God’s plan – but God can use them, all the same; God can use even the worst parts of our lives, and break them open, and reveal amazing love hidden there.

 We have one wall of our house at home that’s full of photographs: prints and snapshots of our family life. I love that wall, because it’s the only place I can see my dad alongside my children, and I can see Braeleigh playing next to Carl, and I can see my stepdad laughing next to my dad, too; it’s the only place I can see together all the people I love the most. It’s a hard thing, sometimes, to look in the faces of the people we’ve lost, and I don’t ever pretend to understand how it will all work out in the end, when we’re all together at last. But I still love that wall of pictures, because it reminds me that, for all the heartache we’ve faced, the constant thread running through my life, the constant thread in our family story, isn’t grief. It’s love. And love is worth it. And love never ends.

 We all have messy stories, but God is in them all. And if it’s not okay, it’s not the end. God isn’t finished with us yet. Thanks be to God.

   God, you know that we struggle sometimes to hold onto faith, when the problems we face are so overwhelming and senseless, and we don’t know where it all will end. You know that we struggle to forgive, to do unto others – even and especially our family and friends – to do unto others better than they’ve done unto us. You know how hard it is for us to hold onto hope; you know how hard it is for us to hold onto love.

 So help us. Help us to believe that the thread running through our story, and through yours, is love – and when everything else falls away, love will hold us together; love remains. Love wins. Amen.