I procrastinated figuring out how to use my fancy new sewing machine SO hard i made a quilt design about it, and then started making the quilt, with the sewing machine, so i think i’m procrastinating so hard it’s coming back around into productivity? this is wayyyy too fucking ambitious for my first quilt and i have no idea what the fuck i’m doing but! that will not stop me!

originally the design was much larger and for a queen size, and then i got out a yardstick and realized that’s way too fucking big so i downsized the scale and moved things around and added more buy’cese, i’m not sold on the background color and i’m prob not going to embroider the crusader’s emblem or the vizsla emblem like i had planned bc it stands out too much, but i was thinking of stitching the mythosaur symbol down the vertical sides, but i could also do lines of “bic cuyir te ara” since i’m already gonna be hand stitching so much goddamn mando’a

i’m pretty sure i can program custom embroidery patterns into my fancy machine (which is the whole thing i’m procrastinating about so finishing all the buy’cese will force me to find out) so i want to do the resol’nare in gold, but i don’t think anything with gold filament is gonna be strong enough for that so i may do yellow and embroider a bit in gold filament just to get around that, and then i’m still sorting through what patterns i wanna do across the quilt, i was thinking random concentric squares of lines of text, that way i could do kote darasuum around where cody is and a much bigger one spreading from the taung at the bottom with a version of dha werda verda (still haven’t figured out which one to use), but then i don’t know what to do about the rest of the quilt, and like do i really want to hand stitch everything in mando’a characters (resigned)

so obviously what i’m using here is a mix of different canons with some fanon sprinkled in (sue me, canon mandalor the uniter fucking sucks, basic bitch buy’ce, so i replaced that one with the irl dude’s mandalorian oc of the same title bc quite frankly it’s more meaningful to the fandom and it looks fucking sick), some of them had very little canon material to work with so i tried my best to wing it (tarre vizsla didn’t really have a buy’ce per se so i’m still debating using matte black for that one), some i picked bc they looked cool and not because they’re relevant, some i left out purposefully

i started with the darksaber, because i thought “it’s smaller and just a bunch of straight lines, how hard can it be?” but it turns out needle-point turn on all those stupid tiny corners is, in fact, a new layer of hell i had previously remained oblivious to, but i still did it, and it’s only a little wonky

ok so the quality is shit, but it’ll look real nice when i fucking needle-point turn applique this shit to the top layer and then detail it all in silver when i’ve got all the sandwich together, and i’m real fucking proud of myself for getting the first bucket done, and it even mostly lays flat!

i’ve got this stupid shiny black fabric i’m using for all the visors and it is definitely painful as hell to work with but god does it look nice

You’re Never Gonna Fit In Much, Kid

Pairing: Gerard Way x Reader

Genre: Fluff, High School AU

Summary: Sequel to Strike A Violent Pose (x). A mean classmate makes fun of you for choosing Gerard as your new boyfriend. You just wish, that the kids at school, could see him the way you do. 

You stepped out of the locker room shower, happy to have washed off all the sweat from a long, tedious gym class. Now, you just wanted to get dressed as quickly as possible. You always got anxious, that the other girls in class were staring at you, judging the way your body looked. 

Almost every girl in our grade is prettier than I am, you frowned as you pulled your black jeans on. So why did Gerard choose to date me?

You shook your head, as if you could physically shake the negativity out of your brain, and hurried to clasp your bra. The sooner you got dressed, the sooner you could go to next period (lunch!), and enjoy a meal with your boyfriend. 

“Hey,” a voice said, startling you out of your thoughts, and making you turn around. 

It was the girl who used the locker next to yours - you were pretty sure her name was Victoria. She was on one of the sports teams, and she’d never really talked to you much before. 

“Is it true,” Victoria asked, narrowing her eyes, “that you’re dating Gerard Way?”

Had rumors spread about you two already? you wondered, cheeks flushing as you quickly pulled your shirt over your head. Who starts a conversation with somebody while they’re shirtless, anyway? 

“Y-yeah,” you admitted, once your tits were safely put away. “We started dating a couple weeks ago. I’m his girlfriend.” 

“Ew,” Victoria scoffed. “Why?”

“Excuse me?” you gasped, almost dropping your socks in surprise. What’s that supposed to mean?!

“Everyone saw you guys at the dance together, but I figured you just, like, took him as your date out of pity or something,” Victoria shrugged. 

“What are you talking about?!” you glared, fearing you might lose your temper again. 

“I mean, he’s such a fat loser,” Victoria laughed meanly. “Who the fuck would want to date someone like that, for reals?”

“He’s not a loser!” you shouted, and shoved Victoria into the row of lockers behind her. 

“Oww!” Victoria screamed, as her back hit the hard, metal doors. “What the fuck, Y/N?!”

“Take that back!” you growled, still eaten up with rage. “Don’t you dare call him that! Gerard is an incredible person, and you’re just jealous!” 

“Jealous?” Victoria scoffed. “Of what? You getting to listen to that greasy haired freak ramble about Star Wars all day?”

“I happen to like Star Wars,” you huffed. “And don’t you call him a freak, you judgy bitch! You don’t know the first thing about him!”

“My team captain’s boyfriend had to go to his house once, to work on a group project,” Victoria snickered. “He said Gerard keeps a fucking dead bat in his room! And he has a bunch of knives and shit! What a psycho!” 

You had seen Gerard’s taxidermy vampire bat. He apparently bought it off some guy he met at a a Misfits show. You actually thought it was pretty neat. 

“Stop calling my boyfriend names!” you cried, and raised a fist to deck Victoria. Instead, your fist was caught mid-air by the gym teacher, who was glaring at you harshly. 

“Finish putting your shoes and socks on, and get out of here,” the teacher warned. “I came running when I heard Victoria hit the wall! You haven’t seen the inside of the detention room enough times this month, Y/N?! Are you that anxious to go back?” 

“No, ma’am,” you said quietly, your adrenaline leaving you as your gaze fell to the floor. 

I let myself lose control again, you thought, disappointed in yourself. I let another person goad me into doing something violent and stupid. 

“She’s a psycho, too!” Victoria tutted. “Those freaks deserve each other!” 

You tied your shoes and left the room, your cheeks still burning. You supposed you should be grateful, that the gym teacher let you off with a warning this time. 

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Your hands were still balled into fists, when you entered the cafeteria. 

“Hi, sugar!” Gerard greeted, walking over to you with a smile, as soon as he saw you. 

“Hi, Gee,” you said listlessly. “Did you get your food yet?”

“No, I was waiting for you, so we could get in line together,” Gerard beamed. 

“Oh, that was sweet of you,” you replied, grabbing a tray and getting into the line. “Do you know what they’re serving today?”

“Some kind of mystery meat,” Gerard shrugged, grabbing a milk carton and placing it on his own tray. “Doesn’t matter. I get to eat with you, so I’m happy.” 

You smiled weakly as the lunch lady ladled a spoonful of “mystery” onto your tray. 

“What’s wrong?” Gerard frowned, as he shuffled down the line to receive his own spoonful of slop. 

“Nothing,” you sighed. “I just almost got in another fistfight again.” 

“What?” Gerard gasped, as you moved out of the way, so other people in line could get their serving. “Why?” 

“It doesn’t matter,” you grumbled, walking away from Gerard, towards your usual table. 

“It matters to me,” Gerard insisted, walking quickly to keep up with you. “Talk to me, Y/N. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Fine,” you relented, slumping down into your seat. “Victoria from gym class called you a loser.” 

“Y/N,” Gerard sighed softly, as he sat down beside you. “I don’t want you to keep getting in trouble, because you’re trying to defend me. It’s not worth it.”

“You’re always worth it, to me,” you said emotionally, pulling him into a hug. He rubbed your back consolingly. 

“The girls at this school,” you continued, “have no idea what you’re worth.  They’re just judging you based on appearances. They don’t even know you.” 

“I’m used to it,” Gerard shrugged. “I had kind of just accepted, that no girl would look twice at me, for my whole high school career. I was shocked when you said you wanted to go to the dance with me.” 

“We were friends for a long time before that,” you reminded him, pulling away to look him in the eye. “I know what you’re really like….you’re so creative, and smart, and hard-working. You make amazing little comics, and you listen to the coolest music. You’re always kind to me, and, Gerard, you’re so handsome.”

“You’re just saying that,” Gerard blushed, glancing away. 

“I’m not,” you insisted, brushing a strand of dark hair, away from his cheek. “Victoria called you fat, but you’re not really! I mean, sure, you’ve got these chubby cheeks, but every time I look at them, I just want to kiss them.” 

“R-really?” Gerard reddened. 

“Yeah,” you grinned, and kissed his cheek softly, to prove your point. The skin on his face, was so smooth and soft….

You pulled him close and kissed him again, on the mouth this time, not caring if all your classmates saw you. 

“These stupid, shallow girls will never know,” you whispered softly into his ear, “that you have the biggest heart in school.” 

“Thank you, Y/N,” Gerard smiled gently, patting the back of your head softly. 

“And,” you added in a mischievous whisper, “the biggest dick in school, too.” 

“Y/N!” Gerard gasped, his pale face turning beet red. 

“It’s true,” you smirked, dropping your voice, so nobody else would hear. “You showed me what you got, and it is one fine piece of….”

“We are in public!” Gerard cut you off, burying his crimson face in your hands.

You fell into a fit of giggles, laughing so hard you almost couldn’t breathe. “Your fucking face….”

“Of c-course I’m going to make a face, when you say something like that!” Gerard stuttered, still pink. 

“I’m sorry,” you chuckled, “you’re just so fun to tease.”

“Hmm…” Gerard pouted. “I should get you back for that later.”

“What did you have in mind?” you flirted. 

“Nothing I can say in a public place,” Gerard replied cryptically, his eyes glimmering with mischief as he sipped his milk. “But I promise you’ll like it…”

“Oh?” you grinned, putting a forkful of food into your mouth. “Is this not the only meat I’m gonna taste today?”

“Y/N!” Gerard bleated, choking on his milk. 

“Damn, do I need to do the Heimlich?” you laughed, patting your boyfriend on the back. 

“I’m….I’m fine,” Gerard wheezed. “But I can tell you’re going to make the rest of my school year very interesting.” 

You’re my fav SW/Poe Writer and I’ve only written and posted one poe fic on AO3 and I need the courage to post more, idk I have so many AU and regular prompts in my head and how do you write so well and how to do you not be terrified to put it out in the world? 😩

I was going to start this off by being “humble” and saying I’m not that good, but I’m going to be honest. We live in a world where people aren’t allowed to be proud of themselves even when they’ve done well, and that’s pretty stupid.

I do consider myself to be a decent writer. I have many fics, though, sitting in my documents halfway written because I absolutely hated them. My writing was stiff or unrealistic, and the plot came out ridiculous.

I attribute my ability to write with a few things:

I read so much as a child it was ridiculous. I was part of summer book reading contests at my library, and outside of that I would read everything. I loved Animal Ark books and American Girl (specifically Kaya, Josefina, Addy, and Samantha) books most of all. Reading taught me impressive words, proper punctuation, that a new person’s dialogue should always be in another paragraph, and the lives of people I would never be.

I love character analyzing. I sit here and I pick apart characters to see what makes them this way, what makes them that way, what really creates their personality, how they really are beneath what they put out.

I try to imagine things in a character’s voice. If I can’t imagine it, they wouldn’t say it!

I’ve been doing this for a long time. I’m 22 and I’ve been writing since I was 12 or 13. I used to be a really bad writer. My first fanfictions were self-insert Buffy the Vampire Slayer ones on Quizilla. Paragraphs were not a thing to me. Each chapter was literally a long block of text that involved every hot guy from Buffy being into me. I wrote sex scenes with descriptions such as, “he touched me down there” and “he was thrusting back and forth on top of me” because I literally did not know how sex worked. I had no idea the p even went in the v. My next venture was Glee fanfiction, where I figured out paragraphs, but had multiple characters speaking dialogue in one. I added curse words, but put asterisks because they were just too naughty for me to write. I didn’t get a hang of proper writing until I was 16 and started writing Doctor Who fics, and looking back on those, they were pretty mediocre. It took a lot of practice for me to get to a point where I’m doing pretty good, and even so, I have a lot of times where I hate my own writing.

As for having the courage to put out your writing...I post things because having them in a document doesn’t satisfy me. There are things that I want written and nobody else is writing them, so I do it myself.

There are so many times when I post something and assume no one will like it, and sometimes I’m right. But that’s okay because if I’m into it, it’s nice to have it posted somewhere instead of being hidden away on my computer.

It took me a while before I started posting Poe fanfiction. I was nervous because, while I grew up sort of watching Star Wars because my brother loved it, I was never that into it until the new ones started coming out. I didn’t think I knew enough and I didn’t think I could do it justice. So while there were so many things I wanted to write for Poe, I didn’t think I could.

The first fanfiction I attempted to write was him and an OC named Shideh, but I thought it was silly. I believe the first chapter is still in my computer, collecting dust.

But the thought of writing for him wouldn’t leave me alone and as I said, leaving it to sit there doesn’t satisfy me. So I did as much research on Star Wars as I could (and I still do research! It is such a big universe with so much media that it’s incredibly difficult to learn everything) and I ventured into reader-insert fanfiction.

I started with a ‘what if’ of Poe going dark side, which wasn’t that good. But it was something that I wanted to put out there because no one was doing it, so I put it out there.

What really got me started was ‘fifty ways to kiss someone’ after I saw a post of kissing prompts and it begged me to write it.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, I write and post things for myself. If people like it, it brings me a lot of joy, but I do it for myself. Do it for yourself. The best way to find bravery is to trick yourself into thinking you don’t care what anyone else thinks of you, then using that moment of energy to post it before you can decide not to.

I’m also always amazed at the comments I get from people, especially when something I’ve written moves them in some way or makes them feel understood because something in the story is so similar to them. If I don’t put my stories out, I am definitely shielding myself from negative responses...but I’m also shielding myself from possibly making people happy and even from making myself happy.

Sometimes when you put something out in the world, you have to be terrified and do it anyway. Courage literally could not exist if we weren’t terrified. Is someone who loves dogs courageous for petting one? To be courageous is to literally do something even though it scares you.

To paraphrase a quote that can be used with writing, singing, speaking, or whatever your passion may be: “You have nothing to prove, only to share.”

I hope this helped, but it might have just been me rambling about nonsense! I tend to do that, so let this GIF make up for it.

FIC: By the Guidance of Stars - Chapter 4

Title: By the Guidance of Stars Fandom: SWTOR Pairing: Theron Shan/f!Jedi Knight Rating: T (this chapter) Genre: Angst, H/C, Romance, Humor Synopsis: The Coalition tries to heal in the aftermath of the Battle of Yavin 4, but not every wound is physical. A series of missing scenes set during the end of Shadow of Revan. Warnings: See Chapter 1.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Crossposted to AO3

As morning wore on, the drizzle eased into a light mist and the camp began to rouse. The mugs of caf had long since been drained and Theron had reluctantly forced himself to begin tackling the mountain of paperwork waiting for him. That afternoon’s unofficial debrief loomed in the back of his mind, and in an effort to distract himself, he’d thrown himself into filling in as many details of the entire Revanite debacle on his official report, starting all the way back to the initial mission on Korriban.

Well. Most of the details. There were some interpersonal things that would not be making their way into an official report. He was only a kiss-and-tell kind of guy when it was part of the official mission log. And this confusing thing he had with a certain Jedi Master was nobody’s business but their own.

Of course, focusing on his paperwork would have been much easier if he didn’t have to keep trying to stop one Doctor Archiban Kimble from second-guessing the excellent care of sneaky medical droids.

“Can’t you just read whatever the droid wrote and let it go?” Theron grumbled. “I have to finish this report.”

“And I have to make sure that all of my hard work on Rishi wasn’t undone last night.”

“It wasn’t.” Theron glowered at him and then pointedly returned his attention to the datapad. “Now go away.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to work this time.”

“What’s not? Speaking Basic?”

“Your overworked slicer schtick. No datapads during medical examinations. Doctor’s orders.”

“Didn’t stop you last time.”

“Yes, well, I made an exception then because my favorite Jedi was about to be blown to smithereens by your grandpa’s cult.”

“It’s a few more generations than just grandfather.”

“Eh, details.” The datapad was deftly plucked from the spy’s hands and stowed inside of of one of the medic’s inner pockets. “You get this back after we’re done.”

“You’ve got nerves of steel, Doc,” Theron warned. “I’ve shot people for less.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” The medic grinned. “I figure I’m safe. A certain Jedi is very fond of me and my untimely death would make her very sad.”

“And what makes you think that would affect my aim?”

The medic arched one dark brow, as if it was obvious. “You seemed pretty concerned earlier from what I saw. Holding hands and everything.”

Theron wasn’t able to suppress the curse that slipped out. It wasn’t exactly a private area they’d been in, but he had hoped everyone had been too busy with their celebrations to notice that unplanned moment. Of course, unplanned moments seemed to be the norm with her rather than the exception.

Not that he had the greatest track record with sticking to a plan — he tended to fly by the seat of his pants at the best of times. But even if he’d wanted to, he never could have accounted for that ridiculous pirate costume she had picked up from a street vendor for her undercover persona. Nor for the way she got drunk during one of Jakarro’s cantina outings—forcing Theron to figure out how to transport a hopelessly inebriated Jedi back to their hideout without either of them getting shivved in a back alleyway. Or the way her grip on him had lingered before she’d left for that last battle on Rishi, practically shouting the order for Doc to stay behind and take care of him.

And actually if Theron thought about it longer, the one consistent factor in all of that had been the medic currently pulling out his scanner so he could begin to examine the chest of his very reluctant patient. As Doc had been the one to help her pick out that stupid outfit, had left an entire pitcher of fruity alcoholic drinks on the table after leaving their team gathering in a snit, and had been just as annoying at insisting on making sure Theron didn’t have any life-threatening internal injuries just like he was now.

The medic let out a quiet chuckle, apparently mistaking the reasoning for the glare pointed in his direction.

“Don’t worry, I made a lot of loud and rousing toasts over in my area of camp. Your aloof reputation is safe amongst the larger crowd.”

“I get the impression that wasn’t for my benefit,” Theron grumbled.

“No, it wasn’t.” Doc narrowed an eyebrow at the tiny screen in front of him, and started to do some more detailed scans over the previously injured area, as if he needed to double-check something. “But if getting a camp of Imperial and Republic troops inebriated in the early hours of the morning is what it takes to get that woman a small moment of peace, I’ll make that sacrifice for the greater good.”

“How magnanimous of you.”

“It’s a heavy burden sometimes, being such a hero.”

“Are you still drunk?”

“Eh, sober enough to look you over.”

“I think I feel safer with the droid.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you are a horrible patient?”

“Probably about as often as you’ve gotten complaints about your bedside manner.”

“You be quiet and let me finish.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I’ll call your mother over here.” Doc grinned.

“I swear I’m changing my last name when I get back to Republic space,” Theron muttered darkly.

“I’ll still know.”

“Two can play at that game, Archiban.”

Doc shot him a dirty look, but returned to fiddling with his scanner. “Look, I know you’ve got your own reasons, but still… thanks for looking out for her.”

Theron indeed had his own reasons, but much to his chagrin, none of them seemed to stem from anything remotely resembling reason. Of course, he hadn’t really ever been accused of being the most logical agent in SIS. However, there was no way he was admitting that aloud. “I get the impression that you and your crew have been through a lot.”

“Some of us more than others,” Doc muttered darkly.

“Yeah.” Theron pursed his lips. “Got that impression too.”

Considering Grey’s reaction earlier, that was putting it mildly. He was regretting not having figured out what had been redacted before they had gotten to this point—and before he’d made a promise to not pry. Of course, that six month gap had nearly put him off selecting her for the Korriban mission completely. If he’d done that, then he wouldn’t currently have to be listening to Doc ramble on. Of course, then he wouldn’t have met her either.

Something inside his chest twisted. It was probably because he’d been an idiot and had drank too much caf this morning instead of having a real breakfast. He probably needed to find something more substantial before the debrief this afternoon. Or maybe he could just choke a ration bar down as he didn’t really have much of an appetite at the moment.

Doc gave him a funny look, almost as if he’d been reading the spy’s inner thoughts. Theron didn’t really want to get a lecture on his poor diet on top of everything else this morning, so he just glared at the ground instead.

“I’m surprised you didn’t ask.”

“I might be a spy,” he ground out, “but I can respect boundaries. I’m not going to force her to relive anything just to satisfy my curiosity.”

“While I appreciate the gesture,” Doc said quietly, “I think things are going to come to a head sooner or later, whether or not you ask anything.”

Theron glared at the ground, not sure what to make of the internal war raging inside of his gut. “She’s still got you and the rest of your crew. Should be enough, right?”

The medic let out a sad sigh and shook his head, but didn’t say anything else on the subject. There wasn’t much to say, Theron had already made a promise not to pry, and he wasn’t about to go back on that. Keeping promises wasn’t exactly something most people in his line of work did. Although this wasn’t work. This was… it was…

It was none of his damn business is what it was.

And he knew that. Despite his chosen profession, there were some lessons from his childhood he’d had a hard time shaking off. A lot of adjustments—sacrifices even—had to be made in order to get the mission done, because that served a higher purpose in a way he couldn’t with his natural born talents, or lack thereof. It was often a struggle to be the person that Ngani Zho had raised him to be, and beyond just that, he wanted to be a man of his word. At least with the important people.

And she was... yeah. She was one of them.

It took a lot to get under his skin, but that little Jedi had managed it quite effectively. And despite his best efforts, he was just along for the ride at this point, that much was clear.

“Well,” Doc said, barely managing to keep irritation from bleeding into his tone, “looks like between my wonderful skills as a medic, a little help from the Grand Master, and that barely adequate droid, you’re going to be just fine.”

“I already told you that,” Theron said, his own frustration mounting. “If you had just believed me then we could have avoided this whole awkward conversation.”

“Yeah, well,” Doc said lightly, stowing his medical scanner, “I had to be sure. It would be irresponsible of me if I didn’t ensure that you were in peak physical condition before taking on any… strenuous activity.”

The insinuation on what the medic thought of Theron’s intentions was all too clear, and he couldn’t help but snarl. “That is none of your damn business.”

“I’m just looking out for your welfare,” Doc grinned. “You wouldn’t want to sprain anything. That would definitely kill the mood.”

“I am not having this conversation with you.”

“I assume you know all about using protection—“

“Give me my datapad!”

“And I expect you to behave like a proper gentleman.”

Theron’s hand curled into a fist, and it took all of his effort to keep it down at his side. “Now.”

Doc sighed dramatically, but pulled out the requested device with dramatic flair. “Fine, fine.”

The spy snatched the device and started to move away from the medic with a quickness.

“Oh, and Theron?”

“What?” he tossed over his shoulder, not bothering to hide his frustration and not slowing his hasty retreat in the slightest.

“I meant what I said back on Rishi.” The joviality had faded from Doc’s tone, leaving behind a steel certainty. “I know every way to cleanly break any bone in the body. I would keep that in mind if I were you.”

“You threatening me?”

“Only if you hurt her.”

“You and Scourge should form a club.”

“Not my first choice, but I’ll consider it. If it comes to that.”

Theron beat a quick retreat to the safety of one of the private tents before he could be pulled back into anything resembling conversation with the medic. He had no desire to hear any more advice on his love life. Or hear about the ways in which he would be maimed if things didn’t somehow go according to Doc’s outdated notions of romance. For possibly the first time in his career, Theron couldn’t wait to get lost in the minutiae of the Republic’s endless trail of paperwork.

Next Chapter

Kingdom Hearts Attraction

So uh, for those of you not up to date: This was said as a mention about the idea of Square and Disney collaborating for this and if it gets off the ground it will be huge. Right now, it’s nothing more than a pipe dream, but I’d like to address this anyways since I come with a very unique perception in that not only do I live near the Disney parks, but the parks might be the only thing I’m more obsessed with than Kingdom Hearts.

(Going under a read more because when I talk about parks I get rambly.)

So first off, if this becomes a thing, which it still needs to be discussed with a bunch of people first, it will very likely start off in one of two parks. The more likely Tokyo Disneyland or the Walt Disney World Resort. Tokyo Disneyland is likely due to...well...Japan. Japanese video game company, I shouldn’t have to spell it out for you. Disney World, however, has already had a history with the parks as early as 2004 when costumes of Sora, Donald, and Goofy were actually able to have meet and greets due to Mickey’s Not So Scary, as well as a couple other tiny easter eggs. Furthermore Walt Disney World is still the number one tourist destination in the world, so really there’s a 50% chance of anything new starting there between the four parks. Admittedly Disneyland is possible due to the Dandelion meet up taking place in Anaheim, but like with Disneyland Paris being the park Nomura visited for inspiration on attraction flow, it doesn’t feel like enough to lock in that park for a likely location.

So limiting ourselves down to Tokyo Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World Resort, there’s really only six parks it can go in. So let’s break it down:

Animal Kingdom: If Disney still has a shred of self respect for themselves and their theming, they won’t do this. This might be the combination that could have KH make me cancel my Disney park pass and that’s all I feel should be said on the subject.

Tokyo DisneySEA: I would normally consider this likely, however, Disney has just announced a huge expansion opening in 2022. With this in mind, it’d be bad business practice to announce the KH anything here next year (since if I were them I’d announce summer 2019 so long as it ends up being worked out) since that’d be opening around the same time and be horribly overshadowed. It’d be like if they decided to open a KH ride in MGM in 2019 when Star Wars land opens. It just isn’t going to happen.

Tokyo Disneyland/Magic Kingdom: Admittedly, I don’t know a lot about the Disneyland clone over in Tokyo, but what I do know is that it shares similarities with the park we have here (down to both parks having Cinderella Castle), as such I feel confident in lumping it in with Magic Kingdom. If they were to build the ride here, it would fit in best with Fantasyland theming, which touches on the various Disney movies and high fantasy elements, it’d work pretty well. On the flip side, a Gummi Ship based attraction could fit in well in Tomorrowland, and exclusively in Tokyo Disneyland there’s also Toontown, which might work decently. So long as they stay out of the Adventureland and Frontierland skinned areas (and even then if done properly Adventureland could be justified), it would work. (This applies to any of the Disneyland clones, do Anaheim and Paris apply here too.)

Hollywood Studios: I mean it’s unlikely because it goes against theming but also at the exact same time this park is identity-less and bad anyways so I wouldn’t even be mad if they did destroy theming here for it. I’d just be excited to have a reason to care about the park. I don’t even care about the principle I just really hate this park.

Epcot: This is the most likely location for a Kingdom Hearts themed attraction at the Walt Disney World resort, if not period. Not only is the park due for major refurbishments soon (Guardians and Ratatouille being the start of that) but the park also has two locations it could work. Future World, using the same excuses as Guardians and making a Gummi Ship explorations attractions, something in Innoventions perhaps, putting the empty space to good use, or in the Japan Pavilion as an attraction. Personally I’m not the biggest fan of this idea since I don’t really care for the direction Epcot seems to be going in and I’m very protective of the park, but I can accept it.

Disney Springs and the like: Unlikely as all get out but for once I’m literally going to let my bias come into play and concept: Cancel the stupid NBA experience and make Disney Quest 2.0 with a heavy focus on Disney’s video game related properties such as Wreck it Ralph, Disney Infinity, Epic Mickey, and Kingdom Hearts. It’d be so much better of an idea and can you tell I’m still salty about Disney Quest being torn down?

Anyways, basically it’s going to be in one of the main parks (Disneyland/Magic Kingdom/Disneyland Paris/Tokyo Disneyland) or it will be in Epcot due to openings, announcements, and theming.

So that being said, what can we expect from this? In truth um...not as much as you’re thinking.

As much as I’d love to go blasting the drums and screaming for a whole Kingdom Hearts theme area, not a lot of things get the same treatment that Star Wars and Pandora got. And trust me, considering my opinions on those franchises I would much rather KH get that attention. If I’m honest, I hesitate to even propose the idea that Kingdom Hearts should get a ride.

Looking at the ride types, the only attraction the ride could feasibly get would be a coaster, a dark ride, or a screen ride. A dark ride is immediately out of the question imho due to the story of KH being impossible to do anything with in that format. A screen ride, while doable, is a gamble since they can run the gambit of really good (Star Tours and Flight of Passage) or really bad (Jimmy Fallon at Universal Studios is the worst ride I have ever been on) and runs the risk of being underwhelming, since it could be simply a sit down show. Which would then bring the problem of these rides are meant to be enjoyable for non fans too, or else it would be shut down. A coaster would be the easiest to implement and most likely to succeed since nobody has to know the theme to enjoy a good coaster, so I could see them doing that, but coasters require a decently large amount of space to build, especially when compared to a screen ride, which creates its own problems.

So what do I think KH will likely see? Well for one: Merchandise. Even if they don’t make a cooperative effort into a ride or attraction, KH might still have a presence in the gift shops like Magic Kingdom’s Emporium as time goes on, or even simply a new pin available at Pintraders. The game is huge and people care. So some merchandise coming from Disney milking the cash cow is inevitable. You might also see some small shout outs such as changing a store name or a restaurant name to feature Sora and co. Hell maybe even a new one will be built as part of promotion. Or we’ll get new costumes for Sora this time around.

However, I think what will most likely be seen is a new game sort of thing. Similar to how Magic Kingdom has Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom and Epcot had the Kim Possible and, later, the Phineas and Ferb missions, an interactive game could be an easy fit for the series. Similar to how Sorcerer’s of the Magic Kingdom allows players to fight eight iconic Disney villains, a game like this could easily have players aid Sora, Donald, and Goofy as they take on Heartless and iconic Disney villains around the parks. It doesn’t require extensive knowledge of the series and a final showdown with Xehanort or even an entirely original villain or Maleficent herself could make for a fun way to kill the day. It’d keep in the spirit of KH and not distance it too far from Disney properties. It could also end up similar to VOID, the new Star Wars laser tag experience at Disney Springs, and focus in on the Keyblade War instead and have vr whacking people with stuff. Is it what I want...well no. I’d actually really like a VR coaster for this, but I think it’s a safe bet and gives them the ability to update either Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom or the Phineas and Ferb world showcase adventure, both of which haven’t had changes in a very long time. It also puts KH in a position where if the attraction doesn’t do well it doesn’t feel like a huge waste of investment and allows Square and Disney both to test the waters to open up the gates to a more grand Kingdom Hearts attraction.

Anyways, that’s my two cents. Really I’ll be happy with any representation at the parks since for years all we’ve had is a Sora shirt, sweatshirt, three Disney pins, and a hidden poster at Epcot, but who knows, maybe we could see something a little bit more at long last along the horizon.

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 27/03/2021 (Justin Bieber’s ‘Justice’, Griff, Lil Tjay/Polo G/Fivio Foreign)

You might think that since I can take time out of my schedule to ramble about charts every week, that I have a lot of time on my hands and this may or may not be true but even I do not have enough time or energy to listen to – or even care about – new releases from both Justin Bieber and Lana Del Rey. So, of course, they make the most impact on the chart this week, even if said impact is still pretty muted. Our #1 is, for a second week, “Wellerman” by Nathan Evans and remixed by 220 KID and Billen Ted, and welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

It may not make any sense to you that “Anyone” by Justin Bieber has dropped out of the UK Top 75 – which I cover – on the week of the album’s release, but UK chart rules stipulate that only the three best-performing songs from an artist can chart at any time, which is pretty stupid all things considered but I’m not complaining since it gives me less of a workload... or more, I don’t know. With more album tracks from Justin, I’m sure they would cancel at least some of the other, lower new entries out. This isn’t the Hot 100, however, this is the UK Singles Chart, and hence we follow their rules, which means that we also have the notable drop-outs of “Bluuwuu” by Digga D, “Regardless” by RAYE and Rudimental, “Love Not War (The Tampa Beat)” by Jason Derulo and Nuka, “Afterglow” by Ed Sheeran, “Prisoner” by Miley Cyrus featuring Dua Lipa, and finally, “Lemonade” by Internet Money and Gunna featuring Don Toliver and NAV. It seems like this week in particular is pushing out old hits to make way for the new, and that’s a great thing as far as I’m concerned.

In terms of notable fallers, there are a few as expected from having a lot of action at the top, as we have “Get Out My Head” by Shane Codd at #20, “Bringing it Back” by Digga D and AJ Tracey at #41, “Money Talks” by Fredo and Dave at #45, “Best Friend” by Saweetie featuring Doja Cat at #46, “telepatía” by Kali Uchis at #47, “You’re Mines Still” by Yung Bleu featuring Drake on the remix at #57, “Addicted” to Jorja Smith at #61 off of the debut, “DAYWALKER!” by Machine Gun Kelly featuring CORPSE not disappearing fast enough at #63, “Anxious” by AJ Tracey at #65, “34+35” by Ariana Grande at #71, “Good Days” by SZA at #72, “Heat” by Paul Woodford and Digga D at #74 and finally, “Toxic” by Digga D at #75. That’s before we take into account our album impacts from the last few weeks, as well, as for Central Cee, “Commitment Issues” is at #11, “6 for 6” is at #26 and “Day in the Life” is at #56. As for Drake, “What’s Next” is at #32, “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” featuring Rick Ross is at #33 and “Wants and Needs” featuring Lil Baby is at #44.

So, what’s filling in the cracks? Well, our one returning entry is the title track, “Chemtrails Over the Country Club”, from Lana Del Rey’s newest record back at #62. “Tulsa Jesus Freak” did actually chart below the top 75, so this and the debut for “White Dress” later on is all we’ll see from Lana this week. In terms of our notable gains, well, there’s not much to speak of other than the surge for Majestic’s remix of “Rasputin” by Boney M. up to #49 off of the debut, other than “Didn’t Know” by Tom Zanetti at #48, “Medicine” by James Arthur at #43, “Ferrari Horse” by D-Block Europe and RAYE at #30 and the expected album boost for “Hold On” by Justin Bieber up to #10. With all that said, we won’t be hearing from Justin for a while as we get onto our new arrivals for this week, so let’s start from the bottom.

NEW ARRIVALS

#68 – “Track Star” – Mooski

Produced by Woodpecker

Okay, so this is a song from last year from complete nobody rapper Mooski that got big in the US on TikTok a couple months ago so, no surprise, we get it sometime later. Well, at least this Mooski guy seems to at least want to tell a story here, as the song doesn’t stray far away from the topic of a woman with commitment issues who doesn’t stay with him when times get hard. For what it’s worth, content-wise, at least it’s a narrative, even if lyrics like, “Leave a trail of heartbreak and heartache like, it’s cool” sound closer to emo-rap whining than he probably intended. Not that it needed a narrative, because barely any songs can actually affectively tell them, but there’s got to be sometimes to distract from this squeaky, strained vocal loop and all of the janky melodies surrounding it, not to mention the downright awful 808s and percussion that reminds me more of the Afroswing we got on the charts back in 2018 than any trap-rap. Mooski himself is a complete non-presence, especially when he starts stuttering on the bridge, to the point where I can’t distinguish whether it’s totally embarrassing or subtly endearing. Either way, I can’t see myself listening to this like... ever outside of the context of this episode, especially considering how undeservedly long it is for a song like this.

#66 – “Beautiful Mistakes” – Maroon 5 featuring Megan Thee Stallion

Produced by Andrew Goldstein and blackbear

Adam Levine recently said that he misses the “bands” in pop music – you know, people who play all of their instruments and stuff like that. Then he continued to release a song under the name of his band where he swaps out more than half of his band with blackbear and Megan Thee Stallion. Of course. Well, you can tell it’s written by blackbear since Adam Levine directly imitates his staccato, monotonous flow in the first verse and the generally very awkward writing throughout... which is fine, I guess, because at least Levine isn’t stretching himself out into his falsetto much here, and Megan on auto-pilot can still carry her verse off of charisma alone, and her singing in the bridge sounds better than it ever has, so I’m not going to complain about her part here. The main issue in this song, I feel, is just lack of detail. The song’s about the lengths Adam and Megan would go for their significant others but I feel like only Megan attempts to describe what’s going on in these relationships as Adam plays word association with the concept. Adam, you can time-travel back to the Kara’s Flowers era any time now. Pop-punk is making a comeback, and I know you’d hate to not be a part of that, especially if you’re longing for new bands in pop music.

#59 – “Know You” – wewaintwraiths

Produced by Oath

I mean, I suppose I’ve heard worse names than “wewantwraiths” although after he buys a new car with the check his label gives him for the chart success of this song, he might want to change it. Maybe “nowwegotawraith”. That’s besides the point, though, as just as you’d expect, we have another week and hence another UK drill track that leaves little to no impact. This guy actually kind of makes himself out like a British Mooski, with his longing, Auto-Tuned flow that I don’t think he even tried to make sound good, especially considering how janky and unstructured the whole thing is. This drill beat is pretty worthless too, as whilst I don’t mind the mesh of vocal samples and the 808 slides, I cannot stand how this is mixed so that the hi-hats are louder than Mr. Wraiths himself. I don’t mind the content, to be honest, as it depicts him finding a girl and the eventual breakup in a lot of detail. By the end, he’s harmonising with the background vocals and there are a couple of cool synth riffs, but it’s way too little, too late to start caring about detail, especially if for the majority of the song, the percussion and vocals sound this bad.

#58 – “Dimension” – JAE5 featuring Skepta and Rema

Produced by JAE5

If you know JAE5, you probably know him for his production as for years, he has been blending genres for some of the most interesting and best British rap, most notably in how he fuses drill, R&B and Afrobeats as J Hus’ primary beat-maker. He also produced songs for Dave, Shakka and Burna Boy, which got him a Grammy win, as well as “Options” by NSG, one of the biggest ever British rap songs and still one of the most infectious. Now he’s embarking on a solo career less like a DJ Khaled and more like a Metro Boomin, bringing along legendary British rapper Skepta along for the ride, as well as an appearance from Nigerian singer Rema, whose wonderful nasal tone really stands out alongside all of the synth ambiance in this production, as well as the stuttering hi-hats and those gorgeous falsetto vocal samples. Skepta sounds pretty checked-out over a beat probably too smooth for him, which shifts over to some staccato piano, as well as some intricacies in this production that sound great, especially the jazzier touches that accentuate the already great groove with some Latin-flavoured guitar and strings. Oh, yeah and the subtle brass on Rema’s verse is excellent, even if Rema isn’t saying much of anything – in fact, content-wise is probably the only place where this song kind of flounders, as Skeppy zig-zags from socially conscious lyrics about Pan-Africanism and the plight that many Africans on and outside of the continent in day to day life, to “Girls sellin’ the coochie for Gucci”. Ah, well, ultimately, the song sounds incredible and I really should check out more of Rema’s stuff if it’s at this same level of detail. I’m pretty excited for that JAE5 album now, whenever that’s coming.

#51 – “White Dress” – Lana Del Rey

Produced by Lana Del Rey and Jack Antonoff

And from Afropop to the whitest singer currently charting this side of Taylor Swift, here’s what I suppose is the next single push from that Lana Del Rey that I practically avoided entirely. I understand that a lot of people are loving this but frankly, I’ve never been a fan so I’ve given up trying. If Norman Fricking Rockwell! couldn’t convert me, I don’t think her subsequent releases will, in fact, I can place a bet that listening to this whole album will make her music sour on me even more. Well, this song is about... being disillusioned with the music industry and public fame. I see. The implications that come with that aside, I have no reason to care about Lana once again breathily cooing over an ambiance that refuses to effectively create an atmosphere that really clicks with the nostalgia tone Lana’s lyrics take here, instead just meandering through this snooze of piano-based blend, only elevating itself through clashing percussion that ends up fading itself out of view way too quickly. Also, shouting out Kings of Leon feels both completely in character and unintentionally hilarious. At least as far as I’m aware, neither they nor the White Stripes, also name-dropped in the song, are blatantly racist on social media... I hope, at least.

#40 – “Headshot” – Lil Tjay, Polo G and Fivio Foreign

Produced by Bordeaux, Non Native, TnTXD, Tahj Money, Dmac and 101 Slide

So this really needs six producers, huh? For a song that’s barely two minutes? Okay, well, after the success of “Calling My Phone”, it only makes sense that Lil Tjay will follow up an R&B crooner with a harder rap cut, and here it is, and it kicks a lot of ass – or at least as much ass that can be kicked with the nasal, unconvincing tones all of these guys have. The main loop of the intimidating strings here, accentuated by that staccato piano melody, is the perfect backing for a hard-hitting trap beat that I almost wish had some more bombast outside of its badly-mastered 808 bass. That said, Polo G kills it regardless, with some of the most energy he’s ever given and the most lyrical detail out of any of the guys on the song, as his fast-paced flow is genuinely menacing... and now I understand why the song needs six producers, because as smoothly as possible, that cacophonous Pop Smoke-esque gunshot percussion comes in and it soon becomes an intense New York drill track more befitting for Fivio Foreign’s verse, who may not have any of the lyrical dexterity but he fills in the blanks with his ad-libs and still carrying the drill beat pretty well, before Lil Tjay comes in as intense as he ever has on a beat that reverts to the trap knock again, very smoothly. I do find it pretty odd that of all people here, Fivio has the longest verse, but I guess his verse is more of a bridge to act as a gap between two overwhelmingly gun-fire verses, both of which have content that can pretty much be summed up as gunplay and flexing, but with some of the bluntest, most deathly lyrics I’ve heard in rap, especially when Lil Tjay just pretty explicitly says he kills anyone he even dares to disrespect them. I’m now thinking I should delete the episode where I gave “Calling My Phone” Worst of the Week. Speaking of that song, this song is so much better it’s almost confusing. Maybe this high-energy gangsta-rap stuff is somehow a more convincing lane for an auto-crooner like Lil Tjay than alternative R&B.

#39 – “Black Hole” – Griff

Produced by LOSTBOY

Again, in stark contrast, Disney pop. Okay, maybe calling it Disney pop is misleading but the main reason Griff is succeeding now is that Disney Christmas advert, which gave her “Love is a Compass”, her first charting song – and a pretty bad one at that. This single, released this January, is a lot more upbeat than that drone of a ballad and hence fits Griff’s limited vocal capabilities a lot better, as she does a good Selena Gomez impression – almost good enough to forget that she’s now whispering over reggaeton so Griff will basically be her replacement in the UK – over some pretty indie-pop that decides to produce itself out of common sense... if that makes sense. The quirky strings and bass start the song before the percussion comes in and it makes sense as it rises pretty regularly, until this one dissonant, chamber-echo bassline comes in and morphs the entire song, only for it to disappear for the first chorus, but given how anti-climactic that first chorus is, there’s no build-up that makes that cathartic, at all... before it comes back in just to disturb the peace for the second chorus and verse. Not that the song’s mixed badly, particularly, I mean, “DAYWALKER!” had a similar discrepancy last week and did it much worse. In fact, I think this production being so awkward makes the song a lot more endearing as it just represent that “black hole” in the content that’s being left where Griff’s heart used to be – because, of course. I wish that chorus made a lot more of an impact though because as is, it feels very much lacking in stakes, both sonically and lyrically, especially since the song doesn’t really go into any detail about how she tries to fill the gap, which I think would be a lot more interesting. As is, I mean, it’s listenable but I don’t know for how long before this becomes grating. Regardless, it’s looking to become a hit so we’ll see how this goes. Maybe mindless bubblegum-indie-pop is what the nation needs right now. Who knows?

#24 – “As I Am” – Justin Bieber featuring Khalid

Produced by Skrillex, Ido Zmishiany, Josh Gudwin and The Monsters & Strangerz

Now we here. These two tracks that debuted are basically the most I’m hearing from this Justice record past the singles, so I was kind of hoping the tracks with Skrillex and Lil Uzi Vert would chart out of morbid curiosity, but it’s seemingly the more R&B-adjacent cuts that are debuting the highest, as Bieber teams up with Khalid for a piano ballad, as Bieber talk-sings over some overly processed instrumental that pretty much goes off the rails as soon as the guitars come in and suddenly, it’s not so much of a ballad as much as it is a janky EDM track. In fact, everything about this is janky, from the non-build-up that leads to a really ugly, almost future bass-like drop that’s just kind of funny in how those distorted synths career in the mix like accordions. Then Khalid comes in pretending to be British as always, and despite his worst efforts, he can’t really harmonise with someone as digitally processed as Bieber when he’s a genuinely soulful and damn good singer. At some point, Bieber just goes insane in the bridge and Khalid’s there to bring him back down to Earth, doing so by forcefully stripping the future bass away and rescuing themselves both back to the safety of a clipping piano instrumental. Yeah, this is ridiculously bad – almost in the way that it makes me want to hear the rest of the album – but I wouldn’t go as far to say it’s so bad it’s good, mostly because I’m pretty aware it’s a fluke in an album that’s otherwise pretty boring, at least going by the singles. Of course, speak of the Devil...

#3 – “Peaches” – Justin Bieber featuring Daniel Caesar and Giveon

Produced by Shndo and HARV

Finally, electroclash legend Peaches released her comeback single and it debuted at #3 on the UK Singles Chart – or, in reality, Justin Bieber’s milquetoast R&B imitation with two genuinely pretty good alternative R&B singers Justin coasts off of the skill and talent of, debuts at #3 because we’ve got nothing else to do as a country but sit, complain and stream sea shanties. I watched the video for this when it came out, again mostly out of morbid curiosity, and it’s kind of a comedic gem as Justin’s clearly the only one trying (because he doesn’t understand the concept of smooth, low-key R&B), making him feel so out of place when stuck between Caesar and Giveon. It’s like Hailey Bieber knew Justin was going to be lonely on his birthday so she paid the coolest kids in school to humour him for a couple minutes. In fact, that’s pretty much the song as they all croon pretty effortlessly over a smooth, pretty organic drum groove as well as this subtle synth blend... except Justin Bieber, of course, who tries his best to be a presence on a track where he’s literally supposed to be in the background. Thankfully, that’s not necessarily a complaint as this is Bieber’s best vocal performance in years, maybe ever, even if he’s immediately outshined by Caesar harmonising pretty excellently with his own multi-tracking, channelling the kind of neo-soul that people like Tyler, The Creator and Kali Uchis were making together half a decade ago. Giveon is here, also, but I’m not sure if he fits as well as synth-funk as he does on the moodier stuff. I know for damn sure that Sampha wouldn’t feature on a Bieber track, even if this is the most respectable Bieber’s been in forever. Admittedly, by the final chorus, it’s absolutely infectious – even if the lyrics are beyond stupid. The verses are about intimacy with their respective significant others, written in the most inoffensive, lovey-dovey way possible, but the chorus is about getting peaches from Georgia, weed from California, and bringing them alongside your wife to Canada to see the Northern Lights. Sure. If that final synth solo in the outro proves anything, it’s that this song should be great and just kind of falls flat due to lack of focus. That’s not to say the song isn’t good though, because I’ll be singing that chorus quietly to myself without realising it for the next week or so. Good job, Bieber.

Conclusion

Best of the Week is actually going to Justin Bieber for “Peaches” featuring Daniel Caesar and Giveon, if only to balance out the fact that he also gets Worst of the Week for “As I Am” featuring Khalid, what a trainwreck. Honourable Mention in that case pretty easily goes to “Headshot” by Lil Tjay, Polo G and Fivio Foreign, but even in a mixed bag week like this, Dishonourable Mention is kind of tough. There’s not a lot to outright dislike here, but I’ll give it to Mooski’s “Track Star” by default. With that said, here’s our top 10:

I can’t really make much prediction for next week other than the drowning out of all of this, although I can see “Peaches” absolutely having some legs. I can safely say Taylor Swift and Demi Lovato will end up here but I’m not as 100% on songs from 24kGoldn or Rod Wave’s albums landing. If the United Kingdom, currently collapsing under our feet, decides to make AJR’s new album chart, I say the Prime Minister gives permission for Scotland to leave while it’s still safe. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next week.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

I saw the new Star Wars movie, and I have a lot of Thoughts that it seems most people who have seen it haven’t had. So here there are in a VERY SPOILERY format under the cut. Please do not click if you haven’t seen the movie. Mostly I am just sad.

This is gonna be ramble. Just got back from the new Star Wars movie, and I'm still digesting it in my head, but I wanted to put my thoughts down because overall I think I came out of this movie really unhappy with it, and I want preserve my thoughts before I start reading other reviews or whatever. I didn't hate everything, but overall I left feeling unhappy. So, in no particular order:

Too many characters doing too many stupid/unimportant things. Lots of plots kind of everywhere, a lot of which just weren't interesting/felt tedious. Number 1 was the casino detour which was so stupid it hurts, and it amounted to nothing but a big waste of time. It gave Finn something to do, I guess, but it was really dumb. Maybe the betraying dude will come back at some point, but mostly that whole sequence left me twitching in my seat.

The whole movie felt like one of those movies where shit keeps happening just to fuck the situation up a little more so they have to keep running? It's a common theme in some movies and I absolutely hate it. The exit is clear and then suddenly EVENT happens and the exit is moved back five paces, then it happens again and again and again. It's a cheap and unrealistic way of building suspense, and gets absurd when you push it to the scale this movie did with people running from a planet to space ships, to smaller space ships, to another planet, to a door, to a tunnel, etc. It's just exhausting and tedious. It's not exciting, it's frustrating. And the longer everyone important to the plot lives through events like these, the less and less meaningful they are. Not that I want important people to die, but if they don't then there are literally no stakes. I don't care (much) about the secondary/background characters. Obviously I don't want the Rebels to all die, but when 20 ships are being picked off one-by-one and 19 of the ships have faceless background characters on them and one has all the main cast... there's just no fear. It's just tedium to get to the next sequence because I know everyone in the main cast is not about to be blown up.

Kylo Ren is such a fucking baby whiny manchild brat asshole dick. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS CHARACTER. I do not understand his motivations or why anyone likes him. His actor's choices for the role are also often mindboggling.  There were a few moments where he had some personality and interesting traits, but overall I just don't understand him. I cannot comprehend what went so terribly bad in his pampered little baby boy life that he got so seduced to the dark side by Snoke that he's totally down with killing his family, and also all these millions of Rebels. I just don't get it.  I don't get why he hates Luke with such a fiery passion, either.  Hating Luke I get, but the whole scene where he says FIRE EVERYTHING ON THAT MAN.... why? Why do you hate Luke so much? There's one scene where Luke maybe tried to kill him, and I get that was traumatizing for him. But, where did the fiery rage come from? I can make excuses for it, like Snoke convinced him Luke was some crazy asshole, or whatever. But it just doesn't make sense. That's just me making excuses for the movie's bad writing. There's no good explanation for why Kylo was so seduced so thoroughly. When you compare his upbringing to Anakin's, it's like a joke.  Anakin makes sense why he went to the Dark Side. We got a real understanding of his descent into the Dark Side and how he was seduced, and how he thought it was his only out/the only way he could protect people he loved/etc. There's none of that with Kylo.  Basically the only explanation is that he's a psychopath, and like... that could be okay? Some people are psychopaths. Hux is probably one.  But I don't think that's the interpretation we're meant to have for him. We're meant to think he's got light remaining and that he's redeemable, I just don't see how.

As he is he's just an utterly unlikable, nonredeemable character. Because he has no logical motivation for his petulant behavior, he's unsympathetic and since he's unsympathetic I can't root for his redemption. Even if he was turned to the light side, he'd still need to die for all the shit he's done. There's just no coming back from that. He's not a villain with shades of grey to him, he's just all black and that makes him really uninteresting to me.

Did they really need to kill off Luke like that? What an anticlimactic and unnecessary death. The stuff before it was interesting/cool, and the whole projection thing was very neat. I get why it would've exhausted him so much... but so much to the point of death... ehhhh. That seemed unnecessary. I suspect he'll be around as a Force ghost, but. Meh. It was very underwhelming after what was otherwise a cool fight sequence.

I'll never understand why they don't land their ships and things closer to their destination. Like the huge cannon thing, why not land it within immediate firing range? Why land 5 miles away?

Didn't need Rose randomly kissing Finn. Not sure where that was coming from? Was it just to try to drive a wedge into the Finn/Rey romance/relationship that seems way more natural and obvious? If it amounts to nothing then I guess whatever. She's a fangirl and was dying so whatever. But if it turns into a romance I'm gonna be seriously side-eyeing everything.

Overall there was too much happening and not enough down time. When I think about this compared to Empire Strikes Back, there's just no heart to it the way Empire had. This just has too many characters and kept trying to follow them all. They needed to focus on just Rey and Finn, with everyone else pivoting around them as secondary characters. Their reunion should've felt like Leia rescuing Han in RotJ. But instead we're following Poe (who is relevantly unimportant, I'm sorry, he just is) for huge parts of it, and what he's doing is largely uninteresting/tedious/boring because he's fighting in battles we are almost positive he won't die in, and causing trouble that we almost certainly know won't affect the major plot of the show. In fact, I'm almost positive if you removed most of Poe's solo scenes the movie would progress just fine on its own.

And instead of giving Finn something useful to do, they just sent him off on some illogical chase to some other planet to fuck around for a few hours? What? Why not just send everyone with him? Why not at least send as many people as could possibly fit onto that ship to get them to safety? Why not try to do more trips like that to other nearby planets?  If they could get to that casino world so easily in that ship why was it taking so long to get the other ships to that old rebel base planet?  Also, why didn't they fly the freighter into the Star Destroyer way earlier? Why was that not even a consideration? Why just let the Admiral die pointlessly when they could've planned from the start that after abandoning ship she'd fly it straight into the Star Destroyer? Why couldn't THAT have been the plan she was saving all along to tell Poe? And not wanting to tell him because he'd be angry about it, but it would've proven that she really was a capable, desperate war general and would've made a lot more sense that just having her sitting in her chair piloting (WHY IS SHE EVEN PILOTING??) the ship. How does that thing not have auto pilot? Aughhhh, that was all so stupid.

I don't know why everyone is frothy about the porgs. They were kind of cute when the first showed up, but got real old real fast. Overused. The salt dogs were much more interesting and way less gimmicky feeling.

We should've seen more of Leia's Force abilities prior to her flying through space.  Don't get me wrong, that was awesome, but I wanted to see more build up prior to that, or at least a few words somewhere that she'd had some Jedi training.

I did like how Snoke was the one orchestrating the link between Rey and Kylo, but I think it's absolutely moronic that Rey didn't tell Luke that she was having these visions/connections. How did she not think that was a *little* important?  I would've also liked to have seen more actual Jedi training for her. Lifting the X-Wing out of the water, running with Luke tied to her back, actually sparring with the lightsaber instead of just swinging it at a rock. I was so excited for her to meet Luke and train from him, but I feel like almost all of their time together was wasted. She wouldn't open up to him, and he wouldn't open up to her, and the training she got was sort of half-assed/stories. Some interesting moments, but just nothing really deep. (I also still think it's really dumb that the rebellion was depending SO MUCH on finding Luke that they based the whole first movie around finding the map to him, but once they finally found a way to him... they sent one random girl they'd just met. And Chewie. Why didn't they at least send a couple of people? Or at least someone Luke knew?)

Speaking of the previous movie, we got several scenes there that gave the impression that Rey was originally trained as a Jedi and witnessed Kylo's attack on the others. Didn't we? I distinctly remember a scene of her as a small child watching as a shadowy figure with a lightsaber attacked and her being abandoned on Jakku by her family. And I remember her reaction and visions when she touched Luke's lightsaber the first time. I'm TOTALLY FINE with her parents being nobodies (if that's even the truth), but it doesn't explain those visions. I'm totally fine with her naturally being awesome with the Force and I like the idea that as Kylo grew stronger in the Dark Side someone would grow equally strong in the Light Side, but I still feel like Rey needs more explanation for why she can do the things she can do. Maybe that'll be in the third movie, but I suspect we're just supposed to believe she naturally knows how to influence minds, sword fight and lift rocks, and I don't quite buy that.

I'm trying to think of more things I liked. Seeing Leia was wonderful. She's a hardcore badass, but of course it was tinged with a lot of sadness. I wanted a much better reunion between Luke and Leia and it's sad to know that even if she were alive we wouldn't get it because they decided to kill off Luke. I'm not opposed to Luke dying, but it didn't serve a really big purpose. Just bought them a bit of time to escape from a retarded situation they put themselves into... Wait, sorry I'm complaining again.

Ugh, I dunno. Everything I'm thinking about is annoying me. Yoda's scene was weird. Can he just show up whenever? Why then? Why not during a more important moment? The way he talked made it seem like he hadn't seen Luke in a long time, but showing up then just seemed random since he didn't stop Luke from destroying the Jedi books.

A whole host of native nuns living on that tiny island was kind of weird/unnecessary.

Ugh, I dunno. Overall I just wanted a more streamlined story, following the main character, where shit *actually happens*.  Other than Kylo killing Snoke, almost nothing happened in this movie. The rebels moved from one location to another taking ridiculously huge casualities and killing some Imperials too, and that's about it. I think the whole movie took less than a week. (Gotta love their magical time travel.)

The visuals were stunning, and it was great to see some characters interacting again, but a much better story would have involved the rebels escaping to a small base, having some quiet down time with just our main cast all together (Rey, Finn and Leia, maybe Poe), and following them as they went as a group together to confront Kylo (or vice versa). Spreading everyone out in varying storylines did no service to the story, and weakened it a lot in Finn and Poe's case because their stories weren't interesting.  Rey's was the only interesting storyline and should've been the main/central one, but it felt quite sidelined at times.

The Force Awakens wasn't perfect, but it definitely felt better written, with much better pacing and characterizations than whatever this was.  I felt like this was just really jagged and poorly put together, with lots of superfluous/time filling scenes, many of which went on for way too long.  I constantly felt bored, thinking, "Get back to the main plot!" while I'm watching yet another pointless space battle.

I'm really sad/diappointed. I love Star Wars. I was so pumped and ready for this movie, and I just don't think I liked it. I can't see myself settling into excitedly rewatch this the way I could other Star Wars movies. There's just no heart in this one for me. It's almost all empty action.

Ugh. Convince me I'm wrong.

City of Stupid

by Dan H

Monday, 06 October 2008

Dan "reviews" Cassandra Clare's City of Bones

I'd like to start this review (which like most Ferretbrain reviews will actually be more of an extended ramble and will involve strong spoilers from the outset) by citing a quote from the last page of City of Bones (told you there'd be spoilers) which I think perfectly highlights the problem I have with Urban Fantasy: 

"And there it was spread out before her like a carelessly opened jewellery box, this city more populous and more amazing than she had ever imagined: There was the emerald square of central park, where the faerie courts met on midsummer evenings; there were the lights of the clubs and bars downtown, where the vampires danced the nights away at Pandemonium; there the alleys of Chinatown down which the Werewolves slunk at night, their coats reflecting the city's lights. There walked warlocks in all their bat-winged, cat-eyed glory; and here, as they swung out over the river, she saw the darting flash of multicoloured tails under the silvery skin of the water, she shimmer of long, pearl-strewn hair and heard the high, rippling laughter of the mermaids."

Now I freely admit that this is a personal bugbear, but it actually kind of pisses me off that in order for the good Miss Clare to find any sense of wonder in the city of New York she has to imagine that it's full of cheap, derivative White Wolf characters.  Repeat after me, Urban Fantasy writers: vampires do not make the world more interesting. Werewolves do not make the world more interesting. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter.  Anyway, onto the book. By the way, this gets kind of incoherent. This is because reading City of Bones has actually caused me to suffer physical brain damage. 

First Things First: The Harry Potter Connection  I really, honestly, didn't want to do this. I spent the first half of the book saying "no, it's just because you know she was from that fandom, just because the villain's got an agenda of racial purity, a name beginning with V, and a secret society backing him up which he started when he was in high school, that doesn't mean it's not still an original work of fiction."  Then it turned out that the scruffy, bookish older character, who had a crush on the heroine's mother and while never popular at school had managed to find his way into a clique of popular kids and was very pleased about it was a fucking werewolf. His name is "Lucian," by the way.  In short: it's a Harry Potter AU in which Lily married Voldemort and gave birth to Draco and Hermione, while Remus Lupin hung around looking sad.  Okay, it doesn't map exactly: the Voldemort-analogue's Death-eater-analogue seems to have started out as more of a Marauders-analogue, and the Dumbledore-analogue appears to have been part of the group as well. There are enough parallels, however that if you're already aware of where the author started off you just can't stop making comparisons.  Although Mr Not-Lupin was my breaking point, it's the villain that really strikes me as being a bit similar to a certain well known figure from a certain well known series. His name is Valentine (that's his first name, by the way, his last name is Morgenstern). Everybody starts the book thinking he's dead. Many years ago he started a war which nearly tore apart the Shadowhunter World, and although he was defeated people still fear his return. His rise to power relied on a sinister organisation which he founded at the age of fucking seventeen. Oh, and of course he's dedicated to an agenda of racial purity, and talks about blood all the time.  So, yeah. Bit familiar really.  And I never thought I'd say this, but the difference between Valentine and Voldemort is that Voldemort actually works (at least until the point where he gets resurrected and starts acting like a muppet). In a children's series set in a boarding school, you can accept the idea that the path to world domination begins in the sixth form. In a Young Adult series set in actual New York you really can't.  But that's enough about Why It's A Bit Like Harry Potter, because it really is too easy.  Style, Plot and Pacing: Full Tilt to Nowhere  It has been said that Drama is real life with the boring bits taken out. This is almost certainly true, for a reasonably strict definition of the "boring bits". Certainly I wouldn't want to watch a drama that was actually, genuinely shot in real time, with hour long scenes of the characters doing housework or playing World of Warcraft (note that 24 in no way counts as "shot in real time," it's just a 24-episode drama series that happens to give its episodes numbers for titles). However it's important to recognise that there are lots of bits which don't count as boring, and which good drama leaves in. Things like establishing character, laying the groundwork for your plot, and having lines of dialogue that aren't fucking one-liners.  City of Bones is real life with all the bits that don't involve people being actively awesome taken out. So the dialogue consists entirely of characters exchanging pithy quips or heated emotional outbursts, the action judders from fight to explosion to exposition without passing through anything in the middle. Our esteemed editor gave up on the book on page 63 when she got to the "Jace on the Piano" scene, I very nearly gave up on the book about a hundred pages later when it was revealed that Clary's mother had been married to Valentine.  I'm just going to let that paragraph hang there for a bit.  Hopefully you're now thinking "hold on Dan, why did you find that so annoying, are you going to explain to us why we should care about this, or are you just going to leave it there with no context or explanation."  Which is exactly how I felt about that scene.  Valentine, in case you've already forgotten (and to be honest I wouldn't blame you) is the racially motivated villain of Clare's totally original fantasy world. By page one-hundred-and-whatever we know bugger all about the guy except that he's the Designated Villain of this particular secondary creation. He apparently started a (totally original) war a few years ago in an attempt to purge the world of non-humans, and everybody thought he was dead but maybe he isn't dum dum dummmmm!  The problem is that the only thing that Valentine has done so far is maybe not be dead and possibly be implicated in abducting Clary's Mother because he's maybe looking for a thing called the Mortal Cup. It's sort of like having the "I Am Your Father" scene in Star Wars take place before the destruction of Alderaan. We find out that Jocelyn (Clary's mother and before you ask, no, nobody in this entire book has a name that isn't stupid) was married to Valentine before we really find out why we should give a shit about either of them (insofar as we ever do).  Incidentally our esteemed editor has pointed out that, tellingly, the moment she gave up on the book was the moment that made it bad romance, while the moment I gave up on it was the moment that made it bad fantasy. Make of that what you will.  Anyway, the basic plot is that there's this waste of space called Valentine who started a totally original war about sixteen years ago, and who is now looking for a thing called the Mortal Cup because he wants to create an army of Shadowhunters to wipe out the Downworlders (non humans to you and me) and safeguard the world from demons for all time.  There's a couple of things I'd like to say about that.  Firstly: Bored. So bored.  Secondly: Apart from the fact that he's Designated Evil, what exactly is wrong with this plan? Half the Downworlders we meet actually are horrifically dangerous and actually do kill people. It's not unreasonable to suggest that they should be dealt with, and the idea of making more Shadowhunters is actually a really good one. But Valentine is evil so, whatevs.  Anyway, in order to safeguard the Mortal Cup from Valentine they for some unfathomable reason have to go on a long CRPG quest where they talk to people, who send them to talk to other people, who help them to unlock Clary's Super Special Self Insert Memories which apparently contain the Key to Everything. After about five chapters of "now you must go here, now you must go here, now you must go to a party with a gay warlock" they finally find out that actually her memories will come back on their own, she just has to give them time, and also the magic feather isn't really magic and it was just her all along.  Sorry, I'm actually boring myself writing this.  So then there's a filler chapter where they have to rescue one of the supporting cast from vampires and another filler chapter where the vampires are attacked by werewolves and Jace and Clary go flying on a vampire motorbike. Then there's some angst and drama, then they go get the Mortal Cup because Clary realises that she's known where it was all along, but only she has the power to retrieve it because zomg special. Then there is Betrayal! Then there is Exposition! Then eventually the fucking thing ends and I can go back to doing something more interesting like unblocking our waste disposal unit.  The final revelation of the book is that not only was Valentine married to Clary's mother but that he was also her father. The book seems to expect me to be surprised at this, but given that her real father was supposed to have died before she was born leaving no personal effects whatsoever or any evidence that he'd ever existed and since, true to form, Shadowhunters never marry Mundanes (because what would somebody who isn't Teh Speshul possibly have to bring to a relationship) anybody with half a brain has already worked out that Clary's father is probably her mother's husband.  But! It also turns out that Valentine is Jace's father, having faked both his and Jace's death, and assumed the identity of Michael Wayland (one of his followers, who he killed) in order to evade detection. Then he faked his death a second time and sent Jace to live at the Institute. The institute which is full of photographs of the real Michael Wayland, and of Valentine, which Jace somehow never recognised. This final whammy ends in a classic exchange that goes something like this: 

"But, the Wayland ring-" "Ah yes," said Valentine, looking at Jace's hand, where the ring glittered like snake scales. "The ring. Funny isn't it how an M worn upside down resembles a W."

No. No it fucking doesn't, you moron. For a start it's a ring, and rings are fucking circular. You can't wear it "upside down" because people look at your hand from different angles. And what the hell kind of family crest is it that's just the first letter of your freaking surname with no context or decoration? Where the hell did that come from, My First Heraldry Kit? And why didn't the people at the institute, most of whom were your former allies, recognise your family crest? And why didn't you just have him wear the actual insignia of the family you were pretending to be from you stupid, derivative stock villain?  In short the plot is stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. The pacing is shot to hell, full of scenes that seemed like a cool idea at the time, or which only exist to showcase some part of the setting. It's full of cheap shortcuts and copouts and unadulterated nonsense.  "Characterisation." You Notice I Used Sarcastic Quote Marks  There isn't any. I'm really sorry to come back to the fanfic thing again, but the fact is that the only way to get sense of personality from any of the characters in the damned book was to assume that they were their Harry Potter analogues and work from there.  That's right guys. This book makes Harry Potter look like a thoughtfully constructed work of character-driven drama. While Voldemort's actions frequently seem at odds with his alleged motivation (if he's so afraid of death, why does he treat his Horcruxes so carelessly, if he cares so little for life, why doesn't he kill the heroes when he gets the chance?) at least I know that he's supposed to have some kind of reason for his actions. Valentine on the other hand just feels like a puppet going through the motions of villainy in order to provide the story with some semblance of direction.  Then there's Jace. Who. Never. Says. Anything. That. Isn't. A. One. Liner. And okay, I know that part of the deal is that he's been so terribly hurt that he can't allow himself to have normal feelings which is why his love for Clary is so special but fuck that. "Makes constant wisecracks" is not a psychologically realistic portrayal of an emotionally scarred teenager, it's a cheap bit of sub-Buffy wish fulfilment. Towards the climax of the book they face an honest to god Demon Lord and he actually gives it sass.  Look, it really is very simple. Your readers take their cues from your characters. If you show us a scene in which your protagonists fight a Big Scary Demon and they act like it Isn't Scary At All, then we, the readers will assume that the Big Scary Demon is in fact Not Scary At All. If your characters are unimpressed by your world, it doesn't make the character look cool, it makes the world look unimpressive. Those who are following in their textbooks will find this principle outlined in Chapter One under the heading "Show Don't Tell, Dumbass."  Let's see, who else is actually in this turd of a novel? There's Alec, who is gay and Isabelle, who is his sister, who wears thigh high boots and carries a whip, and has hair "nearly the precise colour of black ink". Leaving aside the fact that the description makes her sound like the World of Warcraft Succubus her main function in the book is to be theoretically sexy but only enough to make the quiet, unselfconscious beauty of Clary to look special by comparison.  Then there's Hodge, who betrays everybody, which would come as more of a shock if I had the slightest grip on his personality beyond "well he's probably a bit like Dumbledore but I don't know really".  And that's it. Jesus Christ there are only about eight characters in the entire fucking book, you'd think one of them might have had some semblance of an identity. You would have thought wrong.  Unanswered Questions: Who Runs This Idiot World?  So, how did Jace not recognise that his father looked like Valentine, and not like the man who was actually supposed to be his father?  Why, if the only way to get more Shadowhunters is for them to be born to existing Shadowhunters, or for them to be made with the Mortal Cup (at a terrible risk) why the fuck don't Shadowhunters ever marry Mundanes?  Why isn't the Clave doing anything?  How did Valentine manage to put together a world-dominating secret conspiracy at the age of seventeen?  What's so fucking special about Clary?  Why is saving the world being left in the hands of five teenagers?  Are there really two more books in this series?  Why didn't I do the sensible thing and stop reading on page 114? 

Themes: Books, Sci-fi / Fantasy, Young Adult / Children, Cassandra Clare

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Comments (go to latest)

Wardog at 16:24 on 2008-10-09

You make me so damn glad I stopped reading at page 63. So. Damn. Glad.

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Wordless at 07:05 on 2009-11-10

I could've realized something when i noticed that the people who positively reviewed the series were a) Stephenie Mayer and b) Cassandra's close friends. To be honest I was a bit suspicious when Holly Black referred to her as "Cassie". but my main issue is this: 

Why, if the only way to get more Shadowhunters is for them to be born to existing Shadowhunters, or for them to be made with the Mortal Cup (at a terrible risk) why the fuck don't Shadowhunters ever marry Mundanes?

Why, if the only way to get more Shadowhunters is for them to be born to existing Shadowhunters, or for them to be made with the Mortal Cup (at a terrible risk) why the fuck don't Shadowhunters ever marry Mundanes?

Are Shadow Hunters...sterile? Obviously not, since Jocelyn had two children and both are successful shadow hunters....noting one even has "special powers" from them doing the nasty. Sooo what's the issue then? I pondered this for a good fat chunk of the book until i came to: "Sure," Jace said "But we haven't had the cup for years now, and a lot of us die young. So our numbers slowly dwindle." "Aren't you, uh..."Clary searched for the right word."reproducing?"....(skin a bunch of irrelevant ramble)"Sure he said."we love reproducing. It's one of our favourite things." okay heres the thing using the shadow cup 20% success rate, doing the old-fashioned ovaries and sperm route-about the same thing.So whats the point? I mean going after valentine would just kill the few shadow hunters they have and so why bother? Apparently seeing as everyone's doing like they do on the discovery channel let him have the cup. but this issue was left abandoned instead pursuing the predictable Jace heritage. in short i was bored and sickened....and confuzled but much later. After my feet stopped cramping.

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Wordless at 07:52 on 2009-11-12

Also the werewolves....*sigh*the werewolves...These are supposed to be human well at least half human. so I don't understand how sentient beings would kill each other for leadership of the pack. Really...that set evolution back at least a hundred years. Aleast. I mean even in the wild though male wolves fight they don't KILL each other...because that would be stupid. okay sure I'm taking some liberties but seriously when i read that i was like WTF.

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Shim at 13:15 on 2009-11-12

Actually, although I agree it seems kind of sad she can't find wonder in the city as it is - to me the most grating thing is that the "wonder" in America is all European. I'm just about willing to buy werewolves (being basically human) and even vampires, although I don't like the modern twist on vampires anyway. But mermaids in the rivers in ANY city? Easily visible? Not flippin' likely given the pollution, tidal barrages and so on you get. However, I'd like to reserve my major anger for the "faerie courts in Central Park". All fey-based mythology I know of has them inhabiting a kind of overlapping reality, usually underground or in magical hills or whatever, and rarely having any contact with humans. There's no reason for them to up sticks en masse and move to America. Especially given that in a world where this stuff is real, America would be quite full enough of the indigenous fantastic races like Baykok or Ishigaq or Kushtaka (all of which I just looked up; what do I know about Native American mythology? still more than CC, apparently). Or does she imagine the Faerie imitated their mortal cousins and had their own little genocide?

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C J Morgan at 17:03 on 2009-11-12

Or does she imagine the Faerie imitated their mortal cousins and had their own little genocide?

Now there is a story I would read. ...or write. *adds to list of ideas*

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Dan H at 23:58 on 2009-11-12

Hi guys, sorry for the lack of commentage, blame NaNoWriMo

okay heres the thing using the shadow cup 20% success rate, doing the old-fashioned ovaries and sperm route-about the same thing.So whats the point?

To be fair, presumably natural born Shadowhunters have about a thirteen year period where they're just kids, so the cup would be a better way to build an army *fast*. Of course Valentine does not in fact *do* this.

I’ve had this in my drafts for maybe four months now - I have no idea where the original thing is because it’s been so long oops

Do they sleep with a stuffed animal? If they have multiple, who’s the favorite?

Yeah - an overstuffed teddy bear that is starting to go bald. Her dad gave him to her after she broke her arm when she was 10, and she’s slept with Teddy almost every night since

Can they take care of a plant? What about a pet? What about a child?

Ehhhh. She’d like to. She has dreams of a vegetable garden. But she has a bit of a black thumb/horrible memory so she can never remember if she has or hasn’t watered them. She has two cats - Crookshanks and Data (yes, after that Data), and while she’s not the tidiest with them (cat hair. everywhere.), they are extremely loved. Kids.... Ech. Maybe.

Ask them to describe their love interest.

Silly trait she’d like, but she doesn’t require: tall enough to help her get things off the top shelf lol. They’d watch her stupid disaster movies with her, they’d love her cats, listen to her ramble... And like driving. Sometimes that’s silly, but sometimes it’s a legitimate thing and she just can’t drive. (i’m rly bad at describing this? so basically like, Jess and Faith and a dash of Staci lol)

Do they look good in red?

Yep. She hates wearing it though - she feels like she stands out way too much.

Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech! Will they give one, and what about?

While she’d rather not, she has gotten good at motivating the resistance members. At the end, she gives a speech thanking the other survivors of the helicopter crash, and to memorialize those who were lost.

Who will they take advice from, no matter what it is? Who won’t they take advice from, no matter what it is?

She will honestly take advice from most people, even the  Seeds. She had a few people back in Los Angeles that she would ignore even good avice from, but that was more her being stubborn than anything.

Describe them in three words. Now let them describe themself in three words.

Aaah. Okay. I’m horrible at these types of things lol.  Me: Colorful. Loud. Snarky/sassy/cant-keep-her-mouth-shut-to-save-her-life. I’m going to cheat a bit and say she says the same things, just with angler in there instead of loud. She doesn’t think she’s loud. At all. But she is.

Do complex puzzles intrigue or frustrate them?

Intruge and frustrate - she loves puzzles. But she’s horrible at them. She can do literal like 2000 piece puzzles, but puzzle games? Nope.

Do they empathize with non-sentient things (dolls, plants, books…)?

Absolutely. She used to have a roomba - it died right before she moved and she gave it to her brother to see if he could fix it, but she was one of those people who had named her roomba (it was Peaches - the irony of Staci and the cougar is not unnoticed) and all of her technology. She had a hard time getting rid of books when she moved because she was so attached to them lol - they’re sitting in boxes in her sister’s old room now, waiting for her to have time to unpack everything.

What age do they most want to be right now?

21 - she was never a partier, but it was her favorite year of college. It was before her friend group had a massive falling-out (part of the reason none of them have checked up on her after communications were cut - they were all cordial again, but nobody really was reaching out to anybody from the old group), and before she had to fully join the real world.

After that, probably 10 - her dad would still be alive.

They’ve won the lottery. Spend, or save?

Spend a bit, save the rest - maybe buy out her uncle’s apartment, pay her brother’s rent for a few months (he’d be too stubborn to let her buy him a place), fix up her place the rest of the way, then throw the rest in a bank account until she was ready to retire.

Do they like romance in the books they read (or in the book they’re in)?

If it’s well done and a healthy relationship, yes. She doesn’t read too much fiction, though, so... It usually isn’t applicable.

Name one thing their parents taught them.

For useless things? Different ship classifications in Star Wars and Star Trek. It’s never really come in handy outside of bar trivia and debates with her friends….  For something useful? Her mom taught her the NATO phonetic alphabet.

Would they agree with the term ‘guilty pleasure’? Do they have any?

She 100% unashamedly loves shitty disaster movies. Most of the things she enjoys aren’t a guilty pleasure, but.. Then there’s the bodice ripper novels. She won’t let anyone know she reads those.

What would they consider a waste of time– other than school or work?

I can’t think of anything serious lol, so: listening to Hurk Sr talk. She hates him, but the feeling is totally mutual.

If money wasn’t a limit, what would they wear?

Pretty much the same thing she wears now, honestly. She might spring for more expensive shoes though - aside from her work boots, the most she’ll spend on shoes is $100.

Do they like children?

In groups? Nooope. Individual kids? Sure. As a concept? Sometimes. She has complicated feelings about kids lol

Kissing: tongue or no tongue?

Both

Do they study before tests? Practice before job interviews?

Yes and no - she was always good at testing, but she’s shit at job interviews.

What do they like that nobody else does?

In Hope County, it seems like small, eco-friendly cars sometimes. She still misses her little Fiat - it was mint green and she loved it, but she sold it when she moved.

What would it take for them to break up with someone? What would be the last straw?

Uuuuuuh well - being a Peggie is a pretty big no-no. As is being abusive, physically or mentally, a bigot, or if they hurt or threaten to hurt her cats.

Do they like being called pet names? Do they call other people pet names? What’s their go-to?

It depends on the person for both, as do the go-to names. She calls people babe a lot, but that’s not necesarrily a romantic pet name (it’s usually Sharky getting called babe, and he loves it)

Stability or novelty?

Stability

Honesty or charity?

Honesty

Safety or possibility?

Safety

Talent or effort?

Effort

Forgiveness or vengeance (or…

...Yes.

Would they date a fixer-upper?

Yes.

What recurring dreams do they have?

For nightmares: The car crash. Bears. There’s this one with a giant that she doesn’t remember much about but the fact that it’s a giant and she always wakes up sweating.

Normal dreams: her family’s back together. She has a bunch of cats.

What would they do if they knew it would be forgiven?

Lie. About different things, usually, but she’d lie more.

Survey...thing

Okay so this is gonna be a bit weird. I came across this copypasta survey thing and thought it looked interesting judging by the first question. Had no clue of it's true length and I've been just kinda rambling on for close to 2 hours now. This tumblr has possibly the lowest traffic in recorded history, so I shouldn't have to worry about too many eyes stumbling across this. At least I hope. Eh, oh well, whatever, here it is.

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 3. - Good machines don't guarantee success, though, as RCA and Xerox and others had discovered. (The Soul of A New Machine, Tracy Kidder)

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can, What can you touch? - The wall and pillows.

3. Before you started this survey, what were you doing? - Browsing the internet after pulling an all-nighter due to insomnia and painful recollections of past mistakes.

4. What is the last thing you watched on TV? - 'The West Wing' on Netflix

5. Without looking, guess what time it is: - Eight fucking A.M.

6. Now look at the clock. What is the actual time? - 8:03 AM. End me.

7. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear? - A desk fan and the faint sound of traffic

8. When did you last step outside? What were you doing? - A few days ago, to pick up an old iMac off Craigslist

9. Did you dream last night? - No.

10. Do you remember your dreams? - On average, no. Sometimes a decent one lingers, though.

11. When did you last laugh? - I honestly have no idea.

12. Do you remember why / at what? - Not at all. Probably just a passing chuckle at something I read somewhere.

13. What is on the walls of the room you are in? - Various posters, most either from Club Nintendo or Nintendo Power, along with a few more obscure ones.

14. Seen anything weird lately? - Plenty.

15. What is the last film you saw? - All the way through? I, uh, honestly couldn't say...I have a habit of just watching bits and bobs of films I like over and over again, usually to just take in detail or just to confirm a stray thought or something. If that's the case, then Star Wars w/the theatrical mono track. If an *entire* film, then probably Aliens a month or so back.

16. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live? - Small suburban town a few miles out from some city in some state, preferably more northern than where I am now. Countryside of Oregon seems nice.

17. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy? - Probably just save it all and try to coast on it for the rest of my life.

18. Tell me something about you that most people don’t know. - the fuck is this copypasta quiz? Er, well, nobody really *knows* me so just any facet of trivia about my life would do, I guess. I'm really, *really* obsessed with EPCOT even though I've never been and I haven't even visited Disney World since 2002. I genuinely have a copy of every pavilion and attraction's soundtrack from Future World burned to CDs sitting in my car right now, and if I had to pick favorites, Horizons and Communicore get the most play time.

19. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do? - Give everyone some common sense and a better sense of care towards others. That would ((hopefully)) end a majority of conflict out there.

20. Do you like to dance? - Not really. Haven't danced since my sister's wedding back in '09. Yep, even missed prom, not that I really care.

21. Would you ever consider living abroad? - Maybe if it's like Japan or somewhere with similar power standards...I couldn't make it a month in Europe and it's 240v mains standard. My life hinges too much on tech.

22. Does your name make any interesting anagrams? - Never really thought of it. Probably not.

23. Who made the last incoming call on your phone? - ...my mother, a few days ago. I only have my immediate family's numbers saved. Not like anyone would ever really want to call me.

24. What is the last thing you downloaded onto your computer? - Some shitty (what I presume) in-ride recording of Horizons I wanted to play around with in an audio editor to get a decent loop or two out of...before I realized YouTube had better resources for that.

25. Last time you swam in a pool? - Years. I used to love swimming all the time when I was younger (weather permitting; my skin goes from moonlight pale to lobster red faster than it takes to boil an egg on the sun). Heck, I don't think I still have any trunks that fit anymore...

26. Type of music you like most? - Normally I'd say 70s/80s rock/pop, but I haven't listened to much outside of, er, soundtracks the past few months.

27. Type of music you dislike most? - Either country or EDM/dubstep/whatever. I can't stand singers in country, it's so painfully obvious they're forcing their voices to have this bogus accent, and dubstep/electro whatever is just screeching garbage that sounds worse than playing a data cassette through a walkman. 

28. Are you listening to music right now? - No, I was trying to go to sleep earlier, now I'm just laying with a laptop sitting 2 feet from my face listening to the fan whir.

29. What color is your bedroom carpet? - Beige

30. If you could change something about your home, without worry about expense or mess, what would you do? - Expand the floorspace somehow. If where was an extra bedroom, a lot of storage problems would be solved. (lot of books and furniture. Takes up a lot of space.)

31. What was the last thing you bought? - iMac G3 off craigslist.

32. Have you ever ridden on a motorbike? - nope

33. Would you go bungee jumping or sky diving? - I tried zip-lining once. Nearly broke my hands and fell 30+ feet into a ~40 degree lake. High-flying stunts ain't my thing.

34. Do you have a garden? - No, but I (as in my family) used to years ago. It was nice.

35. Do you really know all the words to your national anthem? - Yes, thanks 4kids /s

36. What is the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning? - why am I still here

37. If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? - Steve Wozniak, but my brain's so fried from exhaustion so often I'd probably royally fuck that lunch up.

38. Who sent the last text message you received? - My sister a few days ago. By mistake. Wrong "Andrew".

39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? - If I had one and if I was stupid enough to max one out, definitely 100% my local game store, The Video Game Cavern.

40. What time is bed time? - My life is in such shambles that a bed time isn't even a functioning concept in my life. It's whenever I pass out.

41. Have you ever been in a beauty pageant? - I'm a guy, so, no.

42. How many tattoos do you have? - None. I'm a total square.

43. If you don’t have any, have you ever thought of getting one? - Nah. Being broke + being a bear = never even a passing thought.

44. What did you do for your last birthday? - Nothing iirc. Had classes (then), didn't have that fancy a dinner, and just crashed that night.

45. Do you carry a donor card? - Can't be due to [insert some crap about bad bloodline]

46. Who was the last person you ate dinner with? - Ha. Ha. ha...

47. Is the glass half empty or half full? - depends on how the water got into the cup.

48. What’s the farthest-away place you’ve been? - Ohio. eh

49. When’s the last time you ate a homegrown tomato? - Not a fan of tomatoes. I think my dad still grows some during the summer (not a full garden, just like 3 veggie plants he tends in the flower beds)

50. Have you ever won a trophy? - Not really

51. Are you a good cook? - Well I haven't burned anything or cut myself yet so maybe.

52. Do you know how to pump your own gas? - Yes

53. If you could meet any one person whose deceased, who would it be? - You know, I never really thought about something like this. Honestly, not as much 'meet' but more of just have a good long talk with, my grandfather. He passed when I was 8, so I never got to really *know* him that well. I've learned more about him from his service papers than being around him a lot when I was young. So yeah, that.

54. Have you ever had to wear a uniform to school? - Lol yep in middle school, uniform and enforced dress code. Everyone hated it back then, however since it was a small school in a massive district I never kept up with anyone afterwards so I can't speak for them, but I actually adopted practices from that dress code. Belt and polo not so much, but always wearing a nice shirt and keeping it tucked in, yeah. I've dressed that way every single day since then.

55. Do you touch-type? - Yep, but I'm weird and don't use the normal home-row hand layout thing. I can type proficiently, it just looks sloppy af

56. What’s under your bed? - A lot of junk. Binder of Gen 1 Pokemon cards, a case of cassettes, stack of old model railroading magazines, old busted up laptop, some blank paper.

57. Do you believe in love at first sight? - HA. Ha. ha......

58. Think fast, what do you like right now? - warmth. seriously, it's cold and my blanket is doing nothing.

59. Where were you on Valentine’s day? - Home, all day, doing pretty much nothing. just a typical day.

60. Life motto: - I don't really have a motto but if I want to be sappy I'd just lift the one from Horizons: "If we can dream it, we can do it" but I have no dreams and I literally do nothing

61. What was the name of your first pet? - I named all my fish once, but I was 5, so I'll just skip to my first cat. 'Whiskers'. Very imaginative.

62. Do you like to go camping? - Yes. I miss it. My sister and brother-in-law used to take me camping all the time years ago...but they've since settled down, had kids, and haven't done anything like that in a while. Meanwhile I'm broke, have no gear, no friends or anything like that so I can't do jack shit about camping.

63. Is there anything going on this weekend? - Not really. Just working on that iMac I keep mentioning

64. Do you have any nicknames? - Not really. Only thing that could vaguely qualify is 'swiss', the first word of my normal username everywhere else. Which is ironic since I'm 100% not Swiss.

65. Who is your favorite musician/band? - Genesis, Collins era. aaaaaaaaaaaaaand I've just earned myself a beating.

66. What time do you get up in the morning? - I STILL HAVEN'T EVEN SLEPT YET

67. Do you wear pajamas when you sleep? - usually. just a t-shirt and pj bottoms.

68. What is the first thing people notice about you? - dunno. don't really interact with enough people to notice anything

69. What is the last movie that you saw at the cinema? - err, probably Ghostbusters. The original, not the new one. They re-released it briefly in promotion of the new one. Fucking loved the new transfer and audio mix, blew the earlier (2014 30th anniversary edition screening) out of the water.

70. Do you sing in the shower? - Nah, I prefer the sound of running water

71. What do you do most when you are bored? - browse the internet, die a little on the inside. whatever's left, at least

72. What do you do for a living? - eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

73. Do you love your job? - EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

74. Which came first the chicken or the egg? - the egg because evolutilkjoirwjga;slkdfja;lkgja;eruhmynf;djva;n

75. How many keys on your key ring? - 3

76. Are you close with your parents? - physically too close, emotionally, further than the moons around jupiter. though that can be said about many things.

77. What kind of car do you drive? - Pontiac Grand Prix. Jumped through freaking hoops the past half a year just to be able to drive it since the damn title was stuck in limbo since March 2016. Just got the tag for it a week ago.

78. What are your best physical features? - people comment on my hair and eyes a lot so those, I guess

79. What are your best characteristics? - oh god. Well, guess you can say I'm determined. Like how I keep on with this survey even though I only thought it was like 20 questions long, not 100 or so. Also you could probably punch me in the face and I'd be the one apologizing.

80. What was the name of your favorite teacher? - Ms. Hamm

81. Where did you grow up? - At this point I've spent most of my life in this hell hole, so Greenville, SC. wait, fuck

82. How far away from your birthplace do you live now? - err somewhere around 300 to 400 miles. Essentially really just one state away.

83. Can you do any impressions? - I've perfected an impression of a sad sack of shit living in emotional isolation stuck in a permanent state of panic

84. Are you a morning person or a night owl? - Night owl by far

85. Can you touch your nose with your tongue? - No, ew

86. Can you close your eyes and raise your eyebrows? - kinda, yeah

87. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? - I couldn't be more of introvert if I lived in a literal hole in the ground

88. What is your best childhood memory? - driving a golf cart up a tree. Don't ask me how, but I somehow managed that when I was like 6. And by tree I mean massive pine. And by up it I literally mean the thing was hanging 5 feet off the ground on a branch.

89. What are some of the different jobs that you have had in your life? - (Re: 72, 73)

90. Do you light candles where you live? - yeah, I enjoy LIGHT scented ones. In open rooms. Strong candles are migraine invoking pieces of shit

91. What was your favorite toy growing up? - wooden Thomas the Tank Engine

92. Do you play any musical instruments? - I am a defect in my familial lineage

93. Have you ever been involved in a crime? - I'm a goodie-two-shoes meh-fest, only thing I've ever stolen is a pencil off a teacher's desk and even that was an accident

94. Do you have long or short hair? - too long for my taste, but it doesn't really look long at all. crazy curls.

95. Have you ever spread a secret to others someone asked you not to? - Never been given many secrets, but I've always kept them.

96. What is your favorite movie? - Oh jesus christ. I just have a slew of movies I enjoy above average, I'll be damned if I could ever properly rank them. In no particular order: Jurassic Park, Short Circuit, Blade Runner, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture

97. Are you getting tired answering all these questions? - I'm already tired. This was supposed to be more amusing than anything, but it's actually felt good to just let my mind flow into the keys and out into this notepad file.

98. Last question.  Without looking can you remember what the first question was? - Something about lines in a book. It's what hooked my into doing this whole thing.

Wait, seriously, only 98 questions? Thought this thing would've rounded off too 100, then again, I thought it wouldn't be longer than 20 when I started and have just kinda been dragged through this whole thing. Well, it did feel kinda nice I guess. I'm debating if I should post this or not....eh, screw it, I'll throw it on my tandem tumblr. (Which it's short for TAND-EM, I was a retard and got the Tandy emulator confused for DeskMate, the proprietary Tandy OS shell. Nothing to do with bikes, but I guess the latin [at length] humorously applies as well.) I should probably write a header for this...oh, regarding the time questions, that was genuinely the time as of answering those questions. It's currently 9:46 AM. That's how long I've been at this. This...can't be healthy...