#( sue: come live with us bb )

[missmcspooks]

UNSOLVED But Not Forgotten: The Keddie Cabin Murders

On the night of April 11th, 1981, a grisly quadruple homicide took place in Keddie, California. To this very day the case remains unsolved with new leads popping up randomly over the many years. There’s also a horror movie that you might be familiar with already that was inspired by the Keddie Cabin murders, “The Strangers: Prey At Night.” The film, made in 2018, is about a family who goes on vacation and stay at a mobile home resort, where three masked strangers come in and terrorize them. There’s also another movie that I haven’t seen yet that’s based on this case called, “Cabin 28.”

A BRIEF BACKGROUND

Glenna Sue Sharp, born in March 1945, and 36 at the time of the murders, was born and raised in Springfield Massachusetts. There she met her husband, James Sharp, and together moved to Connecticut where they had five children. After a while her husband James became extremely abusive, which caused Susan to separate from her husband and fled her home with the children. The Sharp family ended up relocating to northern California where her brother lived, and rented out a home in rural Sierra Nevada Resort Town of Keddie. Her children, John, 15, Sheila, 14, Tina, 12, Rick, 12, and Greg, 5, were friends with the children of their nearby neighbors. On the night of April 11th, 1981, Susan was home with John, Tina, Rick and Greg, along with John’s friend Dana Hall Wingate, 17, and one of Rick’s friends, a young boy named Justin Smartt. Sheila was sleeping at a friend's house down the block. 

DISCOVERING THE MURDER SCENE

The next morning on April 12th, Sheila returned home and found her mother's body, along with the bodies of her older brother John and his friend Dana in the living room. The bodies were bound with electrical cords and medical tape. Susan was found lying on her side near the sofa, completely nude from the waist down, and was gagged with a bandana and her underwear, which was taped on with the medical tape. She had been stabbed in her chest and her throat, the wound going through her larynx and nicked her spine. There was also an imprint matching the butt of a Daisy 880 Powerline BB/Pellet Rifle on the side of her head. John had his throat slashed, while Dana was manually strangled with multiple head injuries. Autopsy showed that John and Dana suffered blunt force trauma to their heads, caused by a hammer or multiple hammers. Two bloodied knives and a hammer were found at the scene, and a steak knife that was later determined to also been used in the murders was bent 30 degree’s. Blood splatter patterns in the house indicated that the murders took place only in the living room. The three boys were found upstairs and unharmed, but Tina was missing completely from the home. After Sheila found the bodies, she ran back to her friend's home, the Seabolt family, where Jamie Seabolt got the three boys outside of their bedroom window to prevent them from seeing the bodies. He also admitted that he went through the backdoor to see if anyone was still alive, which could’ve possibly contaminated the scene. 

INVESTIGATION

It was originally stated that the boys had slept through the entire thing while upstairs in their bedroom, but this was later contradicted. When Justin was interviewed he gave multiple conflicting stories. One story was that he had dreamed details of the murders, but he later claimed that he actually witnessed them. When he was questioned under hypnosis, he said that he woke up to sounds coming from the living room, while Rick and Greg were still asleep. He decided to investigate the sounds, and peaked down from the stairs when he saw Susan with two men. One of the men had long hair, no facial hair, and wore glasses. The other man had a mustache, short hair, and also wore glasses. He explained that John and Dana walked in the front door, and started arguing with the men, which then broke out into a fight. He then witnessed Tina come into the living room, and was taken outside the back door by one of the men. He then went back upstairs and remained quiet due to being frightened. 

Justin explained the description of the two men to get a composite sketch. However, the sketch was made by a man who had no artistic background and no training in forensic sketching. It’s unknown why law enforcement decided to use an untrained volunteer to draw the sketch, when they had access to multiple top forensic artists in the FBI. The suspects descriptions stated that the two men were in their late 20’s to early 30’s, one man being between 5’11 and 6’2, with dark blonde hair. The other man stood between 5’6 and 5’10, with black greased hair. Both men wore sunglasses with a gold frame. 

Rumors flew around a lot during the investigation. One rumor being that the murders were either motivated by a ritual, or had to do with drug trafficking. A family acquaintance, Carla McMullen told police that Dana had stolen an unknown amount of LSD, but had no proof to back up her claims. Drug trafficking was later ruled out due to not finding any drugs anywhere in the house.  

The two main suspects were Justin Smartt’s father, Martin Smarrt, and his guest, John “Bo” Boudebe, who was an ex-convict. Both of these men were seen acting strangely in a bar the night prior to the murders, and Martin also told police that he had a hammer that looked the same as the one found at the murder scene, and that his hammer had “gone missing.” Despite all of this, neither of these men were arrested or charged, as they didn’t have enough hard evidence to make an arrest. Police also ruled out two other men who were serial killers, Henry Lee Lucas, and Ottis Toole. 

Tina was treated as an abduction case and was considered a missing person up until April of 1984, three years after the murder took place, when her skull and other bones were discovered. Her remains were found by a random man in Camp Eighteen, near Feather Falls in Butte County, which was around 100 miles from Keddie. Right after the announcement went out that bones have been discovered, an anonymous call came in stating that the bones were Tina Sharps. This call was not documented in the case, and a recording of it was later found inside an evidence box after 2013. A forensic pathologist confirmed that the bones did belong to Tina Sharp, which now ruled this case as a quadruple homicide. A blue nylon jacket, an empty medical tape dispenser, a pair of jeans with a missing back pocket, and a blanket were also found near the bones. 

FURTHER EVIDENCE THAT WAS IGNORED

A hammer believed to be one of the weapons used in the murder was found in a nearby pond in 2016. It also was stated later that Marilyn Smartt suspected that her husband, Martin Smartt, and his ex convict friend were the murderers in the Keddie case. She left her husband and took their son, Justin, with her the day after the murders. She also provided the police with a handwritten letter that Martin had sent to her after she left. The letter read:

“I paid the price of your love & now that I bought it with four peoples lives, you tell me we are through. Great! What else do you want?” 

This letter was not treated as a confession, and it was completely overlooked. Marylin also told police that Martin “hated Johnny Sharp with a passion.” She also told police that she woke up around 2am on the night of the murders and found both men burning an unknown item in the wood stove. Martin was also polygrapped, and he passed his test. However, polygraph tests are not 100% accurate and can’t be used in court. It was also alleged by a counselor that Martin saw regularly, that he confessed to killing both Sue and Tina, but claimed to have nothing to do with the other murders. He said, allegedly, that Tina was killed to keep her from identifying him, as she saw the whole thing happen. When this was brought up to the police, it was disregarded and was determined as “hearsay.” It was also stated that Martin was very close with the Sheriff that Marylin had given the letter to, and it’s speculated that Sheriff Dough Thomas was helping cover up the crimes. 

A LOVE TRIANGLE GONE WRONG? POSSIBLE DRUG TRADE?

These are the two most widely accepted theories about the Keddie Cabin murders that took place in Cabin #28. It’s theorized that Susan Sharp and Martin Smartt were having an affair, and Susan was trying to convince Marylin Smartt to leave her husband, as Marylin claimed he was acting very abusive towards her. It’s speculated that Martin caught wind of this and got his convicted friend who was experienced in organized crime to help him take out Susan, and the others were just collateral damage. This theory is heavily supported due to the letter that Martin had written to his wife, stating he took four lives for her and now she left him. It also makes sense as to why his son, Justin Smartt and the two boys upstairs were unharmed. 

The next theory about drugs is supported due to Martin being a known drug dealer, and his accomplice, John “Bo,” being involved in organized crime, was theorized to be helping him with the financial parts of Martin’s drug distribution. This theory is also supported as it explains why two allegedly corrupted organized crime specialists were sent in to investigate the crime scene, instead of homicide specialists. It also explains why the two most probably suspects of the murder were overlooked without a smudge of questioning. 

Martin Smartt died of cancer in June 2000, in Oregon, along with John “Bo” who also died there in 1988. As of 2018, new DNA evidence has been found on known living suspects, and other evidence has been found shedding more light on this case. Today, no known arrests have been made, and the case is still considered unsolved. Investigators believe more than two people were involved in this case, and a handful of them are most likely still alive today.

#true crime #true story #truecrime #true crime blog #true crime community #Crime #murder #Writerscommunity #mystery #UNSOLVED MYSTERIES #blog #blogging #blogger #blog post #blogpost #writing #writers on tumblr

[lidrens]

Soulsborne asks: 8, 9, 16, 23?

this became rambly so under read more it goes

8. Do you have any fond coop memories? Does a specific moment stand out to you?

yeah you know from high-level dungeons in bb come all kinds of things. so on my platinum character ive also farmed all kinds of gems and shit, and 99% of coop i do happens in the chalice dungeons with people just as insanely overleveled as me.

...that's until hunters of hunters roll in and you realise that whoever invaded your ass is probably just as high a level as you or more (which is around 300) and you're just. well that'll be a fun fight huh.

i have a vivid memory of a crow wannabe showing up and pulling out a tonitrus, the Most Okayest Weapon Ever. they chased me around ihyll and died to a fireball trap. fuxking lmao.

another one is from ds3 and it's about a greatbow user who fucking soloed midir, the big bad fuckoff huge dragon for me on my dark character run. i was doing like 20 damage? and then this guy rolls in and puts the fear of god back right into my heart. oh it was amazing.

9. What are your three favourite weapons and why?

im not gonna list all of the games because i can't remember all weapons right now, so:

- the blade of mercy. it's so worth learning how to effectively use. it's fast, it does a respectable amount of damage on a good skill build and it encourages very high mobility and less of R1 mashing.

- the onyx blade. everything about it is immaculate, from the caduceus aesthetic to the black flames, to its speed. i love how light it feels to wield too, as if its barely holding together from everything its original wielder been through.

- morgott's cursed curved greatsword. it's very satisfying to use and to land the skill attack in succession, also i absolutely love curved greatswords in elden ring. the design of the blade and the introduction of it, as the wood falls off it from the sheer force of morgott's grip? hhoh. i want this thing in my house not gonna lie.

- honorable mention of estoc, the weapon i use in every souls game until i find something i like for my specific build. also it fucking carried me through my first ds2 run, what a great weapon.

16. What are your favourite areas?

ds1: new londo and anor londo. all of the headcanons aside, i can't help but wonder what they were like when they were alive. and in their current states they're much like yourself, undead and long hollow, having forgotten what it is to be a home.

ds2: THE GUTTER. lighting up all the sconces is something i look forward to every run. and with the heartbeat... the place is so unsettling and beautiful in the dark, i just spend a lot of time wandering around and looking at the edges of structures peeking out from the dark. the runner up is shulva. i would love to live there before it went to shit.

ds3: i like carthus catacombs, sue me. mainly because invasions in there are very fun (for me). irithyll is okay. the ringed city is more okayer but it takes longer to get there, and the only reason i like two of those is their aesthetics. idk ds3 lore.

bloodborne: ...the hunter's nightmare. the ruined and warped city of yharnam in sickly daylight, drowned in blood and knowing nobody but those who spill it. to be fair i like most of all bloodborne locations with one petty exclusion (fuck you hemwick). i wish the castle cainhurst was bigger on the inside as well as the outside, but i guess i will have to do with the castle sol </3

elden ring: fuck all of you, caelid is beautiful and haunting, a festering and living grave of a land. i like it a moderate amount. i have not spent hours obsessively taking pictures of various plants and creatures there. i am normal about caelid. ...on another note, i think leyndell is the best area fromsoft ever made as a dungeon and aesthetics wise.

23. What is your favourite fashion souls?

oh man im kind of tired of listing every game, so I'll go with top three outfits i have on some of my characters:

- nights cavalry set and nox monk headpiece.

- tomb prospector set and yharnam hunter hat (or maria's hat).

- loyce set.

#this is. a lot. i am so sorry #answered #dark souls #bloodborne #elden ring #redsixwing

[soothinglee]

PART 1 | the drug deal

warning: mentions of drugs but not actual drugs, cursing, etc.

suv3 or suve is y/ns' online name! you can change it :) (sue-vay)

this is something different, I got inspiration from @strawberrymilkgeorge s' series, go check it out!

series m.list | pervious - next

"what time is it again?" y/n asks stretching backwards from their gaming chair. they try and rub the sleep from their eyes, failing but they brush it aside and reach for their energy drink.

their discord pinged and they look over for a split second then returns their attention back to the screen in-front of them.

"who joined?" they ask, crouching three times when callahan runs up to them and drops some quartz. they smile at their screen.

"um, it was quackity I think," dream answers running around breaking blocks. "and it's 3 a.m, for me at least." he mumbles the last part.

"hi quackity," they giggle, hitting callahan once and running away. he follows them close behind, trying to land a couple punches before missing and falling into the lake under the community house. "oh shit he's muted."

a ding soon follows after and quackity unmutes his mic. the sound of his voice is echoed and blotchy yet easy to make out. "hello~" he sings with a cackle, he joins dreams stream.

"hello~," y/n sings back huffing, they let go of their keyboard and try to rub their eyes again. "dream bro, go to sleep. end stream- like right now."

"what?" the tone of his voice is high pitched and drawn out, "suve i-i'm not just going to end stream now, I can't."

"well why not? just do it, don't be a puss bro." they tease, using their phone to open up his stream. 250,000 people had nothing better to do with their lives, and honestly who would blame them. The chat went by quick, only catching a few but they caught a couple of things.

@Demonslayerrfan20: yeah dream do it LOL

@toeclippers: DO IT PUSS, NO MORE MONEY

@arianannotfound: SDFHISUDFOSD SUV3 IS SO FUNNY-

"see your chat seems to agree, just stop, like just quit dude- callahan are you done?" callahan resurfaces from the water after killing himself 5 times. he grabbed a stick and started beating suve repeatedly .

"suve stop being a instigator!"

y/n- who was mesmerized by the speed of the chat, didn't notice that he got their health low. by the time they realized they were at half a heart, they gasp and quickly take ahold of their keyboard. "HALF A HEART-HALF A HEART. CALLAHAN STOP!"

with another click of the mouse the title screen 'You Died!' comes up and y/n slams their fist on their desk and screams.

everyone in the vc laughs and dream wheezes out a, "you sound like george!"

<georgenotfound has joined the game>

quackity unmutes and giggles to himself, "speak of the devil,"

<georgenotfound> WHERE IS SAPNAP

<suv3> obsvoiusly not here dumbass

<callahan> obviously* DUMBASS

<suv3> I know where you live. remember that.

<callahan> o_0

<georgenotfound> WHERE IS JE

<dreamwastaken> sleep omfg

<georgenotfound> WELL TLEL HIMAS TO WAKE UA[

<suv3> join voice bb <3_<3

"why would you invite him to the vc he's so stinky." karl grumbles, the sound of his voice is muffled out by the sleeve of his sweater.

"because suve has a little crush on him," quackity replies.

"i do not!" they agrue.

"do too!"

"do not!"

"do too-!" before he could finish his sentence the discord notification goes off again, signaling that someone had joined vc.

y/n grins and claps their hands "GEORGEE! THE LIGHT OF MY LIFE, MY SWEET SUGAR PIE YUMMY YUM."

there's silence from george's end, and then a soft "ew."

quackitys icon lights up green as he screams in laughter, karl and dream chortle.

"shut up this is not funny." they groan and crumple up the monster they were drinking and throw it into the bin across the room.

"I could recognize that sound anywhere, was that a...a monster can?!" karl screeches jumping up and down on his chair. he turned his camera on and in the back were multiple boxes and monster cans everywhere.

"oh my god, karl you freak, how did you know." giggling, they open the small refrigerator by their desk to pull out another.

"hey, when you drink alot of them, you tend to get used to the sound."

"no," dream interjects logging onto hypixel, "I think you just have a addiction."

"hey hey HEY, I don't get addicted, it's merely a...liking."

"'liking' my ass," george comments joining dream. "says the one with a monster can la la land in the back. drink some water."

karl scoffs and goes to pick up the cans but stops when y/n speaks up, "speaking of which, karl I need some more, you think you could hit a girl up?"

in a husky voice, karl gets close to the camera, rubbing his hands together, "yeah, yeah, of course. I got you, what do you want? I got it allll."

y/n copies karls stance but instead of getting close to the camera they get close to the mic. "anything, I just need that good good youknowhatimsayin'?"

he sits back and laughs "dude you're so stupid oh my god."

"they're doing a drug deal! TOS TOS!" quackity taunts.

"what? karl, suve NO!"

➳✎➳➳✎➳➳✎➳➳✎➳➳✎➳➳✎➳➳✎➳➳✎➳➳✎➳➳✎➳

taglist;

@kusuinko

@angelicaschuyler-church

lmk if you want to be added to the taglist!

#irl!dream x reader #irl! sapnap x reader #irl! georgenotfound x reader #x reader #irl! karl jacobs x reader #irl! quackity x reader #dsmp x reader #irl! callahan x reader #streamer! reader #x y/n #x you #reader insert #gender neutral reader #female reader #gn reader #dream smp x reader #quackity x reader #masterlist #platonic #b1sbee #smau #roomate au

[conradscrime]

The Keddie Cabin Murders

April 30, 2021

In July 1979 a woman named Glenna Susan Sharp (known to everyone as “Sue”) left her Connecticut home with her 5 children after separating from her abusive husband, James Sharp. Sue and her children decided to move to California, where Sue’s brother Don was living. 

Sue first began renting a small trailer but then moved to house #28 in the community of Keddie. The previous occupant was a Plumas County sheriff, Sylvester Douglas Thomas, but when he moved out Sue and her 5 children, John age 15, Sheila age 14, Tina age 12, Rick age 10 and Greg age 5, moved in. 

Sue was a single mother of 5, struggling to make ends meet. She got $250 from her abusive ex, was on welfare and used food stamps. She also enrolled in a federal education program that allowed her to take business classes. Her classmates said she was a good student who got excellent grades, however they described her as a loner. 

A lot of people in the community didn’t like Sue. They gossiped about her being on welfare and they claimed she dated a lot of men. There was rumours that she slept with men for money or was dealing drugs. Most of the gossip about Sue was the fact that she kept to herself and didn’t have many friends, though Sue didn’t mind this. She didn’t care what people thought of her and she was only looking to improve her life, with dreams of opening her own business to be able to provide for her children. 

On April 11, 1981 at 11:30 am Sue and her children Sheila and Greg drove from their friends’ house to pick up her other son Rick who was at baseball tryouts at Gansner Field. On their drive Sue came across her eldest son John and his friend, Dana Wingate, who were hitchhiking from Quincy, California to Keddie. Sue picked the boys up and around 3:30 pm John and Dana hitchhiked back to Quincy where some believe that had plans to visit some of their friends. 

The evening of April 11, 1981 Sheila, Sue’s eldest daughter had plans to spend the night at her friends house, at the Seabolt family home, who happened to live adjacent to the Sharp’s home. Sheila left the home after 8pm and Sue was left with Rick, Greg and their friend Justin Eason (some sources call him Smartt) who was staying the night. Tina, Sue’s other daughter, was already at the Seabolt’s watching tv, but she returned home around 9:30 pm. 

Greg went to bed around 8:30 pm that night, and Tina at 9:30. Rick and Justin joined Sue to watch tv before they also went to bed around 10 pm. Sue stayed on the couch and was dozing off, but it was believed she didn’t want to fully go to bed until John and Dana returned. Allegedly people noticed some “odd” things that night. People heard a dog barking by Cabin #28 as well as noticing the back porch light was on at 4 am. 

At 7 or 8 am on the morning of April 12, 1981 Sheila arrived home from her sleepover at the Seabolt’s to change her clothes as she was planning to go to church with them, when she discovered the dead bodies of her mother Sue, her brother John, and John’s friend, Dana Wingate in the living room. All three had been bound with tape and wire. Tina was not found to be anywhere in the house, and the three younger children, Rick, Greg and their friend Justin were still alive, unharmed in a bedroom. Numerous sources say that the three boys must of slept through the murders though this claim has been contradicted. 

When Sheila discovered what had happened she ran back to the Seabolt’s home where Jamie Seabolt got Rick, Greg and Justin out of the house through the window. Jamie admitted he did enter the house through the backdoor at one point, to see if he could find anyone else alive, thus possibly contaminating the crime scene.

Two bloodied knives and one hammer were found at the scene, and one of the knives which was a steak knife had been bent at 30 degrees, clearly showing the brutality of the attack. The blood spatter evidence indicated that Sue, John and Dana had all been murdered in the living room where they were found.

Sue was found laying on her side near the sofa and nude from the waist down. She had been gagged with a blue bandana and her own panties which had been secured with tape. She had been stabbed in the chest and her throat was stabbed horizontally, the wound went through her larynx and nicking her spine. On the side of her head was an imprint matching the butt of a Daisy 880 Powerline BB/pellet rifle. Sheila claimed that the Sharp’s did not have any medical tape in the house so it was believed one of the killers brought it with them.

John’s throat had also been slashed and Dana had multiple head injuries and had been strangled to death. Both John and Dana had suffered blunt-force trauma to their heads caused by a hammer. The autopsies determined that Sue and John both died from knife wounds and blunt-force trauma but Dana had died from asphyxiation. 

Sheila and the Seabolt family both claimed they had not heard any commotion during the night however, a couple who lived nearby in house #16 were awakened at 1:15 am by what sounded like muffled screaming. Keddie cabin #28 showed no signs of forced entry but the telephone had been taken off the hook with the cord cut from the outlet and all the drapes were closed.

Tina, her shoes, jacket and a tool box were missing from the house. A man named Martin Smartt, who was a neighbour to the Sharp family and the step-father of Justin Eason, one of the boys found alive from the attack claimed that a claw hammer had gone missing from his home. The police interviewed Martin Smartt and determined that he gave “endless clues” in the case and seemed to want to throw suspicion away from himself. 

The police interviewed the Smartt family along with other locals and neighbours, including the Seabolt family who recalled seeing a green van parked at the Sharp’s house around 9pm.

A composite sketch of two suspects was drawn up based off testimony from Justin, who claims he witnessed the crimes. Justin gave lots of conflicting stories though, saying he had dreamt details of the murders but later claiming that he actually did witness them. Under hypnosis, Justin stated that he woke up to sounds coming from the living room while he was asleep in the bedroom with Rick and Greg. He went to see what the sounds were and saw Sue with two men, one with a moustache and short hair and the other was clean shaven with long hair. Both men were wearing gold framed glasses. 

Justin said John and Dana then entered the house and began to argue with the men. A fight broke out and Tina then entered the room and was taken out the cabin’s back door by one of the men. Because Justin’s story changed numerous times and his stepfather, Martin, was one of the main suspects, many believe Justin was threatened somehow, and that’s why his story changed a few times, to cover up for his stepfather. It also explains why Justin and the two younger boys were unharmed during the attack -- if Martin was involved why would he kill his stepson? Martin would of had to leave the two younger Sharp boys, Greg and Rick alone because they were sleeping in the same room as Justin. 

These composite sketches were drawn by a man named Harlan Embry who had no artistic abilities and was not trained in forensic sketching. There has never been an explanation as to why the police did not hire an actual forensic sketcher. The suspects were described as being in their late 20′s or early 30′s, one was between 5′11 to 6′2 tall with dark blonde hair and the other was between 5′6 to 5′10 with black greased hair.

Rumours began to start and some believed the murders had been ritualistic or had a drug trafficking motive. The Plumas County Sheriff, Doug Thomas, dismissed all of these stating that there was no drug paraphernalia or illegal drugs found in the home. A family acquaintance claimed that Dana Wingate had recently stolen LSD from local drug dealers but there was no proof of this. 

The police spent a lot of time trying to figure out what happened at Keddie Cabin #28 that night and the case was described as “frustrating.” In December 1983 detectives ruled out serial killers Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole has suspects. 

The FBI thought Tina’s disappearance was a possible abduction. A grid pattern search of the area was done around the house with police canines but they found nothing.

On April 22, 1984, 3 years after the murders, a bottle collector found a portion of a human skull at Camp Eighteen near Feather Falls in Butte County, around 100 miles from Keddie. Shortly after the discovery, the Butte County Sheriff’s Office received an anonymous phone call with the person on the other end claiming those remains were Tina Sharp’s. This call was not documented in the case and a recording of it wasn’t found until 2013, at the bottom of an evidence box. The remains were positively identified as that of Tina Sharp in June 1984. Near Tina’s remains they found a blue nylon jacket, a blanket, a pair of Levi Strauss jeans with a missing back pocket and an empty surgical tape dispenser.

Keddie Cabin #28 was demolished in 2004 and in 2008 a documentary on the murders came out, with Marilyn Smartt, mother of Justin and wife of Martin Smartt, claiming that her husband and his friend John “Bo” Boubede who was living with the Smartt’s at the time, were responsible for the murders of the Sharp’s and Dana. Martin Smartt allegedly met John “Bo” a few weeks earlier in a Veteran’s hospital where he was being treated for PTSD after serving in the Vietnam war. Supposedly Martin was angry at Sue Sharp, claiming that she was interfering with his marriage as she allegedly would give Marilyn advice on how to leave his abuse. Martin was known to cheat on his wife, have violent outbursts and was even accused of selling drugs. Martin was working as a cook but had been fired a few weeks before the murders.

Marilyn Smartt claimed that on the night of the murders she left Martin and John “Bo” at a local bar around 11 pm and went home to go to sleep herself. Other sources say Marilyn went to the bar with the men herself and invited Sue to join them, but she declined. Supposedly all three came back home and when Marilyn went to bed at 11 the two men went back out to the bar. Around 2am she woke up to find the two men burning an unknown item in the wood stove. Marilyn also claimed that her husband Martin hated John Sharp with a passion. Other sources claim it was actually John “Bo” that didn’t like John Sharp and referred to him as a “punk.” 

However in the documentary, Sheriff Doug Thomas said he had interviewed Martin Smartt himself and that he had passed a polygraph test. Martin Smartt died of cancer in June 2000 (other sources say 2006). John “Bo” Boubede died in 1988 and apparently had ties to organized crime in Chicago. 

On March 24, 2016, almost 35 years after the murders, a hammer that was matching the description of the hammer Martin Smartt claimed had gone missing was found in a local pond and taken into evidence. Sheriff Hagwood who knew the Sharp family personally believes that this hammer was intentionally placed there. 

In a 2016 article published in the Sacramento Bee, it was stated that Martin Smartt left Keddie and drove to Reno, Nevada and while there sent Marilyn a letter that said, “I’ve paid the price of your love and now I’ve bought it with four people’s lives.” Marilyn, who has since been remarried, says she doesn’t recall ever receiving that letter but she did recognize the writing as being Martin’s. 

Plumas County Special Investigator Mike Gamberg stated that this letter was never taken into evidence and that the initial investigation of the murder’s in the 1980′s was done poorly. 

Martin Smartt’s counsellor also admitted that Martin told him about the murders of Sue and Tina, but claimed he didn’t have anything to do with the murders of John and Dana. He told the counsellor that Tina had to die because she had witnessed the whole thing and would be able to identify him. 

In April 2018, 37 years after the murders Mike Gamberg stated that there was DNA evidence found from a piece of tape at the crime scene and it was a match to a known living suspect. The investigation is still opened, with a $5000 reward for any information that leads to an arrest and prosecution in the case. 

The police say they know some of the living suspects who were involved in this case and are convinced that they are closer than ever to solving the Keddie Cabin murders. 

#unsolved #unsolved mysteries #unsolved true crime #true crime #crime #murder #suspect #evidence

[missshezz]

Week four and I’m back with another Ballad of Oh-Kriffin-Sue. I predicted days ago this would be another Oh-I’m-Great episode, and well... I was... not disappointed

Look, folks, I want to love this show. I do love it when Filoni isn’t being a total prat and feeding us how amazing his little godling is. The problem is and remains: Omega kriffin Sue.

She’s not endearing.

She’s not adorable.

She’s literally inserted into the plot for no other purpose than to outshine the rest of the Bad Batch (who the show was marketed to us fans to be about, not some twerp).

Here’s some notes I typed as I was watching the episode:

*keep showing Wrecker having headaches but not a one of them thinks it might have to do with the chips that Oh-Hell-No told them about? Setup for either Rex or the godling figuring out what’s wrong and fixing Wrecker (inclined to see the second given the show’s record at this point)...

*of course, Oh-Kriff-Off figures out who Cid is because Hunter, Echo, and Tech are just dumb as rocks. Echo is a kriffin ARC TROOPER! Dumbing him down like this is a serious insult to his character. And TECH?!? C’mon, now, this guy is supposed to be insanely intelligent. He couldn’t pick up that Cid was playing them? Wrecker I can accept as he is not as intelligent as the other three but Hunter? Echo? Tech? Sorry, but no.

*right, the kid who has had zero training, was oppressed all her life, and knows nothing of the world is the brains of the operation...

*Echo was just sold into slavery last episode, was a slave of the Separatists until the BB and Rex came to save him, and has seen more of the galaxy than Oh-Hell-No but hasn’t computed CLONES were literally SLAVES of the Republic and now Empire?

*also, have we forgotten the Bad Batch are traitors of the Empire? Why do we have nobody hunting them? *coughs* this would be where Crosshair could come in or kriffin Cody but nooooo only Omega is being hunted by a privately commissioned bounty hunter because she’s all that’s important *coughs*

*of course, the BB get easily taken out and captured so OMEGA can make the save. These are elite clones. Why the kriff are we dumbing them down like this? Oh, right, so the damn child can save them... AGAIN!

*great, the godling now has a weapon... she’ll be master of it next episode despite never shooting such a weapon before or having much time for practice what with flying around on a spaceship...

This was otherwise a semi-decent filler episode (the third we’ve been given at this point) that showed the Bad Batch need to adapt if they want to survive. They need friends and credits— something they lack. Them working for Cid actually makes an interesting storyline because it gives them access to things they don’t have and allows them to still be who and what they are (when not neutered for an obnoxious girl child).

We saw Echo get to briefly shine (last weeks episode should have been about him) when he used his replaced arm to hack into Cid’s system to question who Shand is. Hunter was a total badass when he took on the slaver. Wrecker and Mochi was actually adorable. Even Tech had a moment when he said he couldn’t give them information because it wasn’t something they were trained for (showing their limitations and how focused Kaminoan training was on soldiering and not living) and which he had no data to compare it too.

Omega Sue again is what soured the episode for me. The focus as always was on her instead of the Bad Batch. She’s the only one being hunted despite the others being traitors (and yanno, property though we’re ignoring that). Everything was about how awesome she is, how much smarter she is than the others, how they wouldn’t survive if not for her being there to save them. There’s no balance at all. The other four characters are dumbed down for her benefit. The plot is written for her and serves only her. Hunter, Wrecker, Echo, Tech, and especially Crosshair (who has not been seen much at all outside his brief arc in episode 3, which has been the best bit of story we’ve gotten thus far) are merely backdrop characters designed to make her standout. They don’t have any purpose outside of her (literally, remove her and what’s their purpose?) Filoni is treating them the same way he did the clones in Clone Wars: as cannon fodder.

It’s poor writing 101.

And I won’t quit saying it.

This image basically covers it:

#star wars the bad batch #anti omega #more of Filoni’s BS #and y’all are gobbling it up as if it was candy #bad batch spoilers #1x04 #Omega Sue

[bisexualoftheblade-old]

how many wips do you have? like what are they all, and not the number of wips in a fandom? what are all the names?

okay. fuck you. fuck you so much. fuck you.

i’m putting this under a read more cut no one else deserves to see this shit. a lot of these are requests, and for those i will just write out the request itself

Shadowhunters:

domestic polycule fluff with tem, jessa, and will because im not a coward

Supernatural

- hehe hoho i request destiel hehehe

- request 61/? cai cai cai cai i need you to rewrite the destiel scene but yk. GOOD. not like i'm in the know about the spn fandom or anything, it's been years for me. but DO IT

Bright Sessions

- caleb/adam grisha AU

- mark bryant vs. united states aka sue the AM

- caleb/adam college fluff

Umbrella Acaademy

- request 31/? i want a ben and klaus drabble please spare me some brotherly bickering

- AND SO BEGINS NIGHT 4 with request 13/? oooh oooh can i get a raymond and allison playlist??? i think their vibes together would SLAP

- hi there night 2 is technically morning 3 but who's counting not me anyway request 5/? can i get a ben moodboard? gotta rep my tua bb

Percy Jackson

- request 9/? can i get a percabeth moodboard or quote edit?? like god they're the og couple goals take me back to high school cai

- For the 100 follower things :D Jercy getting caught in the rain

- request 29/? a drabble about literally anything to do with pjo. i’ll be happy with anyone and anything i’m love these children

- *somersaults in like I’m a real fancy acrobat* hello ello ello may I request some camp half blood chaos possible involving *does a flip* ✨side characters✨ <3

Penumbra Podcast 

- request 52/? drabble about the penumbra podcast. this is for ren bc ren likes it and i don't actually know anything about it. juno? i think? that's the one ren likes. write it for ren

- Tpp ghost hunting / buzzfeed unsolved au

- sad juno smut

- final resting place fic go brrrr

Marvel

- request 6/? i'm going to my roots y'all can i get a spider-man playlist? if not a playlist then i'd honestly be happy with literally anything involving spider-man

- request 15/? i'm going crazy this is recorded evidence of me actually losing it ANYWAY can i get a quote edit for something from iron man? literally anything that man says is gold so cai's choice :D he deserved better in endgame i'm still bitter

- request 42/? do another spidey thing that differs from the other spidey thing

- request 73/? you have Opinions. rant about infinity way and/or endgame. go.

- request 74/? quote edit for deadpool!!

- spideytorch relationship character study

- peter parker as a tired grad student monitoring the young avengers (send help)

Six of Crows

- okay listen i wasn't going to request anything bc i worry about you but also? if you want to/have the time hit me with a playlist for our girl nina zenik

- request 43/? fuckin give me the ending anya should have had. she is alive and with her new son and having a great time

- request 45/? inej moodboard?

- request 47/? will you make literally any meme of your choosing for six of crows?

- request 48/? write a drabble for kaz, my favorite bastard

- okay so i don't actually like nina or mattias that much but i still wanna hear about your thoughts (and also see if you'll change my mind)

- kaz brekker turning 18 fic. birthday party, everyone singing, whole shebang. i need it stat

- religious trauma fic aka i started shipping kaz/alina/inej and i can’t stop

- kaz trauma soup (he has D.I.D. and you can’t prove me wrong)

- my two redacted fics for @grishaversebigbang​

- wesper fake dating

- six of crows bright sessions crossover: everyone gets therapy

TMA

- uhh... s1 gang having a nice time? melanie getting to have some Pride™️? some "fun" horror thing?

- request 7/? spare steph and jason bonding? please sir? spare some for a humble child such as myself?

- okay so this was meant for night 3 but i had midterm shit SO this is honorary night 3 let's DO THIS request 8/? i want a moodboard of extremely out of context magnus archives shit like i mean confuse the FUCK out of me i don't go here i know Nothing about it

- request 11/? OKAY so i need tim stoker meeting tim drake now i need my timmy to meet your tim plus i want to see character differences no i'm not trying to create a tim stoker in my head so i can read a's fic while NOT thinking of tim drake whaaaaaat you're crazy

- request 18(i think)/? i need a quote edit of every time within the first like. 15 eps of tam where jon is like “sounds fake but go off” thank u bb

- request 40/? i challenge you to write a tma drabble based only on the episodes i've heard. i'm currently halfway through episode 23

- Jon being lovingly bullied into taking a break. I'm aware this has been written a million times but it is one of my favorite things.

- spiral!sasha AU

- extinction martin go brrrrr

- high school era timsasha. they've both been friends for years, and everyone always asks when they will be a couple. they decide to fake date, to prove everyone wrong and show what a bad couple they would be. turns out that's a bit trickier than they thought

- after sasha comes back, tim is broken. he can't let go, scared that if he looks away for even a minute he'll lose her again. sasha suggests shibari as a way for him to give up control

- sasha pov mag 19 au, sacrificing herself to save the others, knows that if she gives herself up to the not!them it will let the others live

- this is the "tim finds a polaroid of sasha" trope

- early archives days,, long nights in research,,, clothes sharing,, somft. late nights and falling asleep at their desks warm and safe in the other's presence

- two parts: timsasha as kids, each picking a constellation that is "theirs". just soft kid antics. tim at sasha's grave glancing up to see their constellations

- continuing your job’s a joke (you’re broke)

DC Comics

- TIMSTEPH HADESTOWN AU,,,

- my redacted fic for @batfam-big-bang​

- request for you to get a decent amount of sleep? serious answer, dickkori, SAL's Venus

- request 4/? timsteph morning after 👀 mayhaps?

- a concept: nonbinary stephanie brown

- teehee hi mom, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, but can i request damian angst for your accomplishments 100 followers?

- hi you can ignore my first request if you want, or you can ignore this one. but bls possibly write some bikini ra’s? -the bikini bitch

- request 27/? jay is asking through me for a jondami playlist but tbh i also want it so win win yk?

- "I don't know how to help you but I can help you find someone who does" with bruce and jason? im just craving bruce being a good day to jason for once

- “I am putting you in time out because you need to understand the consequences of your actions.” with steph and jason as dumbass disaster bi best friends pretty please?

- request 32/? timsteph patrol date!!!

- request 33/? timsteph *gala* date? mayhaps??

- request 37/? tim drake drabble but make it Edgy cai

- request 39/? drabble of a prank war between tim and damian

- joyfire cuddly fluff please? or like just any outlaw fluff if joyfire isnt your thing (feel free to add every member of the outlaws, dont feel like u gotta stick with jason, kori, roy i love them all)

- barbara and robin! jason fluff? bonding over books or something?

- request 62/? i need a drabble about the chaotic trio jason, tim, and steph i'm love them ty

- request 63/? batfam x mcu crossover. batfam meets ironfam. give me ALL the cliches. ALL OF THEM

- request 64/? young justice x young avengers - jay cuz idk SHIT about the young avengers

- request 66/? jondami moodboard pls and ty

- request 67/? timsteph moodboard!!!!!!

- request 69/? HEHEHE kinky 😏 i would v much like a timsteph drabble of the almost first time. does that make sense? like i don't want you to go all the way NSFW cuz i know that's against the rules and i'm a rule follower. but like they *almost* go all the way. this could be fade to black or some shit i don't care just make it a lil steamy and have Fun

- i request damian angst! all of it

- hmm... maybe i request? jondami?

- mayhaps,,,,some batfam,,,,,committing crimes? ily be gay do crime <3 - lu

- How about a ficlet with Steph and Cass?

Found Family Bingo Prompts

- no powers au

- tunnel

- first day

- join the club

- hurt/comfort

- experiment

- playing favorites

- hold on

- possession

- 10 o’clock

- singing

- road

- snitch

- curfew

- timer

- fantasy au

- zombie au

- dreams

- campfire

- are you okay

- movie night

- games

- scared

Miscellaneous

- a request: Write A Drabble, Coward

- is it too late to request a moodboard for me?

- request 20/? i’m going off book because i’m in a Chaotic Mood™️ can you just absolutely vibe check me like go off cai demolish me

- request 21/? i formally request that you pick a favorite cai. i don’t care what that favorite pertains to, just pick a favorite something

- request 23/? roast me

- request 24/? can i have a buzzfeed unsolved spoopy playlist but spoiler alert it’s not spoopy bc shane doesn’t believe does this make sense it has been a Day™️

- request 25/50 i want a jake and amy fic make it Soft cai i’m love them b99 is so good

- request 28/? i know nothing about the lord of the rings so make something that will confuse the shit out of me

- request 34/? malvie and jaylos moodboards 😈

- request 35/? a moodboard for the bbb mods!! perceive all of us!!!

- request 36/? moodboard for the tua mods too???? mayhaps??

- request 41/? doctor WHO? idk but i want a drabble of him and the one character i know from doctor who which is rose

- request 46/? make an alignment meme with our group, have fun!!!

- request 49/? i want you to kin assign me a character from every fandom you can/want to. go feral

- request 50!!!!/? this is a special request. the most special request. can you make a bastards tbh playlist? i want our vibes encapsulated. i want us in music form. i want to hear those songs and be like "that's me and cai" and smile.

- requests 51/? i know jack shit about good omens. explain it to me in the most confusing way possible. make me know less by the end than i know now

- request 53/? can you write a mel aesthetic? i'm Curious

- request 54/? give me a list of book recs cai i want some good book recs pls

- request 56/? edit a picture of US together too

- request 58/? oooh can i have a disney edit? like. hm. i just really love disney and i want anything to do with disney. like a quote or an aesthetic or an aesthetic edit i just want disney.

- request 59/? i would v much like a recipe for carbonara. i've never had it but it sounds fucking delicious

- request 60/? ooh hey can i get a makeup tutorial? i know you like makeup, i'm shit at doing makeup. teach me

- request 65/? i need the most emo playlist you can make that vibes with dear evan hansen thank you

- request 68/? i want a superwholock moodboard. this can be serious, with the actual fandoms in mind, or literally what the era felt like. the insanity. the horror.

- request 70/? ooh ooh ooh do you have a good bread recipe?? i wanna get that bread

- request 71/? i want a playlist with the vibes of summoning a demon. please don't ask questions. i don't have answers. and if i do, no i don't.

- For the requests, how about writing something based on a friend?

- request 75/? MMMM i want literally anything to do with natasha, pierre, and the great comet of 1812

- request 76/? i want some healthy recipes. help a girl out

- a feral bbb quote or two?

- you perceive my plant but now I dare thee to perceive mine own visage

- okay this is a two for one request. 1. you did the bee movie script so now we need a shrek two script edit 2. sleep please

- Pansexual mb for my lil queer soul?

- my (probably) final request is just for you to ramble about something, i don't really care what

- HI ILY CONGRATS AS WELL CAUSE IM LATE BUT CONGRATS. could i request a pirates of the caribbean (or just pirates) or whatever you what to do, free range.

- mood board for the beluga whales who got brought to the animal sanctuary in Iceland please?

- 100 follower request: Moodboard for my stuffed cow Oaky?

#cai's 200 #asks #mininacl

[nekomittchi]

My Disney Fab 50 Statues

This is my version of the Disney Fab 50 statues for the WDW 50th Anniversary, and why I picked each one. My list aims much more to park history than the official list does. I'll note which ones are official statues by underlining them. These are in no particular order, but organized by park they'd be in. Magic Kingdom 1) Mickey - Obviously, Mickey, being the park and company mascot, needs to be here, and he's on the official list as well. I chose to put my version in his Philharmagic costume. It's got the hat from Fantasia/Sorcerer's Apprentice, which is well known, but tailored more to the park attraction. 2) Daisy Duck - One of the Fab 6, Daisy is also along for the ride. But unlike the official's "standard" outfit, I'm putting Daisy in a safari outfit to represent Jungle Cruise. Since Jungle Cruise doesn't really have any characters, I'm using outfits, like with Mickey, to represent attractions that otherwise would be left out. 3) Goofy - Another of the Fab 6, Mickey's best friend needs to be represented. Like Daisy, he's also repping a character-less ride. This time he's repping Big Thunder Railroad. As an added bonus, if they put him in a conductor outfit, it could also rep Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway, but that's at another park. 4) Pluto - The last of the Fab 6 in this park (the other two I'm placing elsewhere), Mickey's dog Pluto. And since the Park Wishables already put Mickey and Minnie in space suits for Space Mountain, let's give Pluto an astronaut helmet to represent it! And, as an added bonus, it doubles as a take-that at Universal, since Disney can't have Marvel in the WDW parks, and Pluto would be a joke on Cosmo (the space dog in the Collector's museum from Guardians of the Galaxy). 5) Sonny Eclipse - The first statue of mine that's not only unique to my list, but also represents something 100% in the park. I haven't been to Cosmic Rays myself, but from what I hear around WDWNT and WIGScord, it's pretty popular. Or at least Sonny is. So he gets a statue. 6) Merlin and Archmedes - Second statue unique to my list, and the first that's for the history of the park. Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom was a scavenger hunt-type game that closed down early this year, and Merlin was kinda your guide for it. The game apparently had a lot of problems, but it looked really fun at the same time. 7) Genie - A surprising omition from the official list, and, unlike DLR, WDW actually has an Aladdin ride. The official list does have Abu, but I feel Genie is much more iconic and representitational of the movie. I'm also surprised that Carpet wasn't with Abu. 8) Pirate Dog - The Pirate Dog holding the keys is my representation of Pirates of the Caribbean. The dog might not be the most obvious pick, but as I'm trying to steer away from realistic-looking human characters, the dog was picked. Plus, they also made a Tsum Tsum and a Wishable of him, so... 9) Big Al OR Henry- This one's a toss-up. Either bear would do, and it's surprising to me that Country Bear Jamboree isn't represented. Of course, we know that it's a "less popular" attraction, so... 10) Madame Leota - The hitchhiking ghosts would also work to represent Haunted Mansion, but I think that having a gold statue inside of an ornate glass orb would look cooler. Plus, it only takes up one character slot, rather than 3. 11) Dumbo - One of the original rides from Disneyland, this classic has to be represented, and Disney agreed. Although I cut out Timothy. Didn't wanna take up another slot. 12) Stitch - Another statue to represent a past attraction, Stitch is here to represent Stitch's Great Escape. He's also, like the official statue, in his 626 form, because there's not nearly as much merchandise for him that way. 13) Winnie the Pooh - Piglet is with him on the official statue, but I think Pooh can stand on his own. Or, at least, eat hunny on his own. I mean, the ride is called "Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh," not "Pooh and Friends." Also, Tigger is way better than Piglet. 14) Mr. Toad - Another surprising omition from the list. Mr. Toad's Wild Ride might not be in Magic Kingdom anymore, but he's still fondly remembered, and they even made a Wishable of him (from the Disneyland 65th Anniversary set, but whatever). 15) Maleficent (Dragon) - The first of my statues that's not for an attraction, but a show (okay, Philharmagic is kinda a show, but shush). And she's also considered the "leader" of all of the Disney Villains, who are not represented at all in the official list, which I think is a shame. Sure, we all love the heroes, but who would those heroes be without their villains? 16) Face Clock - The only non-character in my list, the Face Clock is iconic enough for the World's Fair-turned-park ride. Because if you picked one of the dolls, which doll would you pick?! 17) Elliot - I've never seen the Main Street Electrical Parade myself (unless it was when I was 5), but I'd recognize the dragon float from Pete's Dragon anywhere. Bonus points if they could do the statue in such a way that it looked like the float, too. 18) Tinkerbell - The last of the revealed statues, Tinkerbell has come to represent Disney magic, both within and outside the parks, just as much as Mickey. Officially representing Peter Pan's Flight, I'd like to think that she also represents the Castle, like in the company card at the start of the movies. 19) Jose, Michael, Pierre, and Fritz - Yes, I know I've been trying to avoid "wasting" slots with multi-character statues, but... How could you pick just one of the Enchanted Tiki Room birds?! 20) Cheshire Cat - Cheshire and Mad Hatter both made the list (as separate statues), but I feel that Alice in Wonderland can be represented by Cheshire on his own. Plus, cat. 21) Boo - Monster's Inc Laugh Floor is an attraction that I wish was at DLR, so I could go on it, but even better than Sulley or Mike is the adorable Boo. 22) Jimminy Cricket - Yet another surprising omition from the list, Jimminy is almost as iconic to Disney Magic as Tinkerbell is. The official list has Pinocchio, but Jimminy is so much more "Disney" in general than Pinocchio. 23) Dopey - Seven Dwarfs Mine Train represent, as well as Disney's first animated feature. EPCOT 24) Donald Duck, Jose, and Panchito - Mickey's other best friend, here represented with the other two of the Three Caballeros, as represented in the Gran Fiesta Tour ride in the Mexico Pavillion. Like with the other members of the Fab 6, I chose to put him in an attraction outfit, and since I did, the other two had to come along for the ride. 25) Figment - Journey to Imagination (or whatever the current name of the attraction is) might be "meh" as a ride, but everyone loves Figment. Even Disney, who included him. 26) Olaf - I love Bruni. Bruni is probably my favorite character from all of Frozen. But Bruni isn't even named in the movie, he doesn't need to be on a statue. Olaf can represent Frozen Ever After by himself. 27) Remy - I'm shocked that Remy's not on the official list, given that his ride [officially] opens on the first day of the 50th Celebration, and represents the future of the parks. 28) Orange Bird - OB is on the official list, though in MK rather than EPCOT. All of the merch and such I've seen for him has been for the EPCOT festivals, so I'm sticking him here. 29) Rocket Racoon and Groot - Another statue to look to the future, for whenever Cosmic Rewind opens. Also, unlike the official statue, we are not using the realistic style from the official statue. The fur on Rocket looks so bad. Nah, instead we'll do him smooth, like the cartoons. 30) Mushu - Mushu was left out of the live action Mulan movie, but he's designed after traditional Chinese dragons, so let's put him over by the China Pavilion. 31) Marie - Did you really think that this list was not going to have my favorite character on it? I mean, really? Plus, we've got THREE mice/rats on the list, AND a dog, so we need another cat. Hollywood Studios 32) Minnie Mouse - And here we have the last of the Fab 6, Mickey's gal Minnie! Why is she in Hollywood Studios? Because she's representing Tower of Terror, wearing a cute outfit, of course! 33) DJ-R3X - Remember all those Fab 6 characters representing multiple characters? Yeah, R3X here is doing the same. Not only is DJ-R3X the DJ at Oga's Cantina in Galaxy's Edge, but he was originally RX-24, the pilot for the original version of Star Tours. Much better representation than BB-8 or R2-D2 from the official list. 34) Kermit the Frog - One of the more offensive omitions from the official list. MuppetVision3D is great fun, and the Muppets don't get nearly enough love, even with the Haunted Mansion special coming. 35) Chuuby - Okay, so sue me, I'm obsessed with the little merchandising bird. He's just too cute. 36) Woody and Buzz Lightyear - I know the official statue is Woody and Bo-Peep. But I haven't seen Toy Story 4 (or 3), so I want Buzz there. Disney's Animal Kingdom 37) Chip and Dale - Ya gotta have the little buddies! And who better to be wearing cute little Wilderness Explorer outfits? 38) The Yeti - So, the real Yeti might not work in Expedition Everest, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't be represented as a statue! Just make sure it's not realistic fur like that horrible Rocket statue. Stylized only! 39) Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa - Simba is separate from his friends in the official statue, but the trio (Simba as a child) should stick together. Festival of the Lion King is amazing to watch. You'll note a few things on my list: 1) There are no princesses. This was a specific omition on my part. The princesses have their own line of stuff, and are fairly over-used as it is. I wanted to get away from that. 2) As I mentioned with the Pirate Dog, I wanted to avoid realistic human characters. They either look good, or they don't. And I wanted a bit more of a similar style to everything, hence why I'm noting that Rocket should be done in the cartoon style, and the Yeti should be stylized. 3) Everything is tied into an attraction, land, or Disney Magic. Nothing is there solely from a movie. 4) My list only has 3 statues more than the official list. 5) For reference, here are the characters that are on the official list that are missing from mine: Timothy the Mouse (with Dumbo) Piglet (with Winnie the Pooh) Bruni (with Olaf) Bo-Peep (with Woody) Lumiere and Cogsworth Mad Hatter Pinocchio Gus and Jaq Lady and Tramp Abu Dante Miguel Pua and Hei-Hei Joe Gardener Edna Mode Frozone R2-D2 BB-8 Sebastian and Flounder Nemo and Dory Bambi and Thumper Of these, there are no major parks connections for Lumiere and Cogsworth, Lady and Tramp, Dante, Miguel, Pua and Hei-Hei (yet), Joe Gardener, Edna, and Frozone. Edna and Frozone especially bother me, as they're not even the main characters. Why couldn't we get a Jack-Jack instead? And Mr. Mittens and 22 over Joe Gardener? 6) And, finally, here are my statues that are new to my list: Sonny Eclipse Merlin and Archmedes Genie Pirate Dog Big Al Madame Leota Mr. Toad Maleficent Face Clock Elliot Jose, Michael, Pierre, and Fritz Boo Jimminy Cricket Dopey Remy Mushu Marie DJ-R3X Kermit the Frog Chuuby Buzz Lightyear The Yeti

#Disney #Disney World #Walt Disney World #Magic Kingdom #EPCOT #Hollywood Studios #Animal Kingdom #Fab 50 #50th Anniversary

[cloveroctobers]

YASMIN DOUGLAS—

IG info/Bio: @/imyasmin_d | 11.6k followers | hello & ahlan 🎶

23-24 years old depending on her birthday (I’m thinking too much about timelines since i know some shows aren’t live and if they filmed it prior & it’s just being shown to us now...then there’s the boat party that comes in after, you get what I’m saying right? No? Okay)

Moroccan heritage

she was born in fes along with her baba

Father works in the carpet & rug manufacturing industry and worked in his father’s business from the young age of 16

her mother is from Essaouira & has often stated that she couldn’t stand Yasmin’s father the first time they met but she wouldn’t want to travel through this life with anyone else

Her father and mother came from two different lifestyles. All he knew how to do was hard work yet he had a sarcastic but playful side to him whereas her mom came from a family that was more financially stable & she was free to do whatever! mainly hanging at the beach with her friends without a care in the world, she was privileged and a little uppity while her father’s life seemed to be planned out from the day of his birth

Yet they still fell in love and decided to leave Morocco months after they got married at 21 & 24 & not too long after they had yas they left for England

She was raised in Kent, England

The Atmosphere led to her boho lifestyle...being exposed to castles, gardens, and underground tunnels from time to time shaped her into what she felt she was meant to be. She loved her second home

they call her “yazzy”

Parents follow islam...Which Yasmin respects but is not strongly devoted to

Can speak & write in Arabic but seems to do better in writing

Her paternal grandparents fault her parents for not teaching her to excel at both & feel that if they weren’t in such a rush to leave home she would speak Arabic better

Which made Yasmin feel like shit. Her paternal grandparents were strict on keeping their customs alive whereas her maternal grandparents were carefree as long as they got to see their granddaughter alive & well that was good enough for them

Idk maybe a only child or has a older brother? I don’t feel like she comes from a big family sibling wise

her mother made her a stuffed purple sheep that she took everywhere with her as a kid & continues to keep close to her. Y’all had imaginary friends? Well Yasmin had a real friend she could see & squeeze the life out that didn’t require talking and hugging the air, but that’s fine do u

100% collects beanie babies until this day but lil yamb is the number one princess in her household

As her significant other you have to be okay with lil yamb sleeping in between y’all that’s just the way it is

These stuffed babies are her comfort when no else can be

she’s a singer/songwriter. Went to uni for it & finished a semester early

Went through multiple hell experiences when it came to interning & temping while still in school & after

Let’s just say she wasn’t down to f*ck her way to the top

this made her anxiety act up, these people made her feel like she wouldn’t be good enough to show the world her craft & it’s didn’t have to be the world, just someone who would listen

But she couldn’t give up, there was nothing else she saw herself doing. She knew this is what she was meant to do but she couldn’t lie and say that her insecurities didn’t get the best of her most days

Although the cons seemed to out way the Pros some days, she kept at it & found herself a solid team that knew what she was about and understood her soul

Was definitely the student who loved all her English classes & when she spoke up everyone found it shocking since she preferred to just write everything out rather than “participate in group discussions”

I feel like her singing voice sounds similar to Jessica mauboy’s (if you don’t know who that is & you’re a fan of r&b/pop check her out or if you’re just curious that works too lol)

Knows her music notes like the back of her hand, duh!

Fav color is royal blue, especially on her eyelids & nails

Occasionally sleeps in rollers to keep her hair wavy

Needs her space when it comes to disagreements, they stress her out & she panics a bit when things go wrong so she feels like she needs to leave the situation rather than talk it out right then and there

She’ll talk when she’s ready, she just needs someone that’s a little patient with her that’s all

Words of affirmation is her love language? When she figures out how to balance her love life with her work life that is. When she’s feeling confident she’s smooth with words but when she needs to show you how much you mean to her & she really takes the time to think it out & feel her emotions, she’s writing you a song or you’re the inspiration to it or a poem, leaving you little love notes on blue post-it’s around the house, will write 50 reasons why she loves you on Valentine’s Day, and will say so when it’s just the two of you in your own comfort

Isn’t too crazy about public displays of affection but will deff hold your hand if that’s something you or she wanted in that moment

I think she’s fluid

Hasn’t been in many relationships. Sure she goes on tour every other year and gets to meet many people but they’re not solid relationships, they’re hookups and she hasn’t done many of those either

Had maybe one or two solid relationships: a androgynous woman that uses she/they pronouns & was in a rock band & a cis male she met at a tattoo parlor his step-brother owned (he kinda favored seb but we’re not going to speak on that)

I believe she wants to get married someday but isn’t so keen on the idea of kids. The furthest she’ll go is adopting a couple of animals. She’ll be a pet mom! I feel like she’ll be anxious looking after the life of a human being when it’s extremely hard to do so not only for herself and the love of her life & you want to add kids to the mix?! Fucking hell! but that could change? Who knows what life can throw at u

Has a hedgehog named Sonia that she drops off at her parents for their weekly sleepovers

Loves lace—mostly bralettes & crotchet clothing

I see her as a corduroy girl too. She has at least some rusty brown low-rise corduroy pants or/and a jacket

owns a crotchet kit, she’s bloody good at it too

Loved pink & purple (still likes them, they’re her 2nd & 3rd fav colors) so much as a kid that she tried to dye her hair half & half while her parents went out on their date night...it was also the weekend before school pictures :)

Says she got her inspiration from starfire & raven. She was only 13 at the time & had braces. Her father approved saying she’s a kid and she should be allowed to express herself. He only said that because his own parents barely let him & his brothers have their own fun

Her mother thought it was atrocious and did her best to get it out with the help of her other hair stylists friends (her mother worked in plenty of beauty shops once she got to England, until she decided to convert their basement into her own shop) who she invited over to see what her daughter had done but when you use certain permanent dyes...

It didn’t completely damage yasmin’s hair plus it was just hair, Yasmin didn’t see the big deal. She thought she looked splendid

Anyway, massive fan of ballroom dancing

She’s got a great ear to begin with so it was extremely fun twirling around while wearing pretty ballroom gowns

Took boring etiquette classes as a form of punishment? After the whole teen Titans inspiration thing “went wrong”

Enjoys western films

yes she owns a cowgirl hat & some boots too so sue her, she likes what she likes

Knows how to lasso but hates doing it to animals but she’ll do it to you :) (*gags* lmao why???)

Also loves visiting western towns & learning some history or at least experiencing what it was like

Type of significant other that will do her best to persuade you to stay in a treehouse airbnb, a cabin, the fucking Idaho potato, or camping out in her Volkswagen van in the middle of nowhere!

Has faux cow rugs, wicker baskets, wicker chairs in her flat, hangs some plants in glass jars & bottles all over her house

Her flat is very bright & vibrant: white, mocha brown, tan, yellows, & pastel purple

When it comes to decision making, she’ll make them pretty quick but only if it comes to choosing desserts

nobody is touching her mom’s meskouta orange cake WITH syrup

the dessert eater that always picks the one that has a surprise inside, meaning it has to ooze out with SOMETHING to make it 10x more satisfying

Leaning towards Buddhism, had studied some of their beliefs and found it resonates with her spirit

Fan of neon lights, probably has a few neon signs in her flat preferably on her brick wall in the loo, “to give u comfort as you go!” “that...actually makes sense.” Tai commented as he rubbed his chin coming to terms with yasmin’s reply. While Iona scowls, “no, no it doesn’t. I feel as if it’s an invasion of my bits!” “...Sorry you feel that way.”

tai & ciaran are automatically deemed as her brothers since she came into the villa with them. She had time to connect with them unlike anyone else. It was just the way the stars wrote their story and it showed outside of the villa too. they often crash at her place all the time when they’re in town & vacation all the time together when their schedules line up + it never feels like she’s third wheeling

“TaiTower” & “BB-Ci” are their names in her phone, Tai picked his own name while the “bb” stands for “best buds” for ciaran —which is a joke since he drunkly called himself so + he loves everyone when he’s drunk

You can always count on her to belt the lyrics to a Chaka Khan, TLC, or paula abdul joint when she’s drunk lol

As for the girls? She’s close with miki 😒 they just seem to be on the same wavelength when it comes to the pressure of the media since they have some sort of fame which increased with them being on the Telly. They bond over that & from there they’ve built a solid friendship

She could also be friends with AJ too (if you didn’t get swiped from her that is lmao!) they’re sorta opposites with aj being high energy/active while Yasmin is more mellow & “mysterious” but seem to connect in different ways: their sexual indentities, insecurities/anxieties, having something to be passionate about but at the same time maybe not? She might lean towards elladine or Genevieve if she had to make a choice?

Aquarius sun + cancer moon

so she’s still 23 y’all, I got it! I can’t do math sorry

“Freddie Mercury was probably my dad in my past life.”

Can play the banjo, guitar, & oud

Participates in hot yoga weekly

If she’s not with mc in the end and continues dating around if anyone from season two: LUCAS, Kassam, Gary, Rocco, maybe Blake? I originally thought Elisa but she’s probably too much for yas let’s be honest here lol they’d be better off as friends

Omg I forgot marisol! Imagine that?! Whew!!!

Season three: maybe Lily? But what if? Me being the slightly messy bitch that I am? Something happening with her & AJ. Now that?! Would be some chaotic shit “from the outside looks of it” name the irrelevant person behind the quote...now!

I’d like to see her interact with allerga but there could be something with her & cherry. I’m thinking cherry, Yasmin, & priya would bond well but we’re not here to talk about that

Getting rid of the physical aspect I genuinely think she’d do well with marisol, Lucas, or kassam. They’d mesh well I think in a relationship

She’s a body shimmer girl for sure!

Loves silk or satin robes

she’s a shortie, 5’2 to 5’5

Is learning Spanish

Loves arcade games, come see her in pinball & Pac-Man!

Quarantine life did not change her lifestyle much, but it did slightly mess with her mental health :/

loves the fall time, feels like she can slow down some and really spend time with family and friends

I feel like she has one best friend outside of the villa & that’s good enough for her!

They met their first year in uni & been close ever since

She doesn’t speak to the temporary friends she grew up with anymore & is often confused why they feel the need to keep up with her in the media which added more annoying worries to her heart but whatever right? Keep your eyes on the horizon

celebs she finds/found attractive: Aaliyah—especially when she played in queen of the damned, Kehlani, Zazie Beetz, Fivel & Booboo Stewart, Lakeith stanfield, Leah Lewis, Sofia Carson, Ryan gosling, & Nick Jonas

She listens to: jade bird, Yebba, Elli Ingram, Wafia, Zeina, Summer walker, Tanerèlle, Mariah the scientist, Teyana Taylor, Tove Lo, lady Gaga, Ra Ra Riot, Empire of the sun, & smallpools

Anthem? Diana Gordon — Rollin’

#litg #litg3 #litg s3 #litg yasmin #litg tai #litg ciaran #litg mc #litg aj #litg2 #litg s2 #litg cherry #litg allegra #litg oc #litg iona #litg elladine #litg genevieve #litg seb #litg lily #litg headcanons #litg moodboard

[monimolimnion]

20 first lines tag

tagged by my beloved writing buddy @clarionglass thanks bb!!

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line. Then tag 10 other authors!

1. yarrow (unreleased) uh oh spoilers this is an unreleased franmaya fic from just this week. writing is going well, so it should be up Soon™

“Maya Fey is dreaming.”

2. look through you post-AAI1 fic i wrote last month!

“It’s way, way too late, and all is quiet.”

3. Kindred the big kahuna. My longform fic about Miles Edgeworth adopting a dog and all the shenengains therein (also narumitsu). I swear I’m coming back to you Pess... soon... T-T

“Phoenix. I’ve adopted a dog.”

4. sandglass (handle with care) a narumitsu fic where i burdened miles edgeworth with all my touch-starvation

“2:49 A.M. Miles knows the time precisely because he is awake, unfortunately, and staring at the alarm clock, situated just so on the bedside table because Phoenix still refuses to purchase a phone made in this century with a working alarm system.”

(i know that’s two lines sue me)

5. Miles Away baby’s first AA fic! i’m still so very fond of this one

“Phoenix can’t sleep.”

6. Tales of Dŵrwedd It’s a novel, baybee! This here is the book I wrote about my Witcher OC, Wynne, and how she met her later girlfriend Aurelie. 66k words. Writing this baby got me through quarantine and then some

“Ah, Novigrad. Sunset has the city all in silhouette, vivid orange and pink throwing the city into dramatic shadows, as I cluck to the grey mare beneath me and we pass underneath Oxenfurt Gate, turning north towards Temple Isle.”

7. Featherlight long-abandoned game grumps orchestra!AU

“When people complimented the beauty of a musician, it was always about their grace and poise, how they made something infinitely complex look as effortless and serene as a swan ghosting across water.”

8. Go Slow the first and last time i ever wrote smut. 

“It all started the day Arin broke the internet.”

9. hit me with your rhythm stick just a GG drabble because i liked the song

“It’s Between Grumps, and they’ve eaten just slightly more sugar than is healthy. “

10. Stay another GG drabble

“It’s the shaking he notices first.”

11. Undertow first fic I ever published! GG soulmate AU

“Sometimes he catches himself admiring the way the tattoos intermingle on her shoulder, the mandala fading as it curves around the the familiar little pattern of bubbles that hide in the crook of her scarab's wing.”

That’s it for fic stuff. How about we do first lines of games I’ve released next?

12. When Aster Falls rohan and aster my beloveds

"Listen, you’re never going to believe any of this, but hear me out, okay?"

13. Were|House we released this last year for Halloween!! ft a stellar crew of amazing peeps including @clarionglass who tagged me in this in the first place lol

"I bet Halloween this year is gonna suck."

14. DemiDato: Monster Dating Show (Demo) Full game isn’t out yet, and was also co-written with two amazing friends anyway, so here’s the first line of the demo instead. leaving in the funky renpy code for authenticity

"Are we live? {w} We’re live? {w} Okay!"

Okay I’m out of stuff without going back into old roleplay and nobody needs to see that (remember circus!AU, clari?). I don’t really have a lot of WIPs because of How My Brain Is (and those that actually are abandoned are mostly brainstorming only).

Any patterns? I used to struggle a LOT with coming up with good first lines, and I notice as I’ve gotten older I’ve leaned hard into short, snappy, very in-media-res-y openings, instead of longer sentences. That, or dialogue, which works the same. Do I like it? Dunno, honestly, but that’s where I’m at.

Picking yarrow as my favourite opener even though it’s tied-shortest because it’s the newest shiniest baby, and the scene it leads into is killer and i’m very proud of it

Tags! gonna tag @pringlesaremydivision, all the discord gremlins who i know actually write things @spaghettiandpeas @daddywright @rainphee (and all the other gremlins if they want)

aand anyone else who sees this consider yourself tagged by me, if you want!

#momo speaks #tagged #thanks for the tag clari this was a blast

[themattress]

Holy Shit!

https://imgur.com/gallery/WKkli

https://imgur.com/gallery/j9OQylb

Beyond the proof that the guy who uploaded this is involved with Bad Robot that he provided at the end of his second post, these definitely seem legit because the first post was in 2018, before The Rise of Skywalker came out, yet the treatment contains some blatant concepts that ended up finding there way into that movie that I have a hard time believing anyone but J.J himself could have come up with (plus, the rest of the plot is very J.J-like, as I’ll get into.)

So these definitely seem to be the discarded Episode VIII and IX treatments. Thoughts?

- Luke’s reasons for coming to Ahch-To definitely seem more in line with TFA than in TLJ, seeing as if he wanted to just “go there to die” he wouldn’t have left a freaking map to the place behind, plus it seemed off that someone disillusioned with the Jedi ways would go to the site of the first Jedi Temple to begin with. His portrayal also matches what we saw at the end of TFA (seeming to be in mourning for Han), and fits the “kind but sad” description from the script. And far from cutting himself off from the Force, Luke has been influencing it from afar as part of his grand plan, explaining Rey’s vision when she touched his lightsaber.

- Luke has a wife and kids! Sadly for EU fans, the wife is not Mara Jade.

- It was Luke’s influence via the Force that explained the things Rey could do that fans deemed her a Mary Sue for, plus some other things that weren’t so routinely noted such as the remarkable coincidence that she and Finn just happened to run into Han and Chewie right after obtaining the Millennium Falcon. Not sure how well this would have gone down...

- Saccrum, Snoke’s home planet, is literally Exogol. Secret ancient Sith planet that is nigh impenetrable to all non-Sith, site of the final battle and (as we’ll soon learn) where Snoke is repeatedly cloned and where Palpatine is resurrected by Sith alchemists...it’s fucking Exogol.

- I recall concept art for Kylo Ren’s partly metallic face floating around.

- Dathan Naut seems cool, but she never really amounts to much.

- So it seems J.J Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan’s vision for the Sequel Trilogy always seemed to boil down to “All the generations of Jedi vs. all the generations of Sith reaching a climactic battle, with Skywalker vs. Palpatine at the heart of it, and the Palpatine who becomes a Skywalker as the key to victory.” That idea was always where they were going.

- Jedi/Sith Holocrons were always gonna be a thing, which is why Rebels worked them in.

- Live-action Ahsoka was also always an objective, it seems, and I bet the way they wrote her out in Rebels’ “Twilight of the Apprentice” was to potentially serve as a lead-in for her appearance in the Sequel Trilogy. But because that never came to pass, they brought her back toward the end of the series and set her on the new trajectory that she’s currently on. Honestly, I think that’s for the better, Ahsoka wouldn’t have really fit in the main film series.

- Not big on this Cfi-Xi character, she mainly seems to be here to “no homo” C-3PO. And her main role relating to the Sith Planet ended up played just fine by C-3PO in TROS anyway.

- BB-8 had the kind of fake-out death they ended up giving to Chewie.

- Wow, so Hux was supposed to die in Episode VIII and Phasma in Episode IX originally. Funny how that got totally flipped backward in the versions we actually ended up getting.

- OK, this “family time” that Rey’s getting is precious. It’s sad we didn’t get to see this.

- Hoo boy, “this is the bad ass Luke Skywalker we’ve been waiting for!” Really? Et tu, J.J and Kasdan? In light of the recent showing by Luke in The Mandalorian, I again question why this portrayal of the character is so widely beloved by fans when it has little to no basis in the OT.

- Rey vs. Kylo Ren in a raging ocean backdrop; here in Episode VIII rather than IX. Similarly, it’s a duel that Kylo clearly has in the bag, but a fluke in the Force allows Rey to survive, although I much prefer the fluke we got to the one this treatment proposes because....

- Goddamn it, J.J. You’re doing the time travel / time paradox shit again? Were Lost, Fringe and Star Trek not enough for you to explore that concept in? This is the biggest part of these treatment drafts that rubs me the wrong way, it’s just so needlessly convoluted and cliche.

- Also, yet another Mystery Box in Luke’s severed hand on Saccrum.

- No Jedi Leia in that flashback? Yeah, I can see why Kathleen Kennedy rejected this.

- Btw, Rian Johnson wasn’t the only one who was going to turn Luke into an asshole failure, it seems. Making this highly risky plan with Ben and not letting his parents know about it? Dick! 

- Snoke is the one who destroys Luke’s academy, not Kylo Ren. And he does so as he is dying; another clue-in that there’s more to Snoke than it seems given that he’s still around.

- Lando would have been in Episode IX anyway, albeit still running Cloud City.

- The idea for this Episode IX is that the Skywalkers are a Jedi dynasty that long predated Anakin (Shmi being a descendant of it), and the Palpatines were their Sith enemies. Sheev Palpatine also would have died his first death generations ago and was being constantly resurrected via clone bodies made on Saccrum ever since, so the one that Anakin killed wasn’t the original; Palpatine can’t be stopped unless Saccrum is destroyed. While not as convoluted as the time paradox shit, I appreciate the simpler route they ended up taking.

- J.J and Kasdan always wanted Rey’s father to be a defective Palpatine clone.

- There was never a planned origin for Snoke in these treatments; wherever he came from the bottom line was that Palpatine brought him onto his side by promising to share his key to immortality (constant cloned bodies made on Sacccrum) with him. Again, this ended up being simplified into Snoke just being a whole-sale creation of Palpatine’s from the very beginning.

- Since these are treatments, the “love” part of the dynamic between Rey and Kylo Ren is highly underdeveloped and would likely have been fleshed out in screenwriting. The end result, with the deprogramming vision of Rey and Darth Vader, sounds pretty effective though, but I think I much prefer the Leia death / vision of Han version that we ended up with.

- LOL, the “droid way of making love”. I want to see this idea repurposed someday.

- That’s an interesting twist on Alderaan, although it really doesn’t amount to anything given that the planet Leia grew up on and called home still got destroyed by the Death Star.

- “Magic blood”, another J.J-ism. Again, I much prefer the simpler version TROS gave us.

- The climax’s structure is basically the same as in TROS, with Rey (and others) heading to the Sith planet from Ahch-To and then Leia’s Resistance forces going there from their base, with Rey and Ben facing Palpatine. The biggest differences is that we also have Luke vs. Snoke and Finn vs. Phasma battles going on, in addition to a Jedi vs. Sith ground battle.

- Yeah, I don’t really care for how Phasma’s death is handled: making her hideously scarred and treating her sympathetically don’t sit right with me. Rian Johnson did it better, IMO.

- No red stormtroopers here, but there are red Tie Fighters.

- Ben still gives his life to save Rey, albeit in a less literal manner.

- Palpatine still wants Rey to ascend to the Sith throne and rule by his side. Also: “he loves the smell of burning hair, it reminds him of home”!? Wow, that’s dark in what it’s implying...

- OK, so while not a Jedi, Leia is the Big Damn Hero in the end. That makes sense.

- WTF? Rey straight-up kills Palpatine with Sith lightning!? Yeah, that definitely wasn’t ever gong to fly with Lucasfilm, since it totally contradicts ROTJ’s message! It was inevitable that we’d end up with the more correct “Rey deflects Palpatine’s own Sith lightning back at him”.

- “Rey Skywalker” is the end point for the story here as well, but it ending on Tatooine is so much more emotional than ending it on Alderaan Prime, a place that only just now exists.

My final impression is that we probably could have had the best version of the Sequel Trilogy possible IF the right corrections were made when adapting these treatments into real screenplays, such as axing the more convoluted and pointlessly fanservice-y elements and making different choices for a few of the characters (Rey, Kylo Ren, C-3PO, Phasma, etc...also something more substantial for Poe since they clearly had no idea what to do with him). However, it was also an impossibility for it to ever happen due to many different factors, the biggest of which being Carrie Fisher’s passing in 2016. So as it stands, I am still satisfied with the version we got and am especially happy that J.J returned for TROS to provide the end of the Skywalker Saga with some of his original (mercifully fine-tuned and simplified) ideas.

#Star Wars #J.J Abrams #What Could Have Been #Opinion #Analysis

[pastrnaks-sainz]

can i request a best friends to dating with matt grzelcyk? also i love your writing sm omg 🥺🤍

My Whole Life 

Pairing: Matt Grzelcyk x female!reader

Type: Fluff

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1979

Summary: You had always looked at Matt one way. You met him in high school and instantly became best friends. Over time, you’d developed feelings for him. But the thing is, you hadn’t known it until he went to play for the Boston Bruins and you saw him again for the first time in five months.

A/N: remember y’all, my requests will CLOSE on Sunday!!! and omg bb thank you so much!!!

~~~~

Freshman year of high school was the best year of your life. See, freshman year was when you met Matt Grzelcyk. He was a better, closer friend than the ones you’d had since you were a kid. You did everything together. Not a day went by where you weren’t joined at the hip. Your friends had joked about planning the wedding, both of them only being half kidding.

The friendship you had with Matt survived all four years of high school. You both decided to attend Boston University, Matt with a full ride hockey scholarship and you with one for law studies. Matt always joked that you’d one day leave him for Harvard. Little did either of you know that it was him who would be the one leaving for bigger and better things.

When Matt told you about his contract with the Bruins you could not have been happier for him. You were the first person he told. He told you before he told his family. However excited you were for your best friend, it paled in comparison to his excitement when you get accepted to the Harvard Law Program. ‘My best friend is gonna be a lawyer’, he’d said, the excitement in his voice made you light up like a Christmas tree.

Over time, you’d fallen head over heels in love with Matt and you had no idea until he left to play hockey. You’d been blind to the feelings growing in your heart and in your mind and you had no idea how in love you were.

You hadn’t spent more than two days apart from each other, and now, with you buried in your studies and Matt playing in the NHL, you were apart for six days a week. You managed to get together for coffee or dinner or a movie every Sunday. But all that changed pretty quickly. You passed your Bar Exam and Matt had made a place for himself on the Bruins roster. With everything going on in your lives, you hadn’t seen each other in person in months.

Working for the DA’s office had taken up all of your time as you worked your ass off trying to climb the rungs and leave the DA for a private firm. And Matt? Well, Matt was off becoming a star NHL player. Between both your career paths taking up your entire lives, you’d been relegated to texts and FaceTime calls. They mainly fell between your court cases and his practices and games.

Your boss at the firm had finally taken notice of everything you were doing and forced you to take a week off. You’d been lucky in the fact that it had coincided with the All-Star break. The first thing you did when you got back to your apartment was call Matt. You hadn’t heard his voice in so long, so when he picked up on the second ring and answered with that cheery tone you hadn’t heard in months, you nearly broke down crying.

“Y/N Y/L/N,” Matt said. You could nearly hear his smile on the other end of the line as you let yourself fall back to your bed. “Now there’s a name I haven’t seen cross my screen in many a month. How you been?”

“If I see one more dickwad loser drunk drive himself into a telephone pole then sue the bar for emotional trauma I am going to throw myself off a cliff,” you huffed as you desperately tried to ignore the pang in your chest at the sound of your best friend’s laugh.

“That sounds like hell,” he said. “So, why are you calling? Did something happen, is everything alright?”

“God, you are adorable,” you giggled and shook your head. “Everything’s fine, Matt. I just wanted you to know that I was forced to take a week off and I know you’re free this week and I figured it’s time for us to get together. It’s been too long since we’ve done something together.”

“Yes,” Matt said. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Sleeping in for the first time in five months,” you huffed.

“Alright when you wake up I’m gonna pick you up and then we’re having a good old fashioned Matt and Y/N day, okay?” he said with a small chuckle. There was that pang in your chest again.

“Okay,” you said. “Goodnight, Matt. See you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

You woke up the next morning at nine o’clock to the smell and sound of sizzling bacon. Something you hadn’t done since you were in high school. Wait. Bacon. Your roommate was away on a girls’ trip to Vegas.

“Mornin’ sunshine,” Matt smiled when you walked into the kitchen. Your chest panged yet again. Something in the back of your mind couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to wake up to this sight every morning.

“I would ask how you got into my apartment but since you made me bacon, I’ll skip on pressing charges,” you said with a smile and walked around the kitchen counter and straight into Matt’s arms.

Matt engulfed you in his arms, holding you tight to his chest. You wrapped your arms around his waist and took a deep breath, breathing him in. He ducked his head to the crook of your neck and buried his face in your hair. Your heart sped up on its own accord at the physical contact with your best friend. Your mind raced. You had never felt like this when you hugged Matt before. You had no idea where these sudden feelings were coming from and, if you were being honest, it made you nervous.

“I missed you,” Matt mumbled after a few moments of silence. “You have no idea how much I missed you.”

“I missed you more,” you laughed lightly before pulling away from him, despite your heart screaming at you to stay in his embrace for as long as you possibly could.

“So I thought there was no better way to start a classic Matt and Y/N day with a nice, home cooked breakfast. Well, nice home cooked bacon. I uh, I don’t know how to make anything else,” Matt chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. He’d always done that when he was nervous. You never found it adorable until now.

“Well lucky for you I make a mean bagel,” you laughed and reached for the bag sitting next to the toaster. “Still like it burnt to a crisp?”

“Hey,” Matt laughed, bumping your hip with his. “I like it slightly blackened.”

“Burnt to a crisp it is,” you smiled. “So what do you have planned for the day? Do I need to wear anything special?”

“A sweater,” Matt responded as he stepped up beside you at the oven. “I have a fun day planned for us.”

“Can’t wait,” you tossed a grin up at him, still ignoring the pang in your chest.

“Y/N, I swear, I thought he was gonna rip my head off,” Matt laughed as you walked through the lobby after breakfast. “It was terrifying.”

“What did you expect when you decided to fight Deslauriers?” you giggled, locking the door behind you. “Good Lord it’s cold out here.”

“And you don’t have gloves do you?” Matt asked, glancing over at you. You shook your head and shivered. He wordlessly took your hand in his. Sparks ignited from where your skin touched. You shivered again, this time not from the cold.

“So,” you cleared your throat, desperately trying to brush away the thoughts your mind was tossing before your eyes. “Where are we going?”

“I wanna see if you can guess,” he said, tossing a look at you. You raised your eyebrows at him and pursed your lips. “Fine, it’s the first place I took you when you moved to Charlestown.”

“I always thought you were crazy for bringing me to a graveyard,” you laughed as the Uber Matt had ordered pulled up in front of you. He opened the door for you, letting go of your hand briefly as he climbed in beside you.

“Bunker Hill Cemetery, please,” Matt told the driver. He nodded and pulled away from the curb. Matt looked over at you and held out his hand again. You sucked in a subtle breath and laced your fingers with his. He’d never done that before and it had your lawyer senses kicking into overdrive trying to figure why he was doing it now.

“Remember when I tripped over the tree root and tore up my knee?” you asked, pointing to a gnarly, overgrown tree root that had cracked one of the headstones straight up the middle.

“Yeah,” Matt laughed. “You could barely walk, I had to carry you home.”

“Good times,” you sighed, looking around the snow-dusted graveyard. It was creepy, sure, but where you used to be scared of it now, when you were with Matt, you felt safer than you ever had before.

“Next stop?” he asked after you completed your round of the graveyard. You nodded, grinning up at him.

“So I know it’s a little out of the way,” he said as you got into another Uber after hitting all your childhood haunts. “But I thought you might be up for a North End visit?”

“Cannolis from Modern? Absolutely,” you giggled.

“Modern?” he asked with a chuckle. “Everybody knows Mike’s is better.”

“Mike’s? Are you kidding me, Matt?” you gasped. “Every self respecting Bostonian knows Mike’s is a tourist trap.”

“It might be a tourist trap but it damn well has the best cannolis,” Matt protested.

“Did Deslauriers punch you too hard?” you asked, shaking your head. “You’re crazy.”

“Fine, we’ll get cannolis from Mike’s and Modern then go back to my place and have a cannoli taste off then watch movies,” Matt decided. “Deal?”

“Deal,” you nodded, laughing to yourself. “A good old fashioned Matt and Y/N movie night is just what the doctor ordered me to do with my time off.”

“Just you wait,” Matt smirked as the Uber pulled the curb between Mike’s and Modern. “Mike’s is wipe the floor with you precious little Modern.”

“Just you wait,” you retorted. “Modern is gonna beat the crap out of Mike’s.”

“Oh my God,” Matt mumbled, his mouth full of a cannoli from Modern. “I digress, you were right.”

“I was what?” you asked, smirking at him, desperately trying to push the pang that was still in your chest out of your mind.

“Shut up,” Matt laughed, wiping the powdered sugar from his mouth with his sleeve. You glanced up at him to see a spot of sugar still left on the corner of his mouth.

“You, uh,” you paused before reaching over, your fingers hovering just above his skin. “You missed a spot.”

Matt looked at you as you wiped the sugar away. He was shocked. This was the first time he was seeing you in this light. He watched the way your eyes glimmered in the low light of his living room. He had looked at you countless times, seen the way you looked in every light imaginable, and only now, only today after not seeing you for five months, did he realize how completely and utterly in love with you.

“Y/N,” he whispered. “Can- can I kiss you?”

His question took you aback. But your heart and your mind didn’t argue in saying yes.

“Please,” you said, your voice needy.

Matt cupped your cheek and kissed you instantly. You felt yourself melt into him as his lips, chapped, pressed against yours. You and Matt relished in the moment. Neither of you knew just how much you wanted to kiss each other until now. You never thought how amazing it would be until now. You never thought you would find yourself kissing your best friend.

#matt grzelcyk #x reader #matt grzelyck x reader #nhl x reader #fluff #matt grzelyck fluff #nhl fluff #one shot #matt grzelyck one shot #nhl one shot #fanfiction #matt grzelyck fanfiction #nhl fanfiction #nhl oneshot #hockey oneshot #hockey imagine #nhl imagine #mainlypastrnaksbae

[politijohn]

Dana Martin, 31, a Black transgender woman, was fatally shot in Montgomery, Alabama. Daroneshia Duncan-Boyd, an Alabama-based trans advocate, said “she was a person that was loved by many.”

Jazzaline Ware, 34, a Black transgender woman, was found dead in her Memphis apartment. Her death is being investigated as a homicide, according to The Advocate.  “Our community in Memphis is mourning the death of Jazzaline Ware, a Black trans woman and beloved friend,” said the Transgender Law Center in a press release.

Ashanti Carmon, 27, a Black transgender woman, was fatally shot in Prince George’s County, Maryland. “Until I leave this Earth, I’m going to continue on loving her in my heart, body, and soul,” said Philip Williams, Carmon’s fiancé. “She did not deserve to leave this Earth so early, especially in the way that she went out.

Claire Legato, 21, a Black transgender woman, was fatally shot in Cleveland. Friends and family took to social media to mourn Legato’s death, remembering her as someone who was “full of life.”

Muhlaysia Booker, 23, a Black transgender woman, was fatally shot in Dallas. Friends, family and advocates across the country took to social media to mourn Booker, sharing their shock and disbelief. “Such a beautiful spirit taken too soon,” wrote one person. “She lived her life and loved all of who she was.”

Michelle ‘Tamika’ Washington, 40, a Black transgender woman, was fatally shot in Philadelphia. Washington, who was also known by the name Tameka, is remembered by friends and loved ones as a beloved sister and “gay mother.”

Paris Cameron, 20, a Black transgender woman, was among three people killed in a horrific anti-LGBTQ shooting in a home in Detroit, according to local reports. Alunte Davis, 21, and Timothy Blancher, 20, two gay men, were found dead at the scene and Cameron was taken to the hospital, where she died from her injuries.

Chynal Lindsey, 26, a Black transgender woman, was found dead in White Rock Lake, Dallas, with signs of “homicidal violence,” according to police. Friends, family and community members took to social media to share their shock at her death, describing her as “smiling” and “a person I had never seen mad.”

Chanel Scurlock, 23, a Black transgender woman, was found fatally shot in Lumberton, North Carolina. “RIP baby,” wrote a friend on Facebook. “You [lived] your life as you wanted. I’m proud of you for being unapologetically correct about your feelings and expectations of YOU.”

Zoe Spears, 23, a Black transgender woman, was found with signs of trauma in Fairmount Heights, Maryland, and later pronounced dead, according to local reports. “She was my daughter – very bright and very full of life,” transgender advocate Ruby Corado, the founder and executive director of Casa Ruby, told HRC. “Casa Ruby was her home. Right now, we just want her and her friends and the people who knew her to know that she’s loved.”

Brooklyn Lindsey, 32, a Black transgender woman, was found dead in Kansas City, Missouri, according to local news reports. “I love you, Brooklyn Lindsey,” wrote a friend on Twitter. “I shall live on for you. Rest in power, sista.”

Denali Berries Stuckey, 29, a Black transgender woman, was found fatally shot in North Charleston, South Carolina. “I lost my best friend, first cousin,” wrote a family member on Facebook. “We were more than cousin. We were like brother and sisters. I love you so much, Pooh.”

Tracy Single, 22, a Black transgender woman, was killed in Houston. “Rest in power and peace Tracy,” wrote Monica Roberts, Houston-based transgender advocate. “You were taken away from us way too soon.”

Bubba Walker, 55, a Black transgender woman, was killed in Charlotte, North Carolina, in late July. She is remembered by friends and family as “one of those people who was really fun to be around. She was very kind and she loved helping people.”

Kiki Fantroy, 21, a Black transgender woman, was fatally shot in Miami. Fantroy’s mother remembered her as having “a heart of gold” and being “a very loving person.” She also pleaded for justice for her daughter, saying, “My baby, my baby. Please help bring justice to my baby.”

Jordan Cofer, 22, was among the nine victims killed in a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio. While Cofer was only out to a handful of close friends and used the pronouns he/him/his on his social media profiles, he is remembered by friends as “extremely bright” and “well-liked.” A friend told Splinter News that “Jordan was probably one of the sweetest people you would ever meet, a true saint, but he was also very scared constantly. He tried to give the best to everyone.”

Pebbles LaDime “Dime” Doe, 24, a Black transgender woman, was killed in Allendale County, South Carolina. Doe’s friends and family remembered her as having a “bright personality,” and being someone who “showed love” and who was “the best to be around.”

Bailey Reeves, 17, a Black transgender teen, was fatally shot in Baltimore, Maryland. She is remembered as "a person who lived her life to the fullest.”

Bee Love Slater, 23, was killed in Clewiston, Florida. Slater is remembered by loved ones as someone “with a really, really sweet heart” who “never harmed anyone.”

Jamagio Jamar Berryman, 30, a Black gender non-conforming person, was killed in Kansas City, Kansas. Local activists and community members joined family and friends at a vigil and took to social media to mourn Berryman’s loss.

Itali Marlowe, 29, a Black transgender woman was found shot in Houston. She was transported to a nearby hospital where she was pronounced dead, as reported by Monica Roberts of TransGriot. “You deserved to live a full and robust life surrounded by people who embraced and celebrated your real self,” wrote Sue Kerr, an LGBTQ columnist.

Brianna “BB” Hill, 30, was fatally shot in Kansas City. Kansas City Police Capt. Tim Hernandez told local press that the alleged shooter remained at the scene until they arrived. She was a beloved member of her community, a fan of the Kansas City football team and loved spreading joy by sharing funny videos on her Facebook page.

Johana 'Joa’ Medina, 25, died at a hospital in El Paso, Texas just hours after being released from ICE custody. She suffered severe health complications that went untreated while she was in detention, according to Diversidad Sin Fronteras. According to OJ Pitaya, an advocate with the group, Medina dreamed of coming to the U.S. to become certified as a nurse, since she was unable to practice as a transgender woman in her home country.

Layleen Polanco, 27, was found dead in a cell at Riker’s Island. Polanco was described by those who knew her as “a sweet, amazing […] and generous human being.”

#trans rights #transphobia #lgbtq #lgbt #trans #trans day of remembrance #TDOR #bigotry #transgender #politics #bernie sanders #bernie 2020 #2020 Democratic primary #election #democratic primaries #dem debate

[storm-driver]

Hi! Do you have any writing tips for Roxas and Ventus? :D

I am about to bash heads in with this, you might wanna sit down.

I’m known to be particularly brutal when it comes to analysis and judgement of others’ works, so asking for my advice might lead to me being very harsh about it. I also just typed up a bit of shit and one misclick on my keyboard deleted literally all of and I’m PISSED the fuck off at Tumblr for not having an AUTO SAVE FEATURE ON POSTS. But whatever here we go

I’d qualify this as a character’s study, because that’s honestly what I’m doing. I’m gonna cite to you my character studies for Roxas and Ventus. I’ve spent literal days analyzing their archetypes and who they are as people. And all I’m gonna do is cite it. Below the cut because oof I got a LOT TO SAY

Ventus is one character I see people get half right and half wrong in their fan works. Many characterize him as a bubbly and upbeat, naive child with hardly a copious sense of what it means to be the kind of child warrior that he is. A Mary Sue, to use a term. And to an extent, Ventus can seem very Mary-Sue-like, being such a young person and such a caring and, at times, gullible child.

In the story of BBS, we see Ventus progress through the worlds in search of his friend, deliberately defying his Master’s wishes in the process. When he finds out one of his friends, Aqua, was only out looking for them to drag them home, he called her an awful person. From the moment he met Vanitas, he was flat out rude (though with reason).

Point being, even if Ventus’ heart is literally made from pure light, he is not a pure person. He makes mistakes. He has choices he regrets. He’s not happy with everything that’s ever happened. He has his dislikes, things that make him uncomfortable, things that he hates. He’s not a saint. He’s not without flaws. So in my honest opinion, he cannot be written without them.

One of Ven’s most defining character traits is his personality being a near polar opposite of Roxas’, the character whom he most resembles. Ventus is upbeat, he’s outgoing, he wants to see new places and meet new people. He wants to protect those people and he wants to call them his friends. And sometimes, that’s his downfall.

His overtly strong care for Terra, as his brother-in-training, led him to defy his Master and go out on his own. This led to Ven going about and protecting people from the “monsters” (Unversed) that plagued all the worlds. A good outcome, yes, but it led to Ven’s doubts about who Terra was and what he was capable of. And that led to a falling out in their friendship. To a point where Ven was so hurt by Terra not letting him come on the journey, Ven kept going just to find new friends. A hint of jealousy.

As the series has progressed, though, we find Ventus is acting a bit more mature after he woke up in KH3. When Aqua started to feel down that Terra was still missing, Ventus held his Wayfinder to the stars and assured her that they would be able to bring him home. A role reversal that showed how much Ven has grown as a person, given that it was usually Aqua, one of the most mature characters in the series, who would support Ven in his times of need.

All in all, Ventus remains a very kind-hearted person who I’d hope is still eager to make new friends. Though he’s matured just enough to realize that the world may be a bit more complicated than the black and white views that Eraqus taught him. I.E. When he told Vanitas that he didn’t ask to be split away, that their split didn’t define them. And you can visibly see Ventus get upset when Vanitas insists that all he is capable of being is darkness.

It’s such a strong sign of maturity that Ven also calmly accepts Vanitas’ answer. He doesn’t try to fight it like Sora does. He’s aware that he can’t change what some people think, and he just needs to live with it. Giving up on an argument, especially with someone as stubborn as Vanitas has shown to be, is an insanely strong sign of maturity that not a lot of characters show with such a collected grasp on the situation. Ventus knew exactly what he was saying. And that’s amazing growth from when he tried to argue with Terra and Aqua in BBS.

I would say he’s a kind person. Still a bit childish around the edges, as he’s shown he’s capable of being. But he isn’t quite a child anymore. He knows what he’s supposed to be, what Vanitas is supposed to be, and how this development affects him as a person. He’s very mature for his age, but still very caring. And maybe just a little naive.

Roxas, on the other hand, might feel like a polar opposite.

Consider first that Roxas is just over a year old. He’s almost as close as you can get to an infant in this series, besides the literal children Sora, Riku and Kairi from BBS. He probably doesn’t have a fantastic grasp on even the most simple concepts like gender or friendship. That second one should most especially be true to Roxas.

Something I tend to see people do very wrong when writing Roxas is making him emotionally driven by nothing but sheer anger. Yes, Roxas’ most defining trait is his remarkable ability to dual-wield, something he learned through the unbridled rage of watching his best friend die in his arms. But think about why he’s angry first and you start to unveil who Roxas really is.

First and foremost, he’s a tragedy of a character. Everything about his existence is tragic and leaves the viewer with strong pity and condolences for Roxas. He even pities himself and the fate he’s forced to face by end of KH2. Why, though, is it all so tragic? How come Roxas’ story hurts more than, say, Riku’s or Aqua’s?

Part of it comes back to Roxas being born a literal blank slate. He had no grasp on reality for an entire week after he was born. No sense of purpose, what was right and wrong, self-preservation or care for other things. He needed to be taught what all of that meant, and it was only after he made the mistake of following Xemnas and joining the Organization. It’s akin to a child being adopted and immediately put to work for the efforts of the homeowners. The child knows no better than to do so. Especially for Roxas, who has literally no memories or cohesion of who he is.

Furthermore, the person who taught him what it was to be alive, to be friends with others and to experience joy, ended up betraying his trust and flat-out lying to him for most of the time that they were friends. Axel may not have enjoyed lying to Roxas, but the point being that he did. And it gave Roxas trust issues from that point onward.

Now that’s not to say that Roxas isn’t capable of liking other people. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. We know that Roxas wants to be friends with others. In a way, it mimics Ventus’ wishes to make new friends, and maybe even has some deeper meaning to it. (We do know that Ventus’ heart was with Roxas for some time, so who knows, maybe it was overflow?) We know for a fact that Roxas would’ve liked very much to be friends with some kids he saw in Twilight Town. There’s even a point in the manga where Roxas says that he was jealous of their friendship.

Now I also wouldn’t put it past Roxas to be a little cold towards people. For someone who’s gone through as much tragedy as he has, he has a right to be cold. But it’s not like it was every random stranger’s fault that he had such a shitty start to his life. Roxas has shown he’s capable of being compassionate and kind to others, even to people he doesn’t know too well. I know the Roxas we met in the data Twilight Town wasn’t exactly genuine, but the little mini-games you did during his segment? Just proof that, if Roxas didn’t have his Hell of a life at the constant front, maybe he could’ve lived a bit more calmly. Been a helpful person around town and just an overall calm and chill person.

Of course, he probably has his gripes. I think he’d be playful and teasing with his friends. Maybe give Riku a cold look for that time he stole the munny pouch. Stare at Ventus oddly for a few seconds before realizing that it wasn’t a mirror he was looking at. But he wouldn’t be 99% anger and 1% “ice cream!” Everything Roxas has gone through doesn’t lead directly to rage mode 24/7, despite how much we as a community joke about it.

Roxas is a compassionate and loving person, but because of his numerous trust issues in the past, he might hold some friends closer than others. He can be nice to anyone he wants to, but only so few people know what Roxas is really like. He has a playful side, but he’s also capable of being very aggressive, stubborn-willed, and flat rude when he wants to be. He might even have a bit of a temper problem. But that doesn’t define him. He is Roxas, nobody else.

#lunarconfestionist #kingdom hearts #asks! #roxas #ventus #ven #i honestly love doing these kinds of indepth analysis things #the way characters are built in kh is truly incredible and can teach a lot about writing.

[missshezz]

The Ballad of Omega Sue continues...

Let me preface this by saying that people can like what they like and dislike what they dislike.

You are not more or less of a Star Wars fan (or any fandom fan) simply because you love something that someone else dislikes. The idea that being a fan is attached to blindly loving something is childish and ridiculous. Passion comes in all forms. Critiquing something is part of that. You can love something and still be critical of it.

That said...

Spoilers for Bad Batch 1x02: Cut and Run

To start, I largely enjoyed the episode. Especially getting to return again to the clone deserter, Cut and his family, whom we last saw in the Clone Wars season 2 episode, The Deserter.

Now, I admit confusion about how the Bad Batch met Cut and had to google that I didn’t miss something somewhere. There is a ton of stuff that should have happened in the CW and didn’t because of reasons (focus on characters who didn’t need solo episodes and episodes that didn’t serve the plot in any meaningful way being two prime examples). It made enough sense, though, the Bad Batchers ended up on Saleucami and met Cut and his family so I accepted it.

The main storyline of them helping Cut and his family to get off planet because of the growing Imperial threat was fantastic. I loved it. Played to the characters and deepened how dangerous the galaxy has become in such a short time. Suu became a more prominent figure here and we saw clones DO possess the ability to have lives outside soldiering.

However, the threat of discovery still hangs over Cut. There is an element of danger when he goes into town and finds himself face-to-face with other troopers who share more prominent features with him than the Bad Batch (minus Echo) do. That moment when the trooper says he looked familiar created a necessary pause and a sense of danger. There was an active moment of worry there.

Echo and Tech also working together to acquire the chain codes was fantastic and Tech’s “solution” for how to acquire them and the disks was hilarious (especially Hunter’s reaction to it). I love that Echo is like the R2 of BB. He plugs in and gets the codes while Tech uses them to decrypt the encryption and make the required chain chips (I’ll come back to this in a moment).

I even tolerated the Godling in the opening moments of the episode and up to when she went to retrieve the ball. They finally offered some characterization to the Godling, revealing Omega never played games before or knew much about life outside Kamino. The problem here is they don’t explain what she was doing on Kamino or why she didn’t interact with the other clones her age. It’s flimsy characterization that never builds on why she’s so obsessed with the BB or why they never heard of her prior to this (we know the reason is because she didn’t exist until this show). She’s ten, folks. She is genetically enhanced but they never specify whether she was growth accelerated. So, a female clone has been running around Kamino and never was spotted or heard about by anyone?

Unlikely.

Moving on, though.

Cut’s children not having been around other children was a nice bridge and set what I thought was an interesting twist... more on that in a bit.

Omega Sue being impetuous and going after the ball is par for the course with the character. We saw her insert herself in other situations where she wasn’t needed in episode 1 (but plot needed her to be to either explain something, do something or otherwise be the center of the plot). This time it set up the plot point of Hunter chastising her for her impetus decision (which gets ignored later) and his subsequent asking Cut to take her and raise her as part of his family (I mean the BB aren’t exactly in a good place for having a kid around but...)

Omega again is conveniently inserted into the plot by hiding in the spaceship after Hunter’s chastising, not revealing herself to Tech and Echo when they tried to decrypt the chip encryption, and going along for the ride (because plot...) This leads to her again making the save by rushing the disks to Hunter (albeit after Wrecker comes to her rescue).

Now, the show made a brilliant move by suggesting Omega Sue go with Cut and his family. I thought this was a great way for them to do some character building by having the BB find out more about her without her dragging the narrative into a rinse-repeat cycle of defies orders/needs rescuing or defies orders/does the rescuing.

So, I wasn’t surprised when Omega AGAIN defies Hunter and returns to the BB and insists she wants to be with them. Even going so far as saying he can’t throw her away when she makes a mistake.

Folks, the writers are literally cramming this kid down our throats. She’s not organic to the plot, her necessity is nil, and her placement comes frequently at the expense of the other characters. She doesn’t make them BETTER.

She makes them WORSE, in fact.

Echo is a ARC TROOPER for kriffin’s sake! You’re telling me he couldn’t have gotten a hold of a trooper’s armor and walked them disks to Hunter?

Bantha Poodoo.

A more organic plot would be to have her go with Cut. Why? Because Crosshair knows about Cut. He knows Hunter would likely go to Cut with her. Having him hunt Omega (who he did NOT adore thank you very much) raises the stakes higher than they are. Gives Hunter and the others a reason to go back and rescue Cut and his family. Creates suspense. There’s even room here for Wolffe, Gregor, Rex, and even Cody to come into play and be given some screen time. In short, it builds a story that includes Omega in it...

... not forces her into it.

Again, people can like what they like and dislike what they dislike. I dislike Omega Sue, the plot convenience, scene grabbing, one-dimensional love child of a man who claims to understand Star Wars and what the fandom wants.

Really, Dave?

Because I wanted a story about the Bad Batch.

Rex.

Wolffe, Gregor, Cody.

And this ain’t looking like one.

#star wars: the bad batch #bad batch 1x02 #the bad batch spoilers #bad batch meta #Omega Sue

[dalekofchaos]

My problems with Rey

I want to like Rey and I adore Daisy Ridley but her character was poorly written. There is very little development at all. It feels like everyone involved wanted Rey to be this strong female character without any build up or achieving an arc or struggles as a character, so style over substance. Instead of writing a great arc for Rey in TFA, JJ decided oh so brilliantly the best way to write Rey was to make her a mystery(mYsTeRy bOx) and her lack of development is even worse in TLJ. The other issue is Daisy doesn’t think Rey should have any flaws and that’s the problem. So here are my issues with Rey

Note. I’m not going to make the claim that she’s a ‘Mary Sue’ What I will claim though, is she is extremely overpowered, in ways that Luke and Anakin were not. They had special abilities sure, which was explained by them being ‘strong with the force. But they also had fatal flaws, they had obstacles to overcome -and what kept you interested in what was going to happen to them. Rey, besides being overpowered and hyper-competent, is pretty much well liked by everyone she meets (Luke and Anakin were not). She also seems to have no trials, tribulations, obstacles, or character weaknesses that force her to grow (Luke and Anakin both did).

Here are my issues with how they chose to write Rey’s character throughout the Sequel Trilogy

Rey selflessly chooses not to give away BB-8. Rey grew up on Jakku, dog eat dog world. She had no reason to be selfless on that planet. I do love Rey, but it really makes no sense that a person who was raised on a ruthless and violent planet of thieves and scavengers, abandoned and lived the life of a scavenger who barely makes enough to survive. It doesn’t work that she would be selfless and was willing to pass up all that food for a droid she just met. So I think it would help if Rey starts off as a mix of Han Solo and Jyn Erso. Someone who only cares about her own survival and is consumed by her own trauma but learns to overcome her trauma, start caring for other people and something bigger than herself. This would be shown by having Rey sell BB-8 and later after meeting Finn, she learns of the importance of the droid and she feels guilt and fights to get BB-8 back and learn to fight for something bigger than herself. That I think would’ve improved her arc in TFA

Rey perfectly flies The Falcon despite not flying a ship. In the movie she says she’s never flown before and doesn’t know how she did it. In The novel she says she flew ships at night and simulation. That’s all well and good, but if you choose to explain things in the novel, but not in the movie. Then you deliberately chose not to explain how a scavenger who never leaves the planet knows how to fly the Millennium Falcon.

She pulls off maneuvers and mechanical tricks that not even Han Solo could think of and a scene later he is dumbfounded and astonished by Rey

Being mentally probed by Kylo Ren is not a convincing nor acceptable excuse for her to somehow “get the idea to try using the same technique”. It doesn't work that way. it has never worked that way. Kylo Ren had to train all his life with Luke and adulthood with Snoke. All of a sudden, just because Rey turned the probe back on Kylo, she gained mastery over the force? Like Han Solo said "That's not how the force works" You can’t mind trick someone without knowledge of how to do it. You do not just magically figure it out on conjecture and a hunch…. and I don’t care if she failed the first time she attempted it. That doesn’t make up for it. Further, Rey should not know how to use a lightsaber, let alone be able to use it against someone who seems to actually have training with such a weapon.  It makes little sense for a lightsaber to be usable in any meaningful way by someone without formal training in its use. The thing is supposed to have a powerful gyroscopic force that makes it unwieldy when it is activated, requiring use of the Force to control it. Furthermore, all the weight is in the hilt, which also makes it unwieldy by that fact alone. An untrained user has a greater chance of hurting themselves than another person. they sure as hell can’t deflect blaster shots with it without use of the Force.

Effortlessly beats Kylo. Rey has no prior training. Never held a lightsaber. Rey fighting off thieves with her quarterstaff is not the same thing, it is understandable that Kylo was struggling because of his injuries, but Rey didn’t struggle against Kylo. Even Luke struggled with Vader and Anakin struggled with Dooku. What should have happened is as it looks like Kylo is about to win, Chewie from the Falcon fires his bowcaster to keep Ren at bay and both Rey and Finn make it to the Falcon. This way we can keep Kylo Ren strong and show Rey struggling to overcome Kylo. It will also show This is how powerful he is when injured, so imagine him at his peak. Instead we get a pointless fight instead of Rey and Finn just escaping Starkiller base while Ren collapses due to injuries and Rey beating Kylo served no purpose(the end goal to destroy Starkiller Base was already accomplished) and helped derail their villain of the trilogy.

The lack of a Hero's Journey. Imagine the traditional Hero's journey but take away any growth or struggle. Just teleport to the end. That's Rey

Rey hugs Leia. Leia hugging Rey out of nowhere instead of Chewie just doesn’t work. Why is she hugging and grieving with someone she just met when Chewie is right there?

Everything TFA was building her up was instantly ignored. How Maz got the Skywalker lightsaber? Never mentioned again. How Rey was drawn to the Skywalker lightsaber and what the force vision was meant to mean? Never addressed. Rey says that she’s classified information, “none of your business” Then her parents are revealed as junk traitors who sold her for drinking money and died in Jakku. If her parents were just junkers, how did they afford that space ship if they spent the money on booze? All that build up for nothing. The force can come from anyone, we all feel it but you build Rey up only to do nothing with her.

Rey has no character arc in TLJ. Rey doesn’t learn anything and I don’t feel like she has a character arc or journey. She starts her journey in TFA and I was excited to learn where her character would go. And TLJ does nothing with Rey. I do love Rey, but I don’t feel like it truly tests Rey and forces her to grow as a character. Rey is intriguing and we care for her, but her journey feels non existent. Luke and Anakin had struggles and journeys. I just don’t feel it from Rey. While learning the truth is a struggle for Rey, she already knows. She knew her parents, it really is not that big of a reveal. I am really disappointed with how TLJ handles Rey. Rey doesn’t have any struggles. Rey is all powerful and she is the same character she is from TFA.

Rey has a connection and starts to trust Kylo Ren…when only ONE DAY passes since Kylo has tortured her, killed Han Solo, and injured Finn. Rey then seeks comfort in the same man who has done nothing but hurt her instead of Luke. There’s a difference between being “forgiving” and there’s being blindly gullible. She went from wanting to kill him to believing he’s “our last hope”….for reasons. If there were a time skip, I could understand this change of heart, but one day passes and suddenly there is a change of heart?

Rey’s stupidity in TLJ. Rey’s plan. Rey has some vision of Kylo Ren deciding to help her out and locks herself in a box to fly straight to him, with no escape plan or regard for her own safety. As bad as JJ chose to develop Rey, I will admit that Rey is adaptable. Rey makes plans and strategizes. She has been raised as a scavenger, working hard for every day of survival and fighting for every item in her possession. While Luke and Anakin throw caution to the wind in order to succeed, Rey keeps a level head and fights her way through things. TLJ acts like that version of Rey doesn’t exist. 

Rey and Kylo Ren displays “raw power” in the force and doesn’t use that raw power to end the Throne Room fight against The Praetorian Guards sooner than it should have ended, instead resulting in the absolute worst fight in Star Wars history. There is no tension in the scene and it is pointless. Kylo Ren and Rey are fighting a faceless a group of guards that we know absolutely nothing about and have literally no purpose in the entire story except for this one fight. We know neither of the characters are going to die because these are just faceless red shirts and there is still like 30 to 40 minutes left of the movie. There are times where you can tell that some of the guards are just waiting their turn to fight and in one shot the editor literally digitally removed a knife from one of the guard’s hands because it would make no sense why he didn’t just stab Rey. There are multiple times where Rey, Kylo and the guards are just doing motions and actions because they look cool but serve no purpose but to look cool. Kylo stabbing the ground? Pointless. Rey twirling her rave stick around while someone falls behind her, pointless. Another annoying thing is that both of the characters are acting like they don’t have monumentally strong force powers. Hell, both of them get into a force tug of war right after the fight. Kylo can freeze people in place and stop blaster fire in mid air. Not even  once do we see them displaying their powers is what cheapens the fight. Kylo Ren is powerful enough to freeze a blaster and a person in place and Rey herself unlocked Kylo’s powers, so the two of them could have easily ended the fight sooner than it was dragged out. Kylo is powerful in the force but he SERIOUSLY could not stop a Praetorian Guard choke holding him and Rey struggled with a guard? Rey and Kylo were stronger in TFA and are just made weaker in the duel with the Praetorian Guards. Kylo could have frozen half of the guards and Rey could have mind tricked the other half into killing the frozen guards and Kylo and Rey could have finished them. They are masters of light and darkness, but they are made weaker.

Rey openly trusts a murderer and a proven liar because “they touched hands” and is surprised that said lying murderer wants to kill her friends and the very cause she believed in and only used her to kill Snoke. Rey then openly believes that said lying murderer about her parents being nobodies who died on Jakku when Rey is seen visibly watching her parents fly away. Rey KNOWS who her parents are, she does not need to hear it from Kylo Ren. Here’s the thing. Rey never wanted her parents to be anyone special. Rey never thought or wanted her parents to be important in TFA, she was literally going to pass up adventure and being important to stay on Jakku because she wanted a family. She didn't want to be important, the audience wanted her to be. Rian Johnson couldn't tell the fucking difference.. Rey knew who her parents were, she did not need to hear it from Kylo Ren. She did not want or need her parents to be anyone special, she just wanted them home. Rey sure is willing to believe someone who has done nothing but lie and hurt her over and over again.

My big issue with how TLJ handles Rey, is she does not learn anything. She was awakened by Kylo’s mind melding and has his powers transferred to her, she doesn’t even earn her powers on her own, it’s all from Kylo. She has the powers of the man who's been trying to kill her and her friends, she doesn't learn anything on her own nor is it her own awakening. Your big feminist icon has to learn everything from a man that’s been harming her from day one. How empowering....please kill me. She doesn’t learn anything from Luke and she feels like the same character in The Force Awakens. We see Luke showing Rey to feel the force and the Jedi’s hubris. The third lesson was deleted, but we did not really get to see Luke train her as a Jedi. Rey doesn’t learn anything. In the end we see Rey has the sacred Jedi texts, but Yoda pointed out that those texts were holding back the Jedi and doesn’t teaches her what she doesn’t already know. SO in the end, Rey doesn’t learn anything and that’s the problem.

The lifting rocks scene. Rey lifting the big rocks like they’re pebbles without even a hint of struggling physically drives me insane in the worst way because even if she’s powerful, so was Yoda and Yoda had a problem lifting the debris to save Anakin and Obi-Wan. We see trained Jedi struggle to use the force in The Clone Wars and that was the Jedi AT THEIR PEAK. We see Ahsoka, Kanan and Ezra struggling to use the force successfully in Rebels. Luke Skywalker struggled to stack those couple of small rocks on Dagobah and couldn’t lift his X-wing out of the water either, which I think would be pretty comparable to the weight of all those boulders. I love Rey and I want her to be strong but holy shit was that just completely unbelievable to me, she wasn’t even breaking a sweat and the fact that her smiling and running to Finn didn't break her concentration and crushing anyone coming out of that cave is completely laughable. Just look at similar characters in similar situations who show struggle and what Rey should’ve looked like during the boulder scene.

Rey in TROS looks like nothing ever changed. The same type of outfit from The Force Awakens, the same Lightsaber and the same hairstyle. Like nothing ever happened or changed. Like nothing ever changed. God forbid Rey looks like a mix of a Jedi Knight and Resistance Leader, godforbid Rey builds her own lightsaber, especially a Saberstaff. It’s almost as if JJ and Lucasfilm are afraid to develop Rey as a character and let her look different at all….*sighs*

And the big problem is we are expected that Rey will learn everything off screen….that’s the problem. You cannot just have a character who can do all these amazing feats, show her not being trained as a Jedi and make her even more powerful in the final movie with no build up whatsoever. Luke had like 3 years after ESB to learn more to become a Jedi Knight. This is why there should have been time skips. Three years of training with Luke on Ach-To and they return to The Resistance. 5 years pass in between TLJ and TROS and Rey has become a Jedi master. Instead we are expected to believe Rey has learned everything in the Jedi Texts in just a year.

When we first see Rey in the movie, she is levitating with the rocks while meditating. Just...what the hell? In all 6 movies and in the clone wars. We witness Jedi meditating, but not once do we see them meditating with rocks all around them. This was basically JJ Abrams “Hey fuck you, you think Rey’s overpowered? Well too fucking bad” The first moment I saw this scene, I knew the movie was going to be complete and utter bullshit

Rey’s lack of empathy for BB-8′s injuries after dropping a tree on the droid

Rey thinks she needs to earn Anakin’s Lightsaber....despite being an overpowered demigod

Despite wielding the force, Rey uses a blaster on the Stormtroopers

Rey suddenly learns force healing after only a year? Force Healing takes a long time of learning, but Rey just knows it because the plot demands it

Instead of talking and realizing they are both being used by Palpatine, Rey constantly goes apeshit and fights Kylo Ren every chance she gets

Rey accidentally kills Chewbacca(oh but not really because JJ doesn’t wanna make Rey a morally grey character)

One fight with Zorri Bliss and they’re good.....okay, sure, fine.

Rey, Finn and Poe treat C-3PO nothing but contempt and annoyance and suddenly he “takes one last look at his friends”

Rey is now Palpatine’s granddaughter. No build up or hints, she’s suddenly NOW Palpatine’s granddaughter, you know Rey nobody worked better despite my problems with it. But no, JJ the man who literally only has a job because of his family won’t let anyone come from nothing and build themselves into being a hero, she has to be related to the literal Satan of this universe.

Rey faces her inner darkness and Dark!Rey her face looks like Pregnant Bella Swan and has shark teeth....I wish I weren’t making this bullshit up.

Despite Ben being emotionally distraught by Leia’s death, Rey uses this opportunity to kill him. But only being too late does she realize she did the wrong thing and heals him.

Rey tells Finn. “People keep telling me they know me. No one does” That’s the problem. It’s three movies, we still don’t know Rey. We don’t know her because the movies haven't taken the time to actually get us to know anything substantial about her. By movie three of both the OT and the PT, we already knew the major conflicts/obstacles and dilemmas that drove both Anakin and Luke to take the respective paths they were currently walking. By the third movie in the sequel trilogy I still don’t know what Rey’s motivations are, why she has stake in anything or why Rey is a nice person when she grew up on a planet like Jakku. We still know nothing about Rey and that’s a problem

Rey constantly treats her friends as afterthoughts and extra baggage 

Rey attempts to go to Ach-To to exile herself and suddenly Luke appears. This movie attempts to paint the picture that Luke and Rey had this great relationship. She even calls him “Master Skywalker” Rey and Luke did  not have a good relationship. They barely even fucking train for like 3 days. She slices a rock in half, looks at some books, then argues with Luke and runs away. Even in a deleted scene, their third lesson. Rey shows nothing but disgust in Luke. But now they are a loving master and padawan? SINCE FUCKING WHEN???????

Luke lifts Luke’s old X-Wing because nostalgia and Mark’s fuck you to Rian. And Rey flies it because JJ desperately wants Rey to be the female Luke Skywalker

Rey is able to destroy the Emperor. Palpatine has the ability to destroy ENTIRE SPACE FLEETS WITH FORCE LIGHTNING and somehow Rey is able to send it back to him and destroy him. “I am all the Jedi” bullfuckingshit

“I’m Rey...Rey Skywalker” Rey didn’t need to be a Palpatine or take the Skywalker name. This isn’t me hating on Rey. Rey can be a great character by standing on her own. Rey being related to NO ONE was powerful and shows us that even someone who came from Jakku can be a powerful Jedi. She doesn’t earn anything on her own. She downloaded all of Kylo’s abilities. She took the Falcon, she made Chewbacca her personal uber, she took BB-8 from Poe and buried Anakin and Leia’s lightsaber on the literal symbolic oppression of the Skywalker family instead of something peaceful like Naboo or Ach-To. She has her own Lightsaber, but never uses it. Rey being a Palpatine and taking the Skywalker name undoes the beautiful story the revelation TLJ had does. She didn’t need to be a Palpatine and she didn’t need to take the Skywalker name or even their relics. Rey Nobody works. Here’s why. Rey’s story is her own, it is not her parents, it is not about where she came from, it’s about where she is going, and who she decides to become. Maz Kanata said “The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is in front of you.” Rey in the TFA trailers said “I’m no one” Rey never thought or wanted her parents to be important in TFA, she was literally going to pass up adventure and being important to stay on Jakku because what she wanted was her family to finally come home. She didn't want to be important or wanted her parents to be important. The audience wanted that. Any more lingering discussion of the possibility of Rey’s parents being ‘somebody’ only is distracting you from the actually beautiful story that is being told. Rey is a story of a girl who raised herself, who held onto hope for people who didn’t deserve it, she is a story of how light can be born from darkness, and Rey is story of someone who was scared of her own truth—but then finally faced it. Rey being a Nobody is the story I was skeptical of at first, but grew to love, the story that gives me more hope than any Rey Skywalker or Rey Solo story ever would. Rey calling herself "Rey Skywalker" was so forced and unnecessary because all the whiny pissants did not like that a girl was skilled and powerful in her own right and because Rey did not have a good relationship with Luke in the first place. JJ was so set in just making Rey a Luke clone that it just undoes character development. If Rey had to take a name, Solo or Organa would make the most sense since she actually had a relationship with Han, Leia and Ben. Say what you want about how RIan Johnson handled Rey in TLJ. At least he treated Rey like her own person, with her own journey, and her own desires and fears, rather than consigning her to be a vessel for OT nostalgia. And at least he allowed her to actually have a new outfit and new hair style. At least he let her change. Like him or not, Rian Johnson treated Rey with more respect and identity than JJ Abrams ever did. It means more than making her related to anyone because Rey was every lonely girl who wanted to be a part of something but didn't feel like they belonged. Every woman who learned to make her way in the world alone. Every person who clung to hope when they had nothing left. She is so many things to so many people. Rey Nobody can be fierce, angry and powerful without it connecting to a man or evil bloodline. She can love, be curious and emotional without being weak. She is a scavenger, a Jedi, and one half of a powerful Dyad. She is Rey of Jakku and that's all we needed. Rey calling herself a Skywalker denied her every last inch of who she was. Her character arc was ruined to please men that thought her power needed to be connected to a man for it to make sense. All we needed her arc to be was Rey accepting that she needs to be her own hero and loving herself for who she is, rather than who she wanted her hypothetical parents to be. And honestly Rey in TROS was a huge disappointment. Her entire character arc was regressed, she's back to wearing the buns and dressed all in white and sticks to the glorification of the Jedi. It's like everything she learned in the last movie never happened. And honestly her character in TROS  is what men think a "strong female character" is She fights, but they don’t have to deal with her processing internal pain. She loves, but they don’t have to deal with her fully exploring her desires. She’s a “badass,” & for them that is enough. When I say "A Palpatine is left and steals the legacy of the Skywalkers" I am not suggesting she doesn't deserve the title. I am saying that essentially, Palpatine won. Anakin, Padme, Luke, Han, Leia and Ben are all dead. Leia died for nothing. Leia deserved to see her son come home, and to see the end of the monster who ruined her family. She didn’t deserve to feel her child die. The entire line of the family is now extinct. The wiki even says "the extinction of the family name" what kind of depressing garbage is this? JJ Abrams ended the entire Skywalker saga on Palpatine successfully using love to manipulate, corrupt, hurt or kill every single Skywalker across three generations, ultimately resulting in the total eradication of the Skywalker, Solo and Amidala bloodlines, whilst Palpatine's heir lives on and claims the Skywalker name and legacy. Rey calling herself "Rey Skywalker" was patronizing and insulting and demeans what Rey's journey meant in the first two movies to everyone who loved her. Rey coming from Jakku and nothing but rising up as a heroic Jedi means more than "you have his power...you are a Palpatine" or "Rey Rey Skywalker" ever will. Women Of The Galaxy author Amy Ratcliffe says it best. “Even beyond the trappings of the Star Wars saga — the First Order, the Resistance, the Force — Rey’s story is inspiring, familiar, and timeless. Just because you come from nothing doesn’t mean you’re not part of the story. You’re not no one, because anybody can save the galaxy. Anybody.“

Compare Rey and Luke’s journeys in ANH and TFA. Rey wanders around and stuff is handed to her. Luke takes initiative and works for what he has. Let's compare ANH with TFA

Luke screws up on watching R2, then chooses to chase him down. He makes another mistake by spying on the Tusken Raiders instead of getting the hell out of dodge. This leads to him being knocked out, and rescued by Ben Kenobi.

Luke initiates the meeting with Ben Kenobi, and it happens because of his early bad decisions.

His aunt & uncle are killed, but thanks to his screw-up with R2 & the raiders, he and the droids are spared.

He chooses to follow Kenobi to Alderaan instead of staying on Tattooine.

He chooses to accept Kenobi's instruction in the ways of the Force, even though most people think it's a myth and a joke. Even though he's bad at it and doesn't seem to get any results at first.

He makes the decision that they're going to rescue Leia, potentially dooming their escape from the Death Star. This sets off a chain of events that leads to Kenobi's death.

Then he chooses to help fight the Death Star, even though he's not a member of the rebellion. He was offered a job with Han, and he could have ensured his safety by leaving with them. Instead he chose certain death.

Finally, he chooses to trust a literal voice in his head instead of the targeting computer.

Let's contrast that with Rey.

BB-8 runs into her. She tries to send him away, but relents and lets him follow her home.

She chooses not to sell him for food.

Finn wanders into camp on his own initiative.

The camp is attacked because BB-8 is there. The camp would have been attacked no matter what Rey did. The other scavenger was, I'm pretty sure, from the same camp. And if she'd sold him, BB-8 would also have still been in the camp.

She is forced to take the Millennium Falcon when the ship she wanted to use was blown up.

She chooses to go with Finn and bring BB-8 to the Rebellion Resistance.

She stumbles upon Luke's lightsaber, and runs away from it.

She accidentally runs into Kylo Ren while hiding in the forest.

He chooses to kidnap her because he senses something special about her.

After her first exposure to the Force, she learns how to use some of it, successfully, and escapes from Ren. And to her credit, escaping and trying the Force out is a choice she made, rather than something that passively happened to her.

Then she, um, is standing there when Han is killed.

She chooses to fight Kylo Ren, and beats him in her first lightsaber battle after closing her eyes and thinking about the Force.

She sort of chooses to go summon Luke back to civilization - I say sort of because it's not clear why she was picked to go over, say, Leia.

Luke makes mistakes, and he is an active participant in his story. Rey is just kind of there, most of the time. She doesn't make mistakes, but she doesn't really do much else.

Here is a thought, what are Rey’s motivations?

Rey wants to find her parents.

Rey wants to do the right thing.

Wants to bring back Luke Skywalker

Rey wants to find her place 

She wants to suck Ben’s tiddies. Wants Ben to return to the light, home and to call off the fleet

Has no real motivation to be on either side of the conflict, but chooses The Resistance anyway

Says she wants to kill Palpatine in cold blood, was close to giving in

What are Anakin's motivations?

Wants to leave a life of slavery and come back and free his mother

Wants to become a Jedi and become a hero

Wants to protect Padme

Wants to save Obi-Wan

Wants to stop Dooku and end the war before it can begin

Wants to be a good master to Ahsoka

Wants to clear Ahsoka’s name

Wants to stop the war

Wants to save Padme and his children's lives at the cost of the Jedi and doing whatever it takes and becomes Darth Vader

What are Luke’s motivations?

Luke is a farm boy who dreams of leaving his mundane life.

Luke discovers that his father -unlike what his uncle told him, was a heroic Jedi Knight

Luke, is reluctant and refuses the ‘call to adventure’, but after the Empire murders his Aunt and Uncle, he decides to Join Obi-Wan on the quest.

Save the Princess

Luke is angered by Obi-Wan’s death at the hands of Darth Vader, and seeks retribution.

Destroy the Death Star and save the Rebellion

To be trained by Yoda

Save Han and Leia

Luke discovers his father, the heroic Jedi, is none other than Darth Vader. After years of training, he sets out to redeem his father and turn him back to the light.

Rey has no personal stake in this war or motivations and she’s supposed to be the main protagonist.

Rey has never left Jakku before TFA and she tells Han that ”she never knew so much green existed” when they go to Maz’s castle.

In other words Rey must have had very limited knowledge of the world outside of Jakku and all she has heard from it are stories.

Rey who barely knows anything about the rest of the galaxy, to the point that she didn’t even know that forests existed what exactly is her personal stake in the current galactic conflict?

In TFA we saw The New Republic’s capital systems blown up by Starkiller Base and we never saw a reaction from Rey. We do see Finn and Han’s reactions. Also worth noting about Rey is that if she was unconscious throughout her involuntary travel to the Starkiller Base she was never actually aware of the Starkiller Base until just before Han, Finn and Chewie started planting the explosions in order to sabotage it.

Luke while he had no personal attachments to Aldeeran did actually get to see the horrible aftermaths of it’s destruction.

But Rey was barely affected by the destruction of the Capital systems. Most characters were not as affected as they should have been in my opinion but we didn’t even get to see her have an emotional reaction to it.

This was probably the greatest genocide in Star Wars history and our main hero is unaffected by it? Finn has a reaction to it and he’s supposedly NOT the main protagonist?

Rey really has no reason to care about the state of the galaxy. She only seems to care if people she knows are in danger.

The fact that she is supposed to be our main hero of this trilogy when she has next to no personal stakes in the well-being of the rest of the galaxy feels wrong to me.

Finn actually has stakes in this conflict since the FO took his family and childhood away from him and Poe has stakes because he actually lives in the New Republic and doesn’t want it to be under FO’s rule. Yet neither Finn nor Poe are considered the main protagonist? But oh wait, I forgot we can’t have a black or Latino man be the leading protagonist in Star Wars

The big issue I have with Rey as a character is she is a boring, lazily written character with a complete lack of development, barely any motivations and not a believable protagonist.

Rey is not allowed to have flaws or personal struggles or has a real hero’s journey. Which is disappointing because I truly loved having Star Wars be centered around a female lead and feel like it’s a missed opportunity. It’s not Daisy’s fault, I feel like the blame lies with Disney. I’m not sure if Disney got cold feet with a female protagonist and felt they would get backlash if they made her character naturally flawed but it’s storytelling 101 to have your protagonist faced with problems that aren’t easy to overcome and correlate to said flaws. Instead we got a hero who faces no real consequences, has no real goals, and can defeat everything in her path with abysmal training. Which ultimately makes for an extremely uninteresting hero. No hard training, no real consequences, no real flaws, no struggles or not even an arc and everything is handed to her. It just makes Episode IX predictable and boring. There is just not a reason to care to see what will happen with Rey. Finn and Poe are what’s keeping this trilogy alive, Finn had the most development in TFA, but someone decided "We can't have Finn be the protagonist of this trilogy", so they sabotaged his character the moment Finn uttered the word "sanitation" and reduced him to the black comic relief in the next movie. Poe is the one person with the most development and shows heroism in TLJ and someone decided "we can't have Poe be the hero of the trilogy" and proceeded to demonize and belittle Poe throughout the entire movie. The point is Finn and Poe had the most potential and their potential was squandered to prop up Rey as the protagonist of the trilogy when no one has a reason to root for Rey. Disney just failed Rey as a character.

#Anti Rey #Anti TFA #Anti JJ Abrams #Anti TLJ #Anti Rian Johnson #Star Wars #Rey

[amigadventures]

Getting the Amiga CD32 online

Yes, 59 kilobits per second of PURE INTERNET! But how did I get here? Well, follow me and I’ll show you.

The basic concept is to use the Amiga’s serial port to talk to an ESP8266 running a SLIP Router, which will then link to your wifi and the internet. The idea is that the CD32 and the ESP8266 (ESP-01) belong to a network of two, attached via the serial lines. Separately, the ESP-01 connects to your wifi and gets assigned an address as normal. The ESP firmware then shuffles data between the two networks, acting as a router:

Yes, it’s rather convoluted but we’ll take it step by step!

Credit to Stephen Leary & co at exxos forum for doing the hard work!

What you’ll need

You will need some hardware:

Amiga CD32

ESP8266 ESP-01

TerribleFire TF330, or alternative Fast RAM, IDE & keyboard solution and a cable to break out the Tx/Rx on the ‘Aux’ port

ESP8266 programmer or FTDI 3.3 usb->ttl or similar

A bit of jumper wire

2x4 2.54mm pitch header (optional but recommended)

And a bunch of software

Roadshow TCP/IP stack (demo available)

should also work with AmiTCP, Genesis or Miami, but you’ll need to follow the instructions for those accordingly

Web browser like IBrowse (demo available)

AWeb is free but ancient

slip.device and installer script by Stephen Leary

or from aminet

esp_slip_router firmware

esptool.py and python

Hardware Setup

The first job is to flash the new firmware onto the ESP8266. This is apparently possible by using an Arduino as a programmer but I couldn’t get it to work. I did have a usb-TTL converter but that was 5v whereas the ESP is 3.3v and I didn’t want to let the magic smoke out, so I ended up buying a little programmer, as linked above.

Download & install the python, follow the instructions to install pip and esptool.py and then download the esp_slip_router firmware. Plug the esp-01 into the programmer and pop it into a usb socket, then fire up a terminal. 

I used Windows; if you’re using Linux replace COM3 with /dev/ttyUSB0. COM port / tty device will need to be modified according to what your computer assigns it. In Windows, look in Device Manager. Make sure you’re running this from the esp_slip_router folder, where the ‘firmware’ subfolder lives.

python esptool.py --port COM3 write_flash -fs 8m 0x00000 firmware/0x00000.bin 0x10000 firmware/0x10000.bin

Now, this didn’t work for me, I got error messages about invalid headers. I tried all manner of things and it would not bloody work. Eventually I discovered that one of the pins needs to be grounded to put it in “programming” mode - this is where the bit of wire comes in handy.

Plug the ESP-01 into the programmer

Plug the programmer into the USB port

Connect GPIO0 to GND, There’s a little blue LED that should flash

Run esptool.py

If it doesn’t work, unplug the thing from the USB port and try again. I didn’t need to keep GPIO0 grounded during the whole process, just initially to put it in programming mode - your mileage may vary.

With the thing finally flashed, I (badly) soldered a header onto the TF330 and plugged the ESP-01 in:

Note the direction! It points “away” from the board:

With this, we’re ready to start with the Amiga side of things.

Software Setup

You’ll need to transfer some software to the Amiga. I assume if you’re here then you already know how to do this and are using a CF or SD card on the IDE interface anyway.

Copy over the TCP/IP stack, browser, slip.device & setup scripts and telnet client. Install them in this order:

Install your TCP/IP stack

reboot

In a shell, go to the directory you unpacked tf3xxx_slip.zip ‘execute install_script’, and reboot

Note, I needed to remove this line from install_script to avoid getting errors:

echo >>Devs:NetInterfaces/Slip "interface=Slip" 

At this point, the Amiga should be able to talk to the ESP over the serial connection. But that won’t do anything yet, as we have to configure the other side of the bridge. You can run c:showNetStatus if you want to check everything is fine so far:

Next, install your telnet client, and we’ll configure the esp_slip_router to connect to your wifi.

Make sue that local echo is on so that you can see what you’re doing, and that return issues a CR+LF:

Connect to 192.168.240.1 port 7777, a special configuration telnet client running on the ESP.

You should see a command prompt like “CMD>”

set ssid YOUR_SSID_HERE

set password YOUR_PASSWORD_HERE

set use_ap 0

save

reset

The ESP will then reset itself. If you connect again and type “show”, you should see that the wifi-side of the router has been allocated an address on your home network:

That’s it, you can talk to the ESP8266 and it can talk to your wifi. Your CD32 is now online!

You can now fire up the browser of your choice and get surfing. The recently released IBrowse2.5 can handle modern-ish websites, such as this one! You’ll need to install AmiSSL 4.5 too.

What else can you do with an Amiga CD32 with a network connection?

A spot of IRC chatting

Transfer files via either Samba or NFS, or maybe FTP

Telnet into one of many Amiga BBS sites

Check your email

Impress your friends! Well, probably not that one

#Amiga #esp8266 #cd32 #amiga cd32 #retrocomputing #hack