#The Skeleton War 2020

[icaruspendragon]

the best days to have been on the internet:

1) nov 5th 2020

2) the day the queen croaked

3) april 1st 2013 (mishapocalypse)

4) april 1st 2024 (boop)

5) when the evergiven got stuck in suez canal

6) when trump got covid

7) four seasons landscaping

8) jan 6th insurrection

9) skeleton war

10) dashcon

11) bisexual firefighter

12) battle of the joshes

13) dec 21st 2012

[sweet-honey-fruit]

Call me dumb, call me naive, but there's nothing you can say that will convince me otherwise.

We all know that infamous cutscene of the traveler running with what looks like a destroyed Khaenri'ah, red skies and ruined land with The Heavenly Principals insidious cubes raking havoc across the land.

Everyone says that it looks similar to Mondstadt. And they theorize that Mondstadt was built above the ruins of Khaenri'ah. I even heard that Mondstadt was Khaenri'ah because of how similar their architectural styles and placement were.

This has never, and will never, make sense to me. Firstly, it's been shown and confirmed that Khaenri'ah was under Sumeru. We've seen the doorway to it. Secondly, Khaenri'ah was destroyed 500 years ago. Destroyed by the 7 archons and Celestia, after the archon war. Therefore, Mondstadt was already placed and established during the reign of Khaen. How can Mondstadt be built on top of Khaenri'ah if it already existed?

"Maybe they moved locations-" I cite my sources to the 2020 genshin impact comic on Webtoon where it clearly shows Mondstadt in its current day location. It follows the story of Vanessa and dips a little bit into her lore. Vanessa ascended to Celestia a 1,000 years ago. So current day Mondstadt still resides in its place even after the events of Khaenri'ah 500 years ago.

I don't think that cutscene was Khaenri'ah even though so many people claim it is. It's too similar to Mondstadt. No, I firmly believe, I mean heavily believe, I MEAN I will develop a religion based on this belief; That was foreshadowing the destruction of Mondstadt.

Celestia is going to destroy Mondstadt. We all know Venti- Barbatos- Is really important to genshin lore. He even says he's "being watched" by someone that we can only assume is Celestia.

He's the god of freedom, holding the Queen chess piece, shown to be one of the strongest, if not then THE strongest, archon. Rather that's with physical power or will power. He's a mysterious and secretive person who says just enough to get by without suspicion. He has skeletons in his closet and we've seen that hinted with the upside down statue, a blatant disrespect to his name.

Mondstadt has "The Gateway to Celestia" etched across the Barbatos statue, which is a mystery all by itself. All the other nations have has a Chapter and different Acts. We have yet to have that with Mondstadt. We only have seen a Prologue for that nation.

There's more to its story, and I believe the next time we go back to Mondstadt it's going to be a full circle. We started in Mond, now we're going to end in Mond. That end is going to be that cut scene with the red skies and ruined land.

#sweethoneyfruit talks #genshin impact spoilers #genshin impact venti #genshin impact theory #genshin impact #genshin impact lore #genshin impact x reader #venti x reader #genshin venti #mondstadt #genshin men x reader #genshin men

[evilrat-sabre]

Welsknight Season 7, EP 1 and 2 a Rat's report

So I started watching Wels season 7 again for reasons™ and decided I should take notes, not only of what he does, but about things I observe around the server, so here is my trying to understand my own notes and sharing with y'all. Idk if I will do it again, but I had fun doing this.

Note: I did it again! NEXT

INSANE "Starter" House! | Hermitcraft 7 - Ep. 1

27:04 length, posted 23 may 2020. Watched 30 January 2023.

Wels starts the video referring to it as Season 6, he says that he just had a nap, and he is ready to go work in "projects"

He finds it weird that no one is online Cub enters the world and gets weirded out with Wels being on the word Wels talks with Cub in the nether hub -Wels calls Cub a vex and this makes me unreasonable happy -Wels refers to season 7 as "the future" He goes through a suspicious diamond portal and ends in Hermitcraft season 7

At season 7 Cub gives him some of Scar's crystals, He grabs two:

"Courage of the lion" and a "A gift of love", because I quote -Love is all you need-

Some time observation notes:

Grass and mycelium mix in the Shopping District, this is before the war.

I see a Mumbo for mayor map, I am still not sure what point in the mayoral election this is.

It's before the nether update: The button is alive.

I probably should mention he builds his starter base, it has a lovely colour pallet.

This is where my episode one notes ends, but I went a little bonkers with episode two notes,

Mines & Landscapes | Hermitcraft 7 - Ep. 2

26:15 length, posted 27 may 2020. Watched 30 January 2023.

He starts mining and talking about the burnout he was going through, apparently he took a 8 months break of minecraft, started streaming and swapped to a more general gaming content creation.

Personal note: This reminded me why I started watching Wels to begin with; the man was receiving awful comments, because of his lack of minecraft posting. I was new to the fandom and hadn't ever watched him before, when I got here he was already going with his now very familiar cycle of posting minecraft and vanishing for some time, maybe posting another game and maybe posting nothing for months. I will not lie, I started watching him of pure spite to the awful people that felt like it was a acceptable comportment to go to this guy's comment section and talk shit about how if he wasn't going to post he should get kicked out Hermitcraft. I said it at that time and I will always repeat: You are aren't entitled NOTHING, Wels and honestly any other youtuber, by default owns you nothing, and being a little hater will only ostracize you from other people from this community. aNYWAY; I got hooked in his Binding of Isaac series, and to today he is my favorite youtuber, and his videos -Minecraft or not- bring me great joy. Okay back to my report.

*Spams clicks his bed when the sun starts to go downs* "Bdubs isn't online, someone gotta fill up" Sir, just admit you have a sleeping problem /j

*Insert epic wither skeleton killing montage here*

The button is dead. Wels comment at seeing it dead: "The Gift machine is broken, good thing I didn't spend a long time camping, I could be hurt"

Wels starts going through the mayoral candidates and starts reasoning why he wouldn't vote to some of them

Mumbo: "I can't in good conscious support Mumbo, because I don't need a spoon" (Personal note: I was so amused I anoted the time stamp 07:15) Scar: Scar offered cats for everyone if he wins and I quote Wels "I don't even like cats" (Personal note: Even your favs can do wrong; sometimes living in denial and turning a blind eye for things is a good thing to do /hj) Doc: "I don't know, where I will even begin" (Personal note: "this green man was occupied having a child", Its a good start of a explanation and "He is a menace and a threat to society" is also a very reasonable one. Joe: "He isn't running for mayor" (Personal note: Yeah, he was running for something even better, the whole Dog catcher thing, may be one of the best things I ever saw in minecraft. "Create a problem that only you can solve, so now you hold political power over your fellow friends and coworkers") So this leaves Wels with two good option False and Stress, he can't really decide so he leaves his concrete vote in both of them. (Rat's reaction : Yesss, vote in our queens, oh brave knight!)

10/10 he would book again

Why is he killing the wither with a axe?? (I know why, but let me fins him weird)

He is doing his starter base interior; I am having House flipper flashbacks, at least it isn't grey.

No one sells feathers, Wels commits murder of the poultry category.

He send letters to his close neighbors, it starts with "Hidey-ho neighbor-" and I am smiling wide and losing my marbles.

Every neighbor receives two blue flowers, with exception of Jevin who receives two yellow ones (Persona note: I find this funny, because Jevin is the only one I am aware that blue is his favorite color)

Some time and world observation notes:

Barge was updated from Ep 1 to 2, Wels complimented it.

I just saw Grumbot- Oh god the shopping district was so ugly. (My actual live reaction)

This is the end of my report for now. God I am nostalgic, Season 7 was the season I got into Hermitcraft, and it fills me with joy seeing if from the pov of my favorite youtuber.

#Rat's hermitcraft report #hermitcraft #welsknight #hermitcraft season 7 #Welsknight Season 7

[mortallyclearwonderland]

Is Rise of the Guardians 2 possible? Yes!

Let's list all the facts supporting the possibility of another movie:

1. The director of the first movie is open to the idea of creating a sequel. "I'd love to be involved in something like that again, just because there are so many things I'd like to improve on from the first time because of inexperience or the circumstances that we didn't get to do.’’ (2020) The director? Peter Ramsey, the guy behind Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse!

2. Speaking of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Dreamworks started to experiment with 2D and 3D. Their newest movies The Bad Guys and Puss in Boots the Last Wish are huge critical and box office successes.

The Bad Guys earned $250.5 million from the $69–80 million budget. Puss in Boots the Last Wish earned $263.6 million and still counting from the $90 million budget.

3. When we're on the topic, Rise of the Guardians wasn't a flop but it didn't make as much money as Dreamworks anticipated. The movie cost $145 million to make and made $306.9 million at the box office. With the new art style being cheaper to make but not dropping in quality future films will make much more money. And that's how it should be. Not getting more expensive and looking like an early 2000s CGI video game, Disney! 

4. Dreamworks has no problem with making sequels even when there is a big gap between the last release. They announced Kung Fu Panda 4 for the 2024 release meanwhile Kung Fu Panda 3 came out in 2016. That's an 8-year wait while the original trilogy had about two 4-year gaps between installments. Between the original Puss in Boots and its sequel passed almost 12 years. Puss in Boots 2 also foreshadowed a potential sequel to the Shrek franchise for which the last movie was Shrek Forever After in 2010. The Croods came out in 2013, and its sequel The Croods: New Age came out in 2020. Again with huge positive critical and box office reception. $216 million from a $65 million budget. Dreamworks is the master of sequels!

5. Furry bait! People at Dreamworks have a connection to the internet. They know people went wild over Mr. Wolf and Death. Bunnymund voiced by Hugh Jackman? Come on, people will go crazy! 

6. Great villain potential! Everybody is praising Death for how scary he is. People love tragic and complex villains like Ramses, Tai Lung, and Lord Shen. If Dreamworks leans into Pitch Black's backstory from the books they might create one of their best villains yet! I'm not going to spoil it.

7. Jude Law, VA of Pitch Black, will be in the Star Wars Skeleton crew and Pan and Wendy. Whether or not those projects will be good in their own right people will know him from those roles and might want to watch an animated movie just because he's in it.

8. Dreamworks wants to please its audience. Unlike so many creators who destroy franchises out of spite or try to ''fix'' them to their own liking, Dreamworks respects its audience, characters, and lore. I'm sure they know fans want more, but they only make a sequel if they know it will be great.

There is only one huge problem. Alec Baldwin, the voice actor for Santa, killed someone. In October 2021 on the set of “Rust”, a Western being filmed, Baldwin pulled the trigger with a live round, killing the film's cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins. I'm not going to get into detail. Find it on your own accord, there are plenty of people already cowering it better than I could.

The solution is easy, just cast a new voice actor.  

It looks to me that practically everything is in perfect configuration for the Rise of the Guardians 2.

It also looks like Dreamworks has a new strategy. Release an original movie and then a sequel to the franchise, another original, and another sequel.

#Rise of the Guardians #Rise of the Guardians 2 #dreamworks #Puss in Boots the Last Wish #The Bad Guys #Mr Wolf #pibtlw #Kung Fu Panda 4

[pleistocene-pride]

Corythosaurus is a genus of hadrosaurid "duck-billed" dinosaur which lived throughout what is now Western North America during the Campanian age of the late cretaceous period some 77 to 75 mya. The first fossil remains of corythosaurus consisting of a near complete skeleton which remarkably included much of the creatures skin and organs was unearthed in 1911 by Barnum Brown in Red Deer River of Alberta Canada. Here Brown would also find a second well preserved specimen in 1914. Using these two specimens Brown would describe, name, and establish the type species, Corythosaurus casuarius, whos name is derived from the Greek korythos or "Corinthian helmet", and means "helmeted lizard". The specific name, casuarius, refers to the cassowary, a bird with a similar skull crest. These two specimens now currently reside at the American Musuem of Natural history. Since then several more corythosaurus remains have been recovered including two complete skeleton which were unfortunately lost on December 6, 1916, when the ship transporting them : the SS Mount Temple, was sank by German merchant raider SMS Möwe during World War 1. Today two species of corythosaurus are considered valid: C. casuarius and C. intermedius. Reaching some 25 to 30ft (7.7 to 9 meters) in length and 5,600 to 7,000lbs (2500 to 3200kgs) in weight, Corthyosaurus is destiguished from other hadrosaurids by its comparatively short skull with a narrow beak and high helmet-like crest. In life corythosaurus would have lived in tight knit herds and fulfilled the niche of mixed general browser feeding upon conifer needles, ferns, seeds, twigs, and fruits.

Art used in this video belongs to the following creators:

Corythosaurus Herd: Jaime Chirinos https://www.pinterest.com/pin/corythosaurus-by-jaime-chirinos-in-2023--322359285844928403/

Corythosaurus: Angie Rodrigues https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/2448239

Corythosaurus: DevinQuigleyArt https://www.deviantart.com/devinquigleyart/art/Dinovember-2020-Corythosaurus-862376780

Herbivores of the Oldman Formation: ABelov2014 https://abelov2014.deviantart.com/art/Fauna-Campanian-648355670

#pleistocene pride #pliestocene pride #mesozoic #cretaceous #dinosaur #corythosaurus

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

just keepin' track of my fave tumblr holidays, don't mind me

miscellaneous:

any thursday the 20th/thursday the 4/20th

yesterday was tuesday, but today is tuesday too

will the wise wednesday

february

13th: galentine's day

14th: dean and cas' wedding anniversary (2021)

also 14th: nick valentine's day

march

10th: mario day

14th: pi day

15th: the ides of march

27th: that one post that says 'tomorrow's halloween!', ''it's'tomorrow is march 28th', 'TOMORROW'S HALLOWEEN', then has that gif of ben wyatt getting hit with a skeleton

31st: i didn't think march 31st existed

april

1st: mishapocalypse (2013)

13th: neil banging out the tunes (2006)

also the 13th: homestuck day (2009)

25th: the perfect date

30th: it's gonna be may

may

4th: star wars day

5th: revenge of the fifth

june

19th: don't hug me i'm scared

july

11th: dashcon heritage posting

august

all month: start of spookyposting

september

all month: slightly more spooky/fallposting

18th: castieliversary (2008)

21st: do you remember?

october

all month: halloween!!!

3rd: "on october third, he asked me what day it was"

also 3rd: 'don't forget 3.oct.11' (fma:b)

9th: happy leif erikson day!

13th: TREAT YO' SELF (2011)

19th: none pizza, left beef-iversary (2007)

21st: the day marty mcfly goes to the future (2015)

november

1st: "there's only 365 days left 'till next halloween!", "364!"

5th: destiel is canon (destielputinelection day, 2020)

also the 5th: remember, remember

december:

24th: 'cause there's only one more sleep 'till christmas

#i love when posts crop up on their anniversary date #tumblr holidays #tumblr #i'm sure i missed some #so i will update as needed

[card-queen]

Random WIP Ask Game:

💯 [100] How many words does your WIP currently have? How many words do you hope it'll have when it's done?

⌛️ [Hourglass] How long have you been working on this WIP?

🖋️ [Pen] Describe your WIP in a single, terrible sentence.

Thank you very much! Asks are from this post

💯 [100] How many words does your WIP currently have? How many words do you hope it'll have when it's done?

38k words so far. I've been doing okay chipping away at it. I imagine it'll have somewhere close to 120k words but I can never really predict how the pace will change.

⌛️ [Hourglass] How long have you been working on this WIP?

The absolute first concept for the story was, I have checked, made into a text document on Christmas Eve of 2019. The idea started with the concept of honour, justice & vengeance, with three wars being at the core (two past, one on the horizon). From 2020 until late 2022, I was thinking of it as a game still. All the worldbuilding and character details were designs to come through in support conversations & side quests. Late 2022 is when I started writing it as a book in earnest. I've hard to stop two drafts because areas in the story where I was unclear, but determined to figure out at the time, suddenly became very clear and would benefit from foreshadowing. I made myself a skeleton framework with vague summaries of each chapter, and now here I am on draft v.1.5!

🖋️ [Pen] Describe your WIP in a single, terrible sentence.

Two mismatched brothers solve a crime which leads to a bigger crime they must solve before it's too late, recruiting misfits along the way to help them.

#ask game #memories of aether #thank you for the ask #that was a silly amount of fun #never thought i'd struggle over the one sentence summary #I lied #short summaries always get me

[insanityclause]

Am I the only one that's starting to think we'll get Loki s2 till August? that's why we haven't had a trailer yet and we still won't till probably February. think about it, we had the first trailer for s1 on December 2020

No, I've been thinking that's a possibility for a while, as well.

They've already cut back on the number of MCU shows coming out this year, and Secret Invasion may not be out until April or so at this point (it was originally said to be early this year, like around now).

If I were to guess, Disney+ is going to try to keep Star Wars and MCU shows a little more separate, so they don't cannibalize each other's focus - so Mandalorian, then Secret Invasion, maybe Asohka in June, then Loki in August around the She-Hulk time frame, and then Skeleton Crew and Ironheart later in the year, maybe Ironheart in the Hawkeye November slot, then Skeleton Crew around Christmas/New Year?? Then Agatha early in 2024.

It could also put less stress on VFX companies to spread all of those out.

On the other hand, they've been releasing the TV show trailers later, too.

[fatal-iistic]

Ties That Bind (Pt. 1)

Summary: Blair Moore is a war machine, recruited by John Price as part of special operative Task Force 141. What she doesn’t expect in her second chance at serving her country and the greater good is someone to break down the walls she’s built.

Pairing: Johnny “Soap” MacTavish x F!Original Character

Words: 5.4k

Warnings: Swearing, War, Civilian/Child death, Mentions of gore/injury, honestly war just sucks

March 2nd, 2020

An airfield outside of Kutaisi, Georgia

There's seldom situations where Blair Moore catches herself with second thoughts.

But standing across the globe from her home in Boston, sporting an uniform on a foreign military's airbase begins to rouse an inkling of doubt in the woman's gut. 

It's a brisk spring day in the Northern foothills of Imereti. The land is ancient. Blair studies the rolling hills of the Georgian countryside, wondering if these were the hills once trekked upon by Jason and his Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece. Or were these hills once the site of battles choreographed by the ancient Romans and Persians as they sought to commandeer every furlong of this green earth. 

Georgia's history in the past century, alone, is riddled with the Russian Revolution and the subsequent fall of the Soviet Union. Not to mention persistent tensions in the last decade. Even last year, with Barkov's decades-long tyranny in the Middle East and subsequent battle waged in his warehouse in Borjomi marks more demerits on Georgia's timeline. 

And now another leader of terror seems to find his way into the sanctity of this battle-torn country.

Free time is cherishable for most, but dreaded by Blair. She fills the vacancy with a stroll around the outskirts of the base. With sleeves and direct sunlight, the early afternoon is enjoyable. Taking in the sights of the rolling hills of Georgian geography, Blair almost relinquishes the cumbersome burden of duty and the implications of the mission at hand.

A cool breeze burrows through Blair's layers. She hunkers her chin closer to her chest, slipping her nose under the collar of her uniform to contain her warmth. Mentally, she reminds herself to put on another layer before they depart the Kutaisi base and head seventy kilometers north. 

It really is too late to back out, Blair, a voice remarks in her head. More exasperatedly it adds, Damn you, Kate and John, for convincing me back into this 'greater good' scheme. 

She glances down at her watch, frowning. News reached that the flight of SAS Marines from the United Kingdom had been delayed due to technical problems. But as the time elapses and now her comrades are a full sixty minutes late, Blair feels the simmer of anxiety burrow deep within her gut.

The longer she waits, the more reasons she accumulates as to how stupid she was. The sooner they reach Tsari, the sooner they can apprehend Al-Asad. 

I could've truly adopted civilian life. I was so close.

Feet keep pacing her around the base, until a low hum rings in Blair's ears. She directs her eyes to the western skyline, spotting a small dot traveling from the horizon. She doesn't need a closer observation to know it's a plane inbound for this small airstrip. And aboard is her colleagues. More specifically, Sergeant John Mactavish. 

During her CIA days, it was asinine to leave things up to mystery. Every aspect of everything needed to be drawn into the light, mulled over until every last detail was eviscerated from the system. The devil was in the details. Miiss one factor, and the entire chemistry could implode. 141 is different, so Blair tells herself. Captain Price isn’t the CIA; he isn’t the American justice system. While her roles seem to parallel, Blair lies that it’s a different world, a different life (the skeletons in her closet from her CIA ops could remain lodged in their hiding place behind a big wooden door, deadbolted shut). 

Captain Price trusts Sergeant Mactavish, so Blair leaves it at that. The rest would come into form by itself. No background checks. No picking apart his records before even seeing him in the flesh.

The transport lands and taxis. 

Blair immediately makes a line for the plane as the passengers exit. On sight alone, the woman can pick the sergeant from the lower-ranked soldiers. The sides of his head shaved (Blair doesn't recall mohawks being back in style, but she forces that criticism from her mind). He's a brute of a man, yet his demeanor sings something entirely different; he's laid-back, friendly, even charming if Blair gives herself the allowance to regard it. 

"Sergeant Mactavish?" She questions, arching an eyebrow. 

"Reporting." His accent is thick. It's a voice that would make any woman in her right mind swoon, but Blair shovels that admiration out of the way and sticks strictly to business.

"Moore. Blair. Call me Rogue."

"Call me Soap." He smiles broadly.

There's a story behind every moniker. Blair flashes Soap a bemused glance before focusing on the terrain before her, hastily leading the sergeant. They both walk along the airstrip toward the main building. 

What the hell kind of name is Soap? She wonders but anchors her attention back to the objective at hand.

"Commander Beridze of the Georgian Defence Forces will join us soon for a full brief. It looks like we're headed toward the mountains,” Blair informs. 

Stepping out of the wind and into the admin building, Blair leads Soap to the briefing room. 

"What do you know about the village?" Soap queries, his eyes fixated on the view from the conference room's windows. 

“Tsari?” 

“That’s where we’re headin’, no?” 

The woman nods, offering a shrug in response to his previous question. "Not much. It's a pit stop for people heading to the mountains. A pretty quiet place from what I can tell – a perfect place to hunker down if you're an internationally wanted terrorist.” By instinct, her spine straightens, and she lifts her chin as if reporting to a senior officer. Everything about her screams formality and professionalism. It's a habit beaten into her since her Army days, a feature she can't corrode out of her system. Soap seems indifferent, lax to almost a flaw. 

"Damn shame they come to places like this," Soap comments, shoulders anchoring. "The terrorists."

Lips curve into a deepened frown. "Hiding in plain sight can be pretty treacherous. Sometimes even the bad guys want peace and quiet," Blair offers perspective. She'd chased dozens of "bad guys" in various reaches of the earth. Through bustling, civilian-laden streets. Into remote terrains. They picked their poison, and unfortunately, it was never consistent.

"Captain Price says ya were Green Berets and CIA," Soap mentions after a contemplative pause. Cold blue eyes rest upon Blair, making her shift a bit. 

"Were," she confirms. The word feels like rusted iron on her tongue. There had once been a time when Lieutenant Blair Moore, an American hero and Patriot, wore her status with pride. She’d garnered numerous accolades, things that became nothing more than items consuming space in her closet back at home. She’d met with some of the highest-ranking officials in numerous countries – hell, even slept with them. 

And now? Blair isn’t quite sure where she fits on the status quo.

She’s lost just about every credential and honor worth a damn. The Army wouldn’t take her back, and the CIA had been the ones to part ways. The only reason Blair has the liberty she does now is because of Kate Laswell and the reality is, John Price had been the catalyst for that orchestration.

Decommissioned dogs don’t typically make it out of the pound.

The last two years prior were spent floating from country to country. Wherever Kilito or his aide-de-camp, Liidia, sent her. Despite her skills, Blair was treated like a lesser contractor than some of Kilito’s seniors, despite the obvious skill gap. So she’d left Jasuri Company, and found an apartment in Boston. She’d figure out a new life. A civilian life. She’d join a running club, maybe finally run the Boston Marathon as she’d planned on years prior. 

No more military. No more contracting. No more guns, covert affairs, and bloodshed on a daily.

Within two months, Kate and John found her. You’ll die as you lived, Blair Moore – hadn’t that been something her father had reckoned years ago? 

(Maybe she should’ve said no.)

Shaking off the webs in her brain, Blair grounds herself back in reality. Her mouth feels parched at the anticipation of answering the lingering question – why did you leave it all?

Not of my own volition. 

Would the fact make Soap trust her less?

"Always dreamed of bein' James Bond as a wee lad," Soap chuckles to himself, "as sharp as I look inna suit and tie, I'll keep my fatigues."

He doesn't even entertain the idea of delving into Blair's past turmoil and begging the question of her reconciliation at John Price's hands.

Blair snorts, more relieved that anything.  "I did more wadin' through dust and mud or showin' up to grimy bars than strutting into upscale soirees."

"Ah, yer breaking my heart, lieutenant. A dream deferred," Soap complains, dramatically placing a hand over his left chest.

She smiles sympathetically. Shaking her head, stray strands of gold hair tickle pink-touched cheeks. He's humorous and exudes an aura of respite. It's like a breath of crisp air in the stale heat of military formalities and concise mission objections. 

Pausing to gaze up at Soap, she finds that he's orbited closer to the broad window exposing the hilly terrain outside. She steps around the conference table to stand parallel to the sergeant, bracing her breath in his presence as if the moment is frail. 

Why did she feel like she was handling a rigged explosive? Her life had been a grandeur charade around people – around her father, around her peers, around her superiors, around drug lords, mafia kings, and leaders of organized terror. But she falters beside Soap, questioning what voodoo is being implemented to cause her to waver.

Vigorously shoveling those thoughts aside, Blair tries to fill the spaces in between with tedious small talk. Anything to silence the badgering thoughts. 

"Beautiful, ain't it?" Blair prompts.

Soap chuckles, realizing how much time elapses in his enrapture with the Georgian landscape.  "Definitely different from home," he agrees with a nod.

"We're not in Kansas anymore," Blair murmurs. She shoots a glance at Soap. "Wizard of Oz–"

"Dorothy and Toto," Soap interjects. He laughs, warm, genuine, a rumbling baritone that spikes a sensation of warmth in Blair's system. "It's not some American secret. I saw it as a kid. The monkeys scared me."

Blair's nose wrinkles as a little laugh surpass her. A hue of pink flushes into her cheeks. "I'm sorry…that was a dumb assumption…"

"No offense taken, lieutenant," Soap responds. A wry smile creases his lips. 

The door of the conference room swings open, shocking both soldiers from their lighthearted exchange. A man dressed in his tailored, unwrinkled military uniform steps in with three others. Both Soap and Blair salute the leading officer, the man Blair recognized from the pictures as Commander Beridze.

"Lieutenant, Sergeant," he greets. 

"Sir," both Soap and Blair chorus. Reflexively. 

One of Beridze's lackeys seats himself and pulls open a laptop. Within moments, all hands are situating themselves at the table.

Along the wall, the projection screen boots to life. They make haste in covering the mission brief, picking apart the details of the foothill village of Tsari and Al-Asad's confirmed presence in the last forty-eight hours. SAS Marines would cover the bulk of the forces sent in, with a small squad of Georgian soldiers to provide navigation and liaison between them and the civilians. 

Law enforcement would escort the SAS to the presumed holding place of al-Asad, the Marines would take it from there. Blair watches the brief unfold with a brewing boil in her gut. Terrorists always found the most obscure places or the most civilian-friendly places. Both were just as horrible to sweep.

As the brief wraps up, Blair promptly asks the one unanswered question.  "Should we or should we not be prepared to sustain hostile civilian casualties, General?" Blair intterogates, her jaw clenching.

"Intel is not confirmed or denied the social sway of Al-Asad and AQ forces, other than it's definitively neutral, and they are giving him refugee," Commander Beridze replies. His words seem rehearsed, as if he’d stood in the mirror this morning with a level gaze and recited this line twenty times over. "We would rate the potential high, though, Lieutenant. The prime minister and the defense General are already aware and prepared for the potential for civilian casualties."

She only nods, but the gloomy expression still festers on her face. 

On the outside, every military official and high-up authority leader wants zero casualties and civilian safety. It markets well, empathy. But Blair knows better – they'd accept an entire bloodbath if it were a means to an end if only the people of their nation wouldn't roll under the terrible massacre of themselves. The lower the collateral body count, the easier to pass the operation off to the public as necessary damages.

She doesn't voice her discontent any further. It was all the more reason they had to find al-Asad and bring him in. So that more civilians weren't lodged in the crosshairs between a terrorist and the world's superpowers. 

Soap and Blair stride out of the conference room together. Once they're out of earshot of Commander Beridze and his personnel, Blair lets out a low growl.

"High potential, my ass," Blair grumbles. 

"Huh?" Soap comes in second fiddle, out of the loop of what riled Blair up.

"That building we're raiding is a residential building, Soap," she breathes, her voice airy with a lilt of defeat. "Commander Beridze conveniently dodged that detail."

"We're walkin' right into people's homes…" Soap states, disappointment saturating his tone.

"Not to mention the entire village," Blair breathes.

They both don't traverse the politics beyond that statement. They're soldiers, first and foremost. They don't get to weigh and balance the semantics, especially for a foreign country. Al-Asad's presence was more burdensome than that of a homegrown civilian. A treacherous classification, damned and doomed as it is, both soldiers had discovered early in their tenures that it wasn't within their allotted estate to question those ethics. 

(Do your job. Do it well. Don't ask questions.

Hell, it was a bloody concept Blair had drilled into her cranium by her very own father in the fundamental years of her life.)

They know it, they know it, they know it.

Pavlov'd over the years to accept the circumstance, to relinquish the exposition of human details. Follow orders. For the greater good. Do what has to be done. De Oppresso Liber. 

That engineered thought process eclipses the overpowering sentiments of humanity. Soap and Blair share a reserved, somewhat mournful exchange of glances in the hall of base command. A vortex of gloom roams Blair's saxony blue eyes, her rigid professionalism betrayed by atom-sized fringes of humanity and compassion. Neither soldier trespasses to that vicinity in their minds, somehow orbiting back to their rigid formalities as war machines, as soldiers under oath.

There is a lack of real estate to presume over the matter. It’s too far above their pay grade to contemplate morals and fuss over the particularities. Mutely, either soldier accedes to the same determination; the objective has been made clear, and they were here to follow orders. There are soldiers to brief and equipment to put together. They were paid to find Al-Asad, not ponder ethics like Plato or Aristotle. 

It's late afternoon when their convoy reaches the village of Tsari. The sun sinks deep into the western horizon, giving them only a few precious hours of daylight remaining. The single law enforcement officer of Tsari leads them to a three-story apartment building just from the center block of town. 

Simplicity, Blair notes. She’s sanctioned off and swept buildings a hundred times over. They put men at every exit and storm into the building. Exactly like their brief. They go door to door, sweeping each unit. 

Things along the first floor are complacent. Shocked families. Crying babies. Sobbing women. No insurgents. No weapons. No Al-Asad. The scene eerily unearths memories from Blair’s tenure with the Army in the Middle East. She remembers storming homes then, under the Iraqi sun. Women had always navigated towards her, flinging themselves at her pleading out of fear (Private Mikels had shot and killed one that did so, assuming the innocence that he thought the woman was maneuvering to assault and kill Blair. An innocence maintained and preserved by commanding officers). Even in her uniform, nursing an assault rifle in her arms, Blair’s image had been a feeble entity of hope when in pale comparison to her male comrades.

Perhaps that’s why it was best she was the one at the lead bellowing out orders to the civilians.

“Hands up. Cooperate. We are looking for Khaled Al-Asad,” Blair barks in Georgian to the residents. They flinch with the coarseness of her voice, obeying commands with teary eyes and vibrating limbs. 

The teams diverge in the stairwell. One to the second floor. Another to the third. Soap goes second, and Blair goes third.

The team breaches the third floor ahead of Blair when shouts and gunfire ring out. A mix of English shock and Arabic threats slice through the tension-deep air. Her heart hurtles into her throat. She charges up the stairwell, rounding the corner to see one of the privates hit the ground from the bullets spraying out one of the units. She sidles against the wall for protection, peaking into the unit during a moment of reprieve to fire several rounds at a man fumbling to reload his weapon.

Silence suspends the atmosphere, disrupted only by the panting breaths of adrenaline-sodden soldiers and the click of magazines being reloaded. Blair holds the oxygen in her lungs, stepping towards the open apartment door. Gun cocked, finger tempted over the hairpin trigger. She manuevers quickly across the threshold to remain in the hall but now has full detail of the room beyond the doorframe. Like owl eyes, Blair studies the area beyond the door. When she determines the room within is safe, she steps defensively into the apartment unit.

Eyes scrutinize every corner, gun pointing quickly to each crevice that she studies. Kicking the door open to the bedroom, Blair takes account of every inch before her muscles relax. Cleared. No tangos.  

She strides back towards the hall, stepping hastily over the dead AQ fighter who made his grave on the living room floor. There’s a pool of scarlet forming underneath his mortal wounds, seeping and dripping from his frame. A circular stain mars the dirty off-white carpet of someone’s home. There's a stuffed rabbit a few feet away. A kids' book at the foot of the couch. 

Pausing, she nudges the open book with the toe of her boot. It's a Dr. Seuss counting book. 

Immediately, Blair can smell the pages of her own Dr. Seuss books while she peruses them while Emilia Moore cleaned the kitchen. Grass with a faint hint of vanilla against the walls of her sinuses.  Her mother would sing various learning songs to her daughters, long red hair teasing her light cheeks. 

"Red fish, blue fish, buckle my shoe," Emilia would purposely recite improperly, eliciting a giggle from Blair.

"That's not how it goes!" Blair would critique with an amused squeal and a scrunched nose.

Emilia would laugh. A vibrato that still breaks through Blair's conscience, warm like sunlight through an open window. Enveloping like a mother's embrace.

They had all been children. Emilia, even then, mid-twenties, and sold on the dream of a righteous man and a picket fence fantasy. But that picket fence had become a chain link fortress, with a stockpile of guns and ammunition. A home constructed into a fortress. The concept makes bile churn in her gut. Her brain feels like it’s being overpowered by hot static.

These people, the civilians of this little mountain town, live the same volatile reality that Blair had once been indoctrinated into. Lassoed into a reality they hadn't requested. 

Reality tastes sour as Blair rips herself from her memories. Her abdomen tightens as she fights nausea crawling through her system. 

"Tangos spotted on the third floor," Blair calls into the comm. The report half to refocus her own ambling mind. "Requesting back up."

"You don't say. Gettin' noisy up there, huh Rogue? Sergeant MacTavish remarks over the radio. Her jaw seizes. Annoyance seeped into the fibers of her frame. Not all of them could have an easy time like MacTavish seemed to be having on the second floor.

She turns towards the soldiers. 

"Sweep the floor! Move!" Blair commands, signaling the other Marines. 

Two Marines approach the second door down the hall, bracing themselves on either side of the doorframe. As one is about to check the doorknob, bullets crack through the door's wood. Either soldier reels back against the wall, avoiding crossfire from the enemies within. Just then, a fuse is lit in the entirety of the third floor. Doors further down the hall burst open, AQ soldiers utilizing the open structures as cover to begin firing savagely and haphazardly at the team of Marines.

Blair ducks into the first unit, leaning out to fire rounds at the soldiers. She fells two of them before having to slink back into cover. Blood roars in her ears. There’s a myriad of shouts in Arabic and English as either side screams commands to one other.

Despite the rampant pace of the situation, time seems to slick by as if trapped in molasses. Suspended above the moving timeline as if in demented levitation. Blair can almost anticipate each flutter of her galloping heart, breaths cautious and planned. Eyes dart from each moving shadow to the next. She reflexively pulls the trigger on each maneuvering enemy.

One, two, buckle my shoe…

Somewhere through the fog of chaos, Blair swears she hears MacTavish announce enemy presence below the second floor. She has no allowance to fret too intensely when she’s already locking teeth with enemies on this floor like rabid animals. MacTavish and his team would have to hold fast with their own objective or wait until the Third Floor Team has cleared out their own set of problems. 

Three, four, knock on the door…

The clear, systematic process of clearing each apartment unit manifests. Blair mostly keeps in the hallway, sights trained on unopened doors and the shadows beyond. It's hard to perceive anything above the stomping of combat boots trooping in the emptied units, but Blair keenly tries to pick up the readying of rifles or the unhinging of the doors farther down. Her gut won't subside until every inch of this floor is scrubbed clear of enemies.

Five, six, pick up sticks…

The Marines flood into the units. Unit after unit, the chorus of "clear" denotes an objective met.

Seven, eight, lay them straight…

The gunfire has died down as Blair enters the final unit. It's relatively empty, save some aged furniture and a few toys in the living room. She holds her breath as she sweeps through the suite. Two Marines file in behind her. Blair rounds into the bedroom, rifle rising as she sees the silhouette of a person.

The first thing she perceives is the weapon in their hands. Adrenaline hammers against Blair's senses.

Her eyesight focuses. Immediately she relaxes. It's a boy, no more than eight or nine. Her finger remains trained on her trigger, but she lowers her weapon. The boy wields a shotgun, his little frame trembling. 

He's terrified. Clutching the gun like a lifeline. He'd probably been told to shoot anyone who enters, but there was an immense burden of hesitation. 

"Do not fire," Blair commands the men behind her. She rocks on the balls of her feet, kneeling to appear less intimidating despite her array of tactical gear. 

She's speaking in Georgian, using a calm voice as if trying to steady a wild animal. The boy trembles, hands shaking. He must've impulsively pulled the trigger, but his aim was nowhere pointed near Blair. It strikes the wall across the building, splintering wood. Blair doesn't even flinch, eyes not leaving the boy.

"He's hostile!" One of the other Marines shouts. 

"Stand down!" Blair commands, but it's too late. A shot rings out. The boy falls to the ground, a bullet piercing through his chest. 

She is at the boy's side instantly, cradling the adolescent with trembling hands. He was dead before he hit the ground. He didn't suffer much, if at all. Blair's head bows, and a sobbing shutter passes through her body. She does her best to mask it, catching what might be the ghost of that sob in her chest.

Nine, ten, begin again…

No more counting games or nursery rhymes. No more bleary-eyed innocence. Both Blair and this boy had laid that concept to rest in the primitive years of their lives. Except Blair had to keep living in this war. Perhaps the boy had been spared by this (the notion molders like a rancid stab wound). 

Rage seethes from within Blair's gut as she lowers the boy back onto the floorboards and rises to her feet. She swings around to face the other soldiers. Fingers curl. Jaw fastens like a vice grip. 

"Fuck, corporal!" Blair snarls, grabbing him by his collar. She slams him against the wall, the momentum stealing the breath from the shocked soldier. He makes a breathless squeak, eyes wider than the moon. "The fuck was that?"

"He fired at you!" The soldier defends. 

"I had the situation managed!"

The other two soldiers scramble, hands wrapping around her shoulders in an attempt to pry Blair off of Cpl. Taylor. She clings to the corporal, still entranced by a fit of rage, managing to throw one elbow into the nose of the private, demanding her to release Taylor. In the squirmish, Blair still has her hands folded around Taylor’s trachea, the man’s fingernails digging into her wrists as he tries to pluck himself free.

The commotion lasts only briefly before Sergeant MacTavish rushes into the room. He shoulders hastily past the bleeding private and the second soldier, wedging himself into the fray between Blair and Cpl. Taylor. 

"Hey, hey, hey," Soap intercepts, prying the corporal out of Blair's grasp. "Stand down, both of you!"

"You fuckin' crazy?" Cpl Taylor spits at Blair. 

Soap glares at the corporal. "You watch yer language around yer superior, corporal."

"She fuckin' attacked me."

"You disobeyed a direct order," Soap counters.

Blair doesn't waste her energy formulating her rebuttal. She pivots and storms out of the room.

The remainder of the building is swept, the AQ soldiers long dispatched by the time Soap finds time allotted to seek out Blair. She's made herself scarce after the incident with the young Georgian boy, which perhaps is most agreeable considering the Marines seemed less forgiving of her snapped temper than John MacTavish. 

Sergeant Allens says he saw her wandering outside shortly after the incident. So outside Soap goes.

It’s evening, and the sun has set as Soap disembarks from the residential building. He needs not search far, finding Blair standing on the lawn across the building parking lot. Her arms are linked above her head, propping her gaze into the sky. Even from afar, she looks fatigued and a touch nauseous. 

Maybe she's trying to number the constellations above her. Or maybe she's praying to an entity above, a plea for forgiveness for failing the boy upstairs (though that likelihood was low, as Blair stopped believing in gods and their greater influence after Carl Moore). Soap approaches evidently, dragging his boots all the ground so that Blair could interpret his approach. He stands alongside her, following her eyes with his own. 

"Children raised as soldiers…" Blair murmurs, face twisting. "Fucking hell."

"A sad byproduct of all this," Soap adds wistfully, motioning at the air around them. "They don't deserve this."

A frigid gust of mountain air buffets the two soldiers. Blair's ponytail, though mostly tucked underneath her helmet, fights with the wind. 

"You speak Georgian, Moore?"

"I speak a lot of things."

"Private Breaux said you were talking to the boy. What did you say to him?"

Blair stares off. Admitting what she had exchanged with the young boy still poisons her throat. She’d failed the boy, and even more, she was bearing her shortcomings now. "I told him I knew he was afraid,” Blair confesses, “and I told him I wanted to help him. I would protect him, but he needed to put the gun down."

"How did you know he wouldn't try to shoot you?"

She hadn't known with certainty. Other than relying on what she suspected. 

"He hesitated. He wanted a break in the narrative he had written for him," Blair explains. Her chest tightens. "Reprieve from the war he's been born into."

That boy needed counting books, and stuffed animals, and dreams about being an astronaut or a mountain climber. He didn’t need a gun in hand and the fear that the world was out to get him and his family. He needed innocence, and that had already been stripped from him. And now he’d be buried in a grave six feet under – another “sad byproduct” of this war. 

"You've dealt a lot with that, huh?" Soap frowns.

The remark isn't meant to impede itself into Blair's flesh, serrated and agonizing. How could anybody know the stark reality of Blair's upbringing? It wasn't something she advertised. Hell, if anything, it's something Blair continuously attempts to bury.

She was made a soldier. Preached pious bullshit that her father had crafted and narrated because it fit the story he desired to see. These kids in these remote homes were birthed into similar perspectives, fueled even more by the poverty and war-torn homes they were run out of.

"All too well…" Blair breathes, the air exiting her lungs like a remorseful confession. She feels her skin itch, the yearning desire to admit the vulgarity of her heritage and upbringing. She doesn't want her personal feelings to seem like they collude with her better judgment, but even after years of being at war, Blair can't perform the debridement of those emotions from her cranium.

Soap rests a hand on her shoulder. A gesture of consolation. Of companionship. Blair's spine stiffens at the motion, but she refrains from acting thankless. 

"I'm sorry."

Her blue eyes traverse to meet his gaze. There's a deluge of warmth that fills Blair's bloodstream. She's spent so much time alone, stripped of camaraderie and brotherhood, that the mere notion nearly blindsides the weathered warrior. She blinks, too stunned to speak. Her neural pathways short-circuit, sparks spilling over her cortices and setting her senses alight.

Grappling at anything at the moment, Blair defaults only to what is her baseline, factory settings. Posture tightens. Chin lifts. It's the skeleton bones of standing at attention. The only thing Blair can do when shocked by her own emotions. And then comes the crass sarcasm. Blair gives a solemn laugh, a sound that betrays Blair, conveying her brokenness.

 "Don't be sorry," she counters. "There's nothing glorious about what we do, Soap."

"Doesn't mean we still don't bleed for what we see and deal with," Soap reasons. 

Boots thud against the ground behind the two sergeants. Both Blair and Soap take their eyes off the steppes to address the approaching soldier.

"Lieutenant Moore, Sergeant Mactavish, we have something you ought to see."

The duo flashes a gaze between them, following the soldier to a unit on the second floor of the building. Bullet holes scar the front door, and one of the AQ soldiers lies dead near the kitchen stove. Blair scans the unit, following where the other soldiers indicate their need for attention.

Inside a bedroom is a large mahogany desk, the refined craftsmanship ruined by evident bullet wounds sustained in the Marines and AQ's exchange. Papers are scattered about the tabletop, an inscribed map underneath the heap of intel. There's a laptop computer broken apart on the desk, the screen cracked while the motherboard sits exposed from blunt force trauma committed to the keyboard and body. It's a mess, obviously left in haste.

Blair reaches to grab at the haphazardly placed papers. A frown shifts across her lips.

"Al-Asad isn't here…but he was….these are plans; look at the details," Blair observes, sifting through the papers. Soap steps to her side, brushing his fingers to separate a stack of papers. Everything is written in Arabic, and while Blair is proficient in the language, reading it takes her a moment longer.

"Can you make much sense of it?" Soap prompts.

"Some…" Blair mutters, squinting at the papers.

She points at the emblem stamped on the papers, and the location circled on the map. Verdansk, Kastovia.

"Something's about to go down in Kastovia."

#john mactavish × original character #cod fanfic #call of duty fanfic #call of duty oc #blair rogue moore

[weerd1]

HOW TO STAR WARS

With three convenient options!

(Please note, I wrote this last year just as Andor S1 ended and Bad Batch S2 started for a friend at work. If someone finds it useful, huzzah. May the Force Be With You.)

OK, I have obviously put WAY too much thought into this, but it’s what I do. Before you dive into 1800 words on Star Wars I whipped up while drinking coffee on a Saturday morning, let me tell you my recommendation is Option 2.  But, if you’re ready for a deep dive into other ideas…proceed!

There are two things you have to ALWAYS remember about Star Wars: it has never been chronological, and it has never been complete. Even if you were there in 1977 (and I was) and we got Episode 4 (not chronological) which ended with the Rebels on the run from a still standing Empire (not complete) you don’t have a moment where anything is revealed in order, and the broader story can always be expanded.  The result of this is that if you don’t like a particular show or movie or plot point, something is probably going to come along and fix it.  There are, believe it or not, movies and shows in The Canon that I don’t think are that great, but like ones I wasn’t super fond of previously, I would expect something is going to come along and expound on those things I didn’t like and make them more palatable.  

Option 1

That said, if you want to keep it simple, I would say go ahead and watch everything in release order.  The benefit of that is you getting the story the way the world did.  We came out of the Original Trilogy in 1983 knowing Vader was really Anakin Skywalker, and his son and daughter were Luke and Leia.  We didn’t find out HOW until the Prequel Trilogy (PT) started up in 1999. Some of the way various plot points in later films play out, they hit harder emotionally when you realize what they mean for things you’ve already seen. The weird lady named Mon Mothma who leads the Rebels for 5 minutes in “Return of the Jedi” is now a major character on “Andor” and suddenly this throwaway scene from 1983 grabs your guts because you begin to understand what she went through to get there.  If that sounds appealing, here’s that order:

Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983)

Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)

Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Animated Movie, 2008)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-2020)

Star Wars Rebels (2014-2018)

Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)

Star Wars: Resistance (2018-2020)

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

The Mandalorian (2019-present)

The Book of Boba Fett (2021-2022)

Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022)

Andor (2022-present)

Ahsoka (upcoming, 2023)

Skeleton Crew (upcoming, 2023

The downside to this is NOTHING happens in order, and you should consult a good reference to get an idea WHEN a particular story takes place in relation to the rest of it all. This one is pretty good, but also includes video games which have great stories, but may or may not be your thing:

(This is from Reddit; you can Google others that fit more what you’re looking for.)

Option 2

Now, based on the graphic above, there’s another way you could watch it all.  I would call it “Saga Based.” When George Lucas made the OT it was often referred to as “The Adventures of Luke Skywalker.”  Once he made the PT, he started saying the entire saga was about the rise, fall, and redemption of Anakin Skywalker. When Disney took over and made the Sequel Trilogy (ST), they began to refer to it as “The Skywalker Saga.”  This means the “Episode” movies, or the left side of the chart above, Episodes I-IX.  And it is very easy to consider that the foundation of all other Star Wars.  Even if those characters don’t appear directly, in some way the supporting characters are all caught up in Skywalker family drama (and I love that; NO literary character in history is as big a drama queen as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader).  

Once you have those nine films as a foundation, hit the right side of the chart and work your way through those shows and “Story films.”  Again, up to you if you really care about playing video games; they have great stories but nothing that I think you will miss if you just stick to shows and movies. 

The advantage to this option is how well-framed the rest of the stories are then, though you have to make sure you’re putting them in chronological context as you watch.

Now, before I go on with a third possible way to watch these, I want to talk about cartoons.  Some of the very best Star Wars is animated Star Wars.  That being said, they are often produced with children in mind (though the episode of “Star Wars: Rebels” where the Imperial Inquisitor uses a double bladed lightsaber to decapitate the “thin guy/fat guy” comic relief duo is just one example of how the shows push the boundaries; it’s not gory, and the violence is implied, but it’s dark!).  The animated shows are not an insignificant time investment.  There are seven seasons of “The Clone Wars,” four seasons of “Rebels,” currently we just started the second season of “The Bad Batch,” and “Resistance” has two seasons. I will include at the end some ways to abbreviate “The Clone Wars” if you want. Also, missing from many of these discussions is “Star Wars: Visions,” which are actually alternate interpretations of the Star Wars universe in anime style by Japanese directors. They’re pretty good, but not the Star Wars you know. 

Option 3

Now, you want to go hardcore?  Then watch full chronological order.  You get the story as it happened.  I used to be very much against that, but then in my last job I worked with a couple of guys who didn’t grow up in the US, and things that I had taken for granted when I watched the PT were honest surprises to them. (“ANAKIN is Darth Vader????”)  The problem with this approach is there are still new things coming out at various points of the timeline, so in your viewing, you may be in the shows like “The Mandalorian” taking place five or six years AFTER the OT, and then another season of “Andor” drops and it’s five years BEFORE the OT, and you have to backtrack. 

If you are going for this, here’s the order:

Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)

Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Animated Movie, 2008)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-2020)

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)

Star Wars: The Bad Batch (2021-present)

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022)

Star Wars Rebels (2014-2018)

Andor (2022-present)

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983)

The Mandalorian (2019-present)

The Book of Boba Fett (2021-2022)

Star Wars: Resistance (2018-2020)

Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)

Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)

Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

The other issue with trying them this way is some overlap.  The last two episodes of “The Clone Wars” happen DURING “Revenge of the Sith.”  The events of “Andor” episode 6 has direct impact on “Rebels” episode one, and those stories intertwine a bit. “Book of Boba Fett” takes place between seasons 2 and 3 of “The Mandalorian.”  That problem will continue to compound as new shows come out.  We’re actually expecting a show in the next year called “The Acolyte” that takes place a hundred years BEFORE “The Phantom Menace”!

Another positive to this option is it allows you to break the various shows and movies up into “eras.”  This image, also stolen from Reddit is one way to do that:

The era I find the most interesting (unlike most SW fans) isn’t really about the Jedi but what Obi-Wan called in the original movie “The Dark Times.” In this graphic they would include the “Reign of the Empire” and first half of the “Age of Rebellion” stuff.  So many of those stories deal not with Good Space Wizards fighting EVIL Space Wizards, but normal people trying to survive oppression and realizing there is no safety in tyranny.  Now, that’s just me.  It’s not that I don’t love Obi-Wan and Anakin coming undone and desperately fighting one another in a lava flow, but common people deciding to stand up with no mystical “Force” to protect them? Well that rings my bells.  

Star Wars is a huge, still evolving mythology, as complex as any classic we have from Sophocles or Shakespeare or Tolkien. As spiritual as any holy book. At times as deep as any tragedy, and as uplifting as any faith. Sometimes it’s just silly, and sometimes it’s heartrending.

Yes, it is just some solid popcorn-pew-pew-entertainment as well, but thematically there is SO much going on, and it compels me like few other things do.  

Anyway, without further ado, here’s an old write up I did about how to take on “The Clone Wars” cartoon. You COULD just watch these episodes:

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Clone Cadets" (S 3 Ep 1)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Rookies"  (S 1 Ep 5)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "ARC Troopers" (S 3 Ep 2)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "The Citadel"  (S 3 Ep 18)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Counterattack" (S 3 Ep 19)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Citadel Rescue" (S 3 Ep 20)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Darkness on Umbara" (S 4 Ep 7)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "The General" (S 4 Ep 8)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Plan of Dissent"  (S 4 Ep 9)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Carnage of Krell" (S 4 Ep 10)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "The Unknown"  (S 6 Ep 1)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Conspiracy"  (S6 Ep 2)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Fugitive" (S 6 Ep 3)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Orders" (S 6 Ep 4)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "The Bad Batch" (S7)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "A Distant Echo"(S7)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "On the Wings of Keeradaks" (S7)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Unfinished Business" (S7)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Old Friends Not Forgotten" (S7)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "The Phantom Apprentice" (S7)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Shattered" (S7)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Victory and Death" (S7) 

These 22 episodes follow the character of Fives, one of the Clones, throughout the war between the movies “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith.” The Season 7 episodes do not feature Fives, but the consequences of his previous actions.

Either way, start with S3 Ep 1.  Not sure why the earliest one is in the third season, but it is worth it. (Indeed, here is the CHRONOLOGICAL order of episodes, still not sure why outside of “never been chronological or complete” https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-the-clone-wars-chronological-episodeorder.)  

If you want to strike a middle ground here, watch the Fives storyline, and add these three important Ahsoka storylines, that is also possible! Just interspace them with the above list:

Season 2, 5-8: Second Battle of Geonosis.

Season 3, 15-17: The Mortis Gods

Season 3, 21-22: Padawan Lost

Season 5, 17-20: The Wrong Jedi.

OR after S4 Ep10, just continue to watch season 4 through 7.  There’s almost no dud in there. 

The last four episodes of season 7 take place in and around “Revenge of the Sith,” and may themselves be one of the three or four best Star Wars movies.  

#Star Wars #meta #long post #what's your preferred method?

[kerra-and-company]

GW2 anniversary asks, 9 and 16?

I've answered both 9 and 16 (here), so I'll give you a couple bonus ones if that's okay! :)

6. Do you have real life relationships that have come from or been shaped by your play of Guild Wars 2?

Not as in folks I've met IRL, but I have definitely made some more friends thanks to this game, so...yep yep! :)

10. Do you have a (not so) secret Guild Wars shame?

Using this as a space to tell a funny story, which hopefully fits well enough--I joined the game towards the end of July 2020, and so the first festival I was level 80 for ended up being Shadow of the Mad King, aka Halloween.

I was like, "oh, cool! I don't know what any of this is, but let's find out!" and promptly ended up in a labyrinth that I somehow had zero clue how to navigate while being chased by our friend Steve the skeleton with a chainsaw. (A wonderful way to meet the guy, tbh xD) I didn't end up properly playing through that festival's events until 2021.

#gw2 #kai speaks #curuniel #thanks a bunch for the ask! :D

[sargassos]

This is it. My last white board, on my last day working in Parking. A red panda for one of my supervisors.

I know I told this story in a prior post here, but I’m gonna tell it again. What was the red panda war of 2020? I'll tell you.

In summer 2020, while everyone was on lockdown, working from home, we were open. It wasn't great. We wanted to be closed. But as soon as lockdown was no longer required, businesses reopened and the parking structure was busy, and you can't work a parking structure remotely. So we dropped to the smallest skeleton crew we could afford to use.

During this time, to lighten the mood and try to boost morale (and sanity), we started coming up with random games in the office. First there were weekly riddles. Then there was a create your own Biodome crew + MASH mixup. That was huge and intense and hilarious, cause we had to teach the boys how to even play MASH. And then they continued with random questions. Whats your favorite dinosaur? Favorite band? If they made Parking: The Movie, who would you pick to play you? (I made a movie poster for that one) And then, “you are a superhero! Whats your name, costume, arch enemy, two useful super powers, and one useless one, and your sidekick?”

One of our supervisors chose a red panda as his sidekick. His theory was, no one would ever fight you cause red panda are to cute to fight. And then, to prove his point, he set the background of the office computers to a red panda.

After a while,, another supervisor, who was bored, changed the background to a visually similar panda to see if he would notice. And then another and another. He eventually noticed, and changed the background again, to another panda. Soon, they were competing to see who could find the cuter panda backgrounds. Then, not to be outdone (or maybe she was just bored too), our third supervisor jumped on board. The computer background could change two or three times a day. I honestly don't know where they found so many different red panda pictures.

Eventually, our whole crew came back, and we were too busy doing actual work to co tinue. The background settled on a photomanip of a giant red panda asleep on a beach, and I think that stayed until just recently. But it made it almost 2 years.

And so ended the great Red Panda War of 2020.

Parking is WEIRD.

#jokes on them; I did the tongue in perminant marker #if they try to erase it that tongue ain’t goin anywhere #at least not without some effort #sketch #quick sketch #scribbles #white board thoughts #white board #dry erase #red panda #red panda war of 2020

[rjalker]

The chronicles of Serana Disappearing and Stealing My Fucking Dog:

October 24th 2018:

Serana has randomly disappeared so when I find her, I’m going to stab her.

I’m only doing this quest so I can have Arvak. 

October 25th 2018:

and now I’m off to find Serana, who apparently got lost at the end of Dimhollow crypt.

October 26th 2018:

Serana is still missing so when I find her, I’m going to set her on fire.

October 26th 2018:

Serana get your fucking ass back to your house I just want to have Arvak! Just give me my adorable flaming skeleton horse! That’s all I want out of this quest line!

January 13th 2019:

It’s too bad Serana disappeared off the face of the planet

November 23rd, 2020:

when will Serana return from the war

April 1st, 2021:

I can’t believe Serana not only noped out of our quest, never to be seen again, she stole my dog while she was at it.

June 6th, 2022:

I'm still not over the fact that Serana stole my fucking dog…

to be continued...

#Rjalker plays Skyrim #sigh #Serana give me my fucking dog back challenge #Skyrim #Dawnguard #Dawnguard DLC

[max--phillips]

It isn't the same with Star Wars it seems, they've gotten a lot better at pacing themselves with releases. There's been (to my knowledge):

-2 seasons of The Mandalorian (third one coming next year) -5 movies (3 sequels, Rogue One, and Solo) -The Bad Batch (1 season, second season coming later this year) -1 season of The Clone Wars (the final season) -TBOBF mini-series -Obi-Wan Kenobi mini-series -Andor

And that's in the span of 7 or 8 years since they acquired Lucasfilm? So like 7 things total if I'm counting it correctly (I'm very likely missing something). Obviously that's not counting all the announced stuff or stuff that's currently in development like Ahsoka or other shows. But still it seems like it's more evenly paced out and it doesn't seem like there's 92 releases per year like with Marvel. It's still a lot and Disney needs to treat their employees better, but it's not a content factory like the MCU is.

For sure! Plus SW doesn’t have as wide ranging of an audience as the MCU does, so there isn’t quite as much demand for content. But yeah, since acquiring Lucasfilm, we got technically 3 seasons of TCW (LFL was acquired in 2012, season 5 aired on CN but was after that deal went thru, then Netflix released a season in 2014), Rebels, Resistance, The Bad Batch, Visions, Mando, TBOBF, Obi-Wan Kenobi, some show I did not know existed bc it was on StarWarsKids.com (which I also did not know existed) called Jedi Temple Challenge????, some animated micro series (total of 8), obviously the sequel trilogy, Rogue One, Solo, Biomes, A Droid Story, & will be getting Tales of the Jedi, Young Jedi Adventures (which 2 b fair is a kids show), Andor, Ahsoka, Skeleton Crew, The Acolyte, Lando, whatever Taika Waititi is directing, and maybe Rogue Squadron but that’s apparently not even on the release schedule anymore.

So that’s a grand total of 9 shows released plus some mini series that barely count, 5 movies, a couple shorts, and 7 more shows and one movie in the works, plus a few additional seasons of shows already released (Mando, TBB, Visions, Andor apparently is already getting a second season). And I’m sure that since they had something to do with the games that have/are coming out since Disney owns LFL & Lucasarts is part of LFL. KOTOR has had a couple rereleases, The Old Republic is still kicking & has had expansions released in the last year, we’ll be getting a KOTOR remake, Battlefront, Jedi: Fallen Order, and we’ll be getting Jedi: Survivor next year, there was a VR game called Vader Immortal, Star Wars: Squadrons, another VR game called Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge, a mobile & switch game called Hunters, and then we’ll get Star Wars: Eclipse at some point. Not to mention the LEGO Star Wars games, of which Disney would’ve had input in LSW: The Force Awakens (2016) & the new Skywalker Saga game. There was apparently a Minecraft DLC in 2020? And a Sims 4 DLC in 2020.

Still a lot of content (especially if you take into account the sheer number of books & comics in this universe) but yeah not quite the same content farm in just movies & shows as the MCU.

#tori answers questions #max answers questions #anonymous

[theycallmelynn]

"The Gang"

Created October 22, 2020.

Apparently I forgot to post this, whoops! They're supposed to be a team of four mercanaries working together as a side thing to their actual job. Unfortunately, they all kind of became their own things? In current times, as of writing this:

Ishmael is the God of Change. He was always a bored god of sorts (he likes to make big robots as a hobby.) But now he actually has followers and stuff.

Smiley is a traveling Underground Doctor with his assistant, Willow. He was an actual doctor, but he's constantly being refused allowance to experiment.

Divi is an angel of Ishmael's. She has basically no character.

Cursi is a door-to-door necromancer who experiments in trying to find new things to sell. They created Kopi, although unintentionally, and is an ex-soldier of some sort of skeleton wars? I need to flesh these guys out more.

#theycallmelynn #2020art

[spoilertv]

#SpoilerTV