#all my dinosaurs get introduced to matt

[pastafossa]

Friend: wyd

Me: important things

The important things:

#daredevil #matt murdock #dinosaurs #all my dinosaurs get introduced to matt #but this is the first time one was the right shape to ride #YIPPEE KI YAY MOTHERFUCKER THEY'RE OFF TO DO VIGILANTE SHIT

[im-just-a-mississippi-girl]

Tear in My Heart: The Meeting

Pairing: Single Dad!Matt Jackson x Teacher!reader

Category: Fluff

Word count: 1,192

Summary: A special place in your heart is reserved for Madeleine Jackson. At the end of the first day of school, she introduces you to her dad. Is the spark you feel when shaking his hand reciprocated or is this just a crush?

Warnings: None

Requested by: @mrsmatt

A/N: I don’t think the summary is that great but it’s the best I could come up with. Anyways, here’s part one @springgirlwaiting4fall ☺️🫶🏻

Part 2: The School Play

Masterlist

Taglist

Gif is not mine. Credit to the owner.

The start of a new school year has came back around yet again. You loved teaching the little minds of the children in your class each year, seeing their eyes light up when they got the hang of something or when they win a prize out of the treasure box. First graders were always so excited and full of questions.

You spent the whole week preparing and planning for a fun first day for your students, name cards on desks along with a little goodie bag. You decorated your classroom in fun colors with a variety of educational materials and items hanging on the wall within the children’s reach. You had came up with all kinds of fun games for the kids to play and help them learn in the process. There was a toy chest filled with numbered blocks for learning math, books to help them read, and other useful tools to prepare them for the future.

You stood out in the hallway beside your classroom door as the bell rang and students began flooding the halls in search of their classroom. You smiled brightly as you welcomed each student that entered your room and helped the children that couldn’t find their teacher.

Inside the classroom, you welcomed them as whole and introduced yourself. You went down each row asking them to introduce themselves to the class and tell everyone one thing they loved. The answers ranged from dinosaurs to Barbie to trucks to seashells. One little girl’s answer just melted your heart. When asked about what she loved, she beamed and answered with, “My daddy.”

As the day went on, you kept thinking about how sweet that one little girl’s answer was. My daddy. You looked at the rows of desks and your eyes landed on the sweet little girl. She had gorgeous brown hair that cascaded around her shoulders, adorable chocolate brown eyes that had such liveliness in them. She was dressed in a purple shirt with a yellow butterfly printed on the front and blue jeans paired with a cute pair of purple and white Jordans. You watched how all the children interacted with one another and noticed she was always helping others and partnering up with the one or two kids that seemed to be left out.

At lunch time, you guided your class to the cafeteria. Some children had brought their lunch so you led them to the table designated for your students. You sat down at the same table with your lunchbox, smiling and chatting with the students already there. You opted to make yourself a classic PB&J. Just because you’re a teacher doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a kid like lunch.

A plastic cafeteria tray was sat on the table next to you. You looked up from your lunchbox to see the sweet little brown haired and brown eyed girl, Madeleine Jackson was her name but she liked Maddie better. “Hi!” You smiled as the little girl sat down.

“Hi Miss Y/L/N!” She cheerfully greeted you. She gave you the cutest smile and started up a conversation about how your day was going, your favorite color, favorite food and really just whatever she thought of. You would answer her questions and ask her some in return. You could tell she was thrilled to talking with you and honestly, you were happy she was interested in getting to know you.

After lunch, you led your students back to the classroom and started teaching a math lesson. All the children learned at different speeds which is to be expected. You explained the math lesson once more and gave a few examples on the whiteboard and with the blocks from the toy chest. When you felt like they had a pretty good grasp on it, you passed out a work sheet and blocks for visual aids.

You sat at your desk and went over the worksheets from the spelling activity when you heard a little voice from the front of your desk. “Can you help me more?” You looked up and your eyes met the sweet little Jackson girl. She looked like she was getting upset.

“Don’t don’t get upset, Maddie. Can you bring me some blocks? Maybe you need to think about it in a different way.” You offered and watched Maddie collect the blocks. When she returned, you helped her until she finally got the hang of it. “Great job Maddie!” She beamed at your praise, clearly thrilled she figured it out.

“I can’t wait to show daddy.” She grinned. You could tell by the way she talked about her dad that he meant the world to her, a total daddy’s girl. Once Maddie went back to her desk, you resumed going over the spelling worksheets from earlier.

As the first day drew to a close, you helped your students collect their things and put away anything they were using. Once that was done, the bell rang signaling that school was finally over for the day. You helped direct your students to the buses and to the car rider line. You joined the other teachers in standing alongside the students from your class and others, asking them if they see their car and when they did you walked them to their car. As the number of students dwindled down to the final few, you noticed one of your students was left, sweet little Maddie Jackson. You made your way over to her and crouched down. “Do you want to sit over on the bench and talk to me while we wait?” You offered to which she happily agreed.

The pair of you chatted about Disney movies and your favorite princesses until a car stopped in front of you. Looking up the little Jackson girl’s face lit up as she squealed, “Daddy!” She jumped down and raced towards him as he exited the car, smiling wide as he scooped her up in hug.

You couldn’t help yourself from smiling at the sweet scene in front of you. The little girl’s dad was absolutely gorgeous, from his long brown hair to his gorgeous chocolate brown eyes and his contagious smile. Looking between the two, there was no mistaking them as father and daughter, she was the miniature version of him.

“Daddy! Daddy! You have to meet my teacher!” Maddie insisted, tugging on her dad’s hand once he sat her back down from the hug. He just shook his head laughing, letting her drag him over to you on the bench.

“Daddy, this is Miss Y/L/N. She’s the best teacher ever!” Maddie excitedly informed her dad. You were happy and surprised at Maddie’s statement. You always wanted to make an impression on your students, but you never realized it could be done that quickly.

Maddie’s dad chuckled at his daughter’s enthusiasm. “I’m Matt.” He introduced himself, a beautiful smile on his face. He reached out to shake your hand.

You instantly returned the smile. “Y/N.” You accepted his handshake. As you did so, you felt a sort of connection, an electric connection, a spark shooting through you. Did he feel the same?

General Taglist: @legit9thlunaticwarrior @plentyoffandoms @1dluver13xx @sunshinevirus @wwenhlimagines @crowleysqueenofhell @jackson-nickthedate13 @omg-im-such-a-masochist @kmc1989

Matt Jackson Taglist: @mrsmatt @morgan-bucks @rubyred1980 @breezyvk @writtingrose @jennifuz @writtingelite @katries @siriuslyblackonback

#matt jackson #matt jackson x reader #single dad!matt jackson #teacher!reader #matt jackson imagine #matt jackson fanfiction #aew #all elite wrestling #aew imagine #aew imagines #aew fic #aew fanfiction #tear in my heart #tear in my heart series

[mleelunsford]

Bloody Roar redesign concept breakdowns Part 3

The last of my character design breakdowns for the Bloody Roar redesigns!

First off, for this DLC set I wanted to do some of the weirder characters, but with a twist (at least for most of them). Uriko, Uranus, Nagi, and Xion all had some strange stuff going on with their transformations, mostly resulting in monsters that had no animal associations. I don’t mind this as a concept, but the results in the games didn’t excite me too much, which is why I didn’t do them in my first big round.

So, I had the idea of doing all of them with animal forms like the rest of the cast. I wanted to keep them a bit special though so I figured they could have the ability to half transform, and letting them retain some of the gameplay ideas they had in the original games.

With all that said, let’s take a look!

Nagi (Now a lobster)

As I said on the main post for her design, Matt McMuscles referred to her original design as “lobster girl” so I thought it would be fun to run with that and make her beast form a lobster. Then she could replicate her old red sword arm by half transforming and getting a big claw to mess people up with. I tried to take some inspiration from her original costume, but I wanted to give her a fashion identity that separated her from some of the other girls.

Xion (Now an orchid mantis)

With Xion, I wanted to keep some elements of his original design, but move him away from looking like a combination of Devil May Cry’s Dante and Final Fantasy’s Sephiroth. I still made red is main color, but gave him a white coat to change the balance of colors a bit. For his beast form, I wanted something that still had long antennae, big pincers, and a light coloring, so I went with an Orchid Mantis. I think it gives him a unique and sinister look.

Uranus (Now a carnotaurus)

For Uranus, I wanted her main outfit to look more like she escaped from a facility, and less like a fancy super lady. Her original transformation was into a chimera, which at first made me think something bovine as it had big horns and hooves. It didn’t quite sit right with me though. Then I remembered the carnotaurus which gives off the feeling I wanted and still had horns. Added bonus is it finally gives Bloody Roar a dinosaur character!

Kohryu (Robot mole)

Kohryu was always an interesting idea to tackle. Old man ninja mole from the first game was killed off, and they introduced a robot clone of him as a villain. My main problem with the original design was it covered up too much, it could be mistaken for a guy in armor wearing a mask. I wanted to show off the robotic nature of him a bit more, and add a skeleton jaw to reference the fact that the original guy was dead.

Uriko (Cat)

Always wanted to end it all with Uriko. With her I just updated her outfit a bit and took some things I liked from a few of her designs. The main thing I did with the main picture of her was give her the human form, the half cat form, and a full cat form. So she could have that cute catgirl look still, but also go full beast form as well.

Hope you enjoyed these!

#bloody roar #redesign #Fan redesign #Fan art #character design #fighting games

[pers-books]

Kate Stewart - according to Big Finish

I’ve finally finished re-listening to all of the Kate Stewart audios to date so, without further ado, I present to you the background info on Kate Stewart provided in said audios. Please note, there are one or two which feature extensive references to the Brig, but unless the conversation pertains to Kate’s background, I’ve not quoted it.

They’re listed according to boxset order and I’ve included the writer of the audio as well as the title. What I’ve learned from this is that Matt Fitton wrote a lot of background material for Kate in the early boxsets and Guy Adams in the later boxsets. 

What I also found interesting is that Big Finish has pretty much ignored the semi-canonical direct to video Downtime (1995) which first introduced Kate Stewart as the Brigadier’s daughter (then played by Beverly Cressman) insofar as BF’s writers have given Kate a much closer relationship with her father.

Vanguard - Matt Fitton

Kate's described by the internal computer security system as UNIT's Chief Scientific Researcher She "Doesn't do labels" She usually skips past Orbit News TV on the way to the movie channel

Power Cell - Matt Fitton

"My eldest is cooking. If I'm lucky there won't be any leftovers." Kate's reason for working late. "There've always been factions who'd have preferred UNIT to remain under military control. Colonel Shindi knows I haven't had an easy ride."

Ice Station Alpha - Matt Fitton

"You're setting me up as a patsy. It's been hard enough working my way up the ranks the last few years. I bet they didn't take much persuasion."

House of Silents - Matt Fitton

[sounds of gunfire] Kate Stewart: How did I do? Josh Carter: Very good grouping, ma'am. You're a natural at this. Kate Stewart: I have put in the practice before, you know. I just thought I might be getting a little rusty. Josh Carter: Keep up these sessions and I don't think you'll have anything to worry about on that front. Kate Stewart: Good! If we're caught out in a combat situation in the field I don't want to feel like the spare wheel. We were lucky to make it through that scrape with Cerberus. Josh Carter: I thought you didn't believe in luck. Kate Stewart: An ability to shoot straight should help keep the odds in our favour. Josh Carter: Shall I set up the targets for another round? Kate Stewart: No, that's enough for today. Paperwork beckons. Now, let's see if I still remember how to disassemble this. Josh Carter: This interest in military hardware is new. I thought 'Science Leads'? Kate Stewart: Oh, it does, Mr Carter. Science just needs to remember to carry a gun sometimes.

Square One - John Dorney

Kate apologises for wearing her pyjamas - she'd just settled down for an early night. Later: "I have an urgent appointment with a hot water bottle I'm very anxious to keep."

In Memory Alone - Matt Fitton

Kate Stewart: Do you know JM Barrie, Colonel? Vikram Shindi: Peter Pan chap, wasn't he? Kate Stewart: Among other things. He also wrote that "God gave us memories that we might have roses in December." [Source: Rectorial Address at St Andrew's, 3 May 1922, in The Times 4 May 1922]

Call to Arms - Matt Fitton

Kate knows first aid Kate Stewart: I don't know if it was the same in your [Benton's] day, but it's not in my nature to leave a man behind.

Tidal Wave - Guy Adams

Kate speaks Spanish well enough to translate an insult directed at her Kate doesn't do hugs - Jo Jones hugs her! Kate Stewart: I'm a pragmatist not a warmonger, Osgood, you should know that

Retrieval - Guy Adams

Kate Stewart: Fine. A small team can go and take a look Osgood: Who do you suggest? Kate Stewart: If it's a research station, Osgood, I think we need our finest scientific minds on it, don't you? Osgood: Oh. Kate Stewart: Well, don't worry, you're only one of them. Osgood: And the other? Kate Stewart: I'll pretend you didn't ask that.

Kate not wanting to kill the dinosaurs in the Silurian research base

Kate Stewart: There's a reason they let me sit in the biggest office. [Reminding Sam Bishop that she's not there because of nepotism but because she’s actually a scientist.]

United - Matt Fitton

Kate Stewart: I like to think I bring diplomacy to the table, not just a gun.

The Dalek Transaction - Matt Fitton

Kate Stewart: You don't know how hard I am to impress.

Invocation - Roy Gill

Kate stayed at Ealdon House for a week when she was a child. She can translate English-Latin and Latin-English on the fly. She was involved with the university newspaper

Game Theory - Matt Fitton

It's implied that Kate's done an advanced driving course

Code Silver - Guy Adams

Kate's had basic medical training on some of the aliens UNIT had in cold storage

Hosts of the Wirrn - Chris Chapman

Kate refuses to destroy the level of the Well while Osgood and Shana are still inside. She later regrets this when the Wirrn swarms the town of Windermere. [Side note: Shindi forgets himself enough to call Kate by her first name when she reveals she's en route to meet the Wirrn Queen. Normally he says ‘Ma’am’ or ‘Ms Stewart’.]

Breach of Trust - David K Barnes

Osgood: Things do seem to go quiet when Kate's not here. Maybe she should go on dates more often. Josh Carter: She's on a date? Osgood: Oh yes. I wasn't meant to say that. Josh Carter: [scoffing laugh] I don't believe it. Osgood: Well, as far as he's concerned it's a date. But for her it's just professional. I think. Josh Carter: Well, who's he? Osgood: Just somebody she's having a not-quite date with Josh Carter: You don't think she'll - you know? Osgood: What? Josh Carter: Tell him what she does? Osgood: Oh, you mean, 'Hi! I'm in charge of a secret international military organisation that deals exclusively in extra terrestrial activity'? Josh Carter: Yeah Osgood: More of a third date kind of announcement, I'd say Josh Carter: If it is a date Osgood: Which it isn't

Richard can't even remember the name of the Private whom he'd been harassing/having a relationship with. Kate's clearly seething quietly. He talks in demeaning terms about the Private, then immediately makes a pass at Kate.

Richard: Have we finished the bottle? Kate Stewart: We have, yes Richard: Should we order another? Kate Stewart: Well, that could be risky. Richard: How? Kate Stewart: I might smash you over the head with it Richard: Sorry? [beeping of Kate's pager] What's that noise? Kate Stewart: Oh, thank goodness. The Earth's in danger. Richard: Eh? Kate Stewart: Richard, Richard, I'd say I'm sorry I have to go, but I'm not, so I won't Richard: Hey, you can't just leave Kate Stewart: Yes, yes I can. The door's over there Richard: [whiny] Hang on, I thought that you and I might - Kate Stewart: Yes, I know you did. Goodbye Richard. Oh, dinner's on me Richard: [whining more] No, wait a second. [She's already walking away] Kate?

She gets accosted by a drunk soon after leaving the restaurant and is irritated at being told to smile because it's not the end of the world.

Kate refuses to make First Contact in a dress as she likes having pockets. She keeps a spare set of clothes in the cabinet in her office

Osgood: But there's always another way! We just have to find it! Kate Stewart: You know we haven't the time for that! Bleating on about it isn't helping anyone. It's - it's 2 in the morning and I'm about to send a mother and child off to their deaths. Now, you can try to make me feel worse about that than I already do, but I really don't know what on Earth you think you'll achieve by it! Osgood: It's not - Kate Stewart: Fair? Of course it's not fair! Osgood: [runs out] Kate Stewart: Osgood!

[Kate's crying quietly on the roof of the Tower when Osgood turns up, having been told by the Colonel where to find her] Osgood: I'm sorry for disobeying you. And for getting Josh involved. I just - I couldn't face the idea of giving in? Kate Stewart: And you thought I could? Osgood: You were doing what you thought was right Kate Stewart: [bitter laugh] Thank you Osgood: As in fact you always do Kate Stewart: Don't patronise me, Osgood. When I give an order I expect it to be followed because sometimes the needs of the many do actually outweigh those of the few even if that means someone ends up dying. And you know you'll remember their faces. Believe me, you will remember them. Osgood: I'm sorry Kate Stewart: We'll talk about it later

Open the Box - Roy Gill

Kate Stewart: I'm open to new ideas, always, but I refuse to go into anything blind

Kate went to holiday camps as a kid: "They did annoyingly upbeat announcements too."

Kate had a "Classical education" and "an abiding hatred of outdoor sports".

She enjoys custard creams.

She lives with the daily fear of losing her team.

Kate Stewart: Regret doesn't bring people back. Trust me, I know.

This Sleep of Death - Jonathan Morris

Warren Calder: The Geneva Convention outlaws torture and I know how much you care about that

Tempest - Lisa McMullin

Kate Stewart: I hate it when it's Us or Them.

The Power of River Song - Guy Adams

Josh Carter: You know Kate, she won't let emotion get in the way

Kate [to Captain Josh Carter]: I’ve kicked down my fair share of doors in this job. It’s my form of Pilates. Chant: Eugh. Miss Stewart. Kate: Don’t call me Miss Stewart. I’m not a governess in a Victorian novel. Chant: Ms? Kate: I’m here to see the Director. Chant: I’m afraid that’s quite- Kate: Let me explain something to you. One would have thought it obvious but I spend a good deal of my time spelling out the obvious to people who get paid more than me, so - Chant: MS STEWART! Kate: Shush, now. Shush. I’ve been awake for three days. I’m fighting a war of attrition with the coffee machine and I’m currently investigating my own death. It is an effort for me not to staple your tie to your desk. Chant: I understand that you’re under considerable pressure but I simply won’t be talked to like that. Kate: Right. [Sounds of a brief struggle] Chant: Ms Stewart! [Followed by sounds of stapling and somewhat heavy breathing as Kate staples Chant’s tie to his desk.] Kate [not at all breathlessly]: I did warn you. Sorry. Was - was that a very expensive tie? Chant: My mother bought it for me for Christmas. Kate: Merry Christmas. [She literally kicks open the door to the Director’s office.]

The Enemy Beyond - Andrew Smith My father was stationed in Edinburgh when I was a little girl

Fire and Ice - John Dorney

Always do what you're best at, I say.

Kate loves a pun: For now, we're going to have to put your plans on ice (after stopping an Ice Warrior from destroying a large chunk of Australia!)

Eleven's Eleven - Lisa McMullin

Kate Stewart [to the voice activated vault]: Hello. My name is Kate Stewart and I've come to rob your vault. Would you mind opening up, please?

The Curator's Gambit - Andrew Smith

Kate Stewart: Wait, is that new? The Curator: Oh no, not new. I rearrange the exhibits from time to time. Kate Stewart: It's a Turner, isn't it? The style is unmistakable. I thought I knew all of his work. Osgood: That's Hampton Court Palace. Josh Carter: What's that doing here? Is it dangerous? Curator: Ooh hardly. It was a Royal commission. Not for public display. It commemorates the Undergallery's original location beneath Hampton Court. Osgood: I didn't know that. Kate Stewart: Elizabeth founded the Undergallery in 1562. The National Gallery wasn't built until the 1830s.

Kate's aware of the optical illusion in Holbein's ‘The Ambassadors' which looks like a smudge from one angle but is clearly a skull from another.

The Curator calls Kate very astute for knowing he wouldn't leave the Arch unprotected.

Kate mentions she knows the Privy Gardens at Hampton Court Palace because she's visited.

The Man From Gallifrey - Andrew Smith

Kate goes with Josh and his rescue party to get Osgood and Jimmy Tan back. She's always prepared to risk herself for the sake of her people.

The War Factory - Lizzie Hopley

Bamberra: Can you ride a horse and shoot? Kate Stewart: Have you met my father? [In fact Bamberra was talking to him very recently.]

Ten Minutes in Hell - John Dorney

Kate refuses to let Varliss of the Vulpreen break her, despite regular whippings. She refuses to tell him anything about Earth's defences. She urges Worrall to try to escape Varliss, encouraging the Vulpreen whom Varliss has enslaved to rebel. She feels survivor's guilt after Varliss shoots Worrall because Kate refuses to tell him what he wants to know. Kate persists in her defiance because she refuses to give up hope, no matter how hopeless things look.

The Sacrifice of Jo Grant - Guy Adams

Kate gives the impression that she occasionally struggles with Jo's tendency to go off on tangents.

Kate Stewart: A few seconds to get clear. If the Official Secrets Act would ever allow my memoirs, that would be the title.

Osgood: If I can figure out the refractive index, I can probably compensate for it. Then we'd be able to see through to the other side. Kate Stewart: Already done. Someone's working from my calculations right now. You're not the only one with a PhD or two.

Kate Stewart: Why did you jump after me [after Kate's pulled through a pocket of temporal instability]? Jo Jones: I was trying to save you! Kate Stewart: One day, Miss Jones, you'll learn you can't save everybody. Jo Jones: Have you? [ouch!] Kate Stewart: I'm sorry, I - I shouldn't be snapping at you. It's just - well -

Kate carries a Mark 17 [pistol? revolver? Unclear]

Kate muses that she's not sure she can bear to speak to the Brig again (while she's in the past). Later she seriously considers it, but is interrupted before it happens. She finally does call him, after prodding from both Jo and the Third Doctor.

Kate's the one to grab Jo from the Time Vortex thanks to the Doctor's meddling. He brings Osgood 'a gadget' to track Jo through the Time Vortex, but Kate's the one to actually grab her and bring her back into their Time.

[ETA: Can’t believe I forgot there was a UNIT story in the first Eighth of March boxset!]

Narcissus - Sarah Grochala

Kate says she's weak and sees monsters in her bedroom, that she's lost in the woods and her dad can't find her. Which is how she overcomes the alien's psychic hold on her. She allows herself to feel weakness and is able to pull out her gun and shoot the mirrors, destroying the alien's power.

Osgood: I just wanted to say how sorry I am about what happened on the ship. It's not like me. Kate Stewart: It's okay. We all have crises of confidence. Osgood: Do you? Kate Stewart: Sometimes. Osgood: But you always seem so calm and collected. Kate Stewart: [weak laugh] Huh, not always. Not inside. But outside appearances must be maintained for the team. Osgood: That takes a lot of strength. Kate Stewart: You know, when I was inside those mirrors I realised something. Jordan's ship wasn't feeding off anything to do with external beauty, it was feeding off confidence, self-belief. It was never about appearance. How could it be? Physical beauty is subjective, but bravery, strength, intelligence - that's not.    

#Kate Stewart #Background Info #Big Finish #UNIT #Audio Drama

[thejostenator]

The Foxhole Cinema: Chapter Five

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Read on A03

After Renee took Neil through his schedule for the day, which was Poster Duty apparently, she and Allison went to open up the doors. Neil wasn’t needed for a few hours, and although he didn’t have to be at the Foxhole until his shift began, Wymack and Abby were still getting his place ready for him. There was a magazine on the table near the coffees, so he picked it up and got himself settled in the break room, as far away from Kevin as possible. Andrew watched him from across the couch, having shifted so that he was sitting on the backrest with his feet on the seats. Aaron was engrossed in his phone, and Kevin busy writing, so neither noticed nor cared when Andrew got up and crossed the room to sit down next to Neil. “So Neilio,” Andrew said, “What’s your deal with Kevin?” Neil started to answer, but Andrew moved quickly, pressing his hand firmly against Neil’s mouth. Sneering, he leaned closer. “And I recommend you tell the truth.” Neil saw a glint of silver in Andrew’s free hand- the familiar shape of knives, visible even beneath the thick material of his armbands. He swallowed, and Andrew removed his hand, flashing Neil a knowing look with his deep hazel eyes. “My family don’t really like his or Riko’s movies,” Neil said. “That’s all.” Andrew watched him with an expression that could have been curiosity if not for his dead eyes. “Nice to see your family has a modicum of taste.” “You don’t like Kevin’s movies?” Neil asked, “I thought you were like, his number one supporter or some shit.” Andrew raised his eyebrows. “That spot goes to Wymack, but I take pride in being Second Place.” “That doesn’t answer my question,” Neil said. “It does,” Andrew said simply. “If Kevin the cowardly lion actually starred in a movie, it would be great. But when he shares the spotlight with Ricky Mojo, they’re all shit.” Kevin looked up from his notepad. “They’re classics, you dunderhead.” “Yes,” Andrew said sarcastically, “Which is exactly why you’re avoiding them like the plague. Not because Ripley MoreJam left you traumatized.” That would explain why Kevin had gone pale at Hernandez’s offer of tickets for Raven King. Whatever Riko had done to Kevin, it sure as hell wasn’t good. Andrew continued, “His old movies might be crap, but he has potential, and I won’t let another psycho try to crush it again. Kev’s never playing second fiddle again, not while he’s under my protection.” “Ok,” Neil shrugged, “What does that have to do with me?” Andrew rolled his eyes. “You stay away from him.” “That was the plan, knucklehead,” Neil snorted, before turning back to the magazine, which seemed to be about dinosaurs. Andrew seemed to have another threat lined up when Allison poked her head through the doorway. “Hey, Josten!” Neil looked up. “Yeah?” “Some of the regulars Renee was talking about are here! Get your ass up and come say hello!” Neil turned to Andrew since it didn’t seem like the maniac was finished with him, but he pulled the magazine from his hands and hit him over the heard with it. “What are you waiting for my permission for?” Andrew growled. “I’m Kevin’s guard dog, not yours. Get the fuck out of my sight.” Neil nodded and got up from his seat to come out front. Two people were standing at the ticket desk, talking animatedly with Nicky. “Hey bro,” one of them said, turning to him. “You’re Dadmack’s new hire?” Neil nodded. “Neat,” the guy said, extending his hand. “I’m Matt Boyd, one of the Foxhole’s regulars!” He had a cheery smile large enough to rival even Nicky’s, and long dreadlocks running down to his shoulders. The girl next to him beamed and introduced herself next. “Dan Wilds,” She said, pointing to her chest. She had short, frizzy hair and a nose ring. The dark skin around her eyes crinkled when she smiled. Nicky cleared his throat loudly. “Sorry to interrupt, but your tickets are ready! Two front-row tickets to Superdude goes to the moon! just for you.” “That’s a fucking kids movie,” Allison snorted, looking at the tickets with disdain. “Yep,” Matt beamed. “That’s what makes it fun.” Allison

snorted. “Sure thing, knuckleheads. You haven’t seen the dick around here have you?” “Seth?” Dan asked. “Isn’t he here already? He texted to say he was getting a taxi here half an hour ago.” “Of course,” Allison sighed. “He’s probably gotten sidetracked and is drunk in a ditch.” Neil didn’t know who Seth was, but he was pretty sure it was too early in the morning to get drunk. Mirroring his thoughts, Allison sighed. “Christ, it’s too early in the morning for that. I'm going to look for the fucker. Neil, you're taking over my shift.” "I'm already working," Neil snorted. "Go ask someone who's not." Allison gave him a pitiful look. "If you think I'm asking the monsters for a favour, you have another thing coming." Neil sighed. “What am I doing?” Allison pointed to a dustpan and brush propped up in the corner of the room and hurried out of the Cinema, her high heels click-clacking on the floor. “Well,” Nicky said, “you better get to it.” Neil sighed and collected the dustpan and brush, and shuffled around to clean up all the mess he found. Despite the Cinema only opening ten minutes ago, there was already litter all over the floor. He counted seven chocolate wrappers, two of which were Kit-Kats, three spilt bags of popcorn, one credit card and a crumpled map with a large red circle over the Oasis Hotel and Resort. After dumping the rubbish in one of the many bins, he picked up the map and credit card to see if he could find a lost property box. Renee was nearby, checking tickets and directing people to the right screening, but Neil didn’t trust her, not with her too-wide smiles and the darkness simmering in her eyes. So, he headed into the Break Room. “Is there a lost property box?” He asked. When neither Kevin nor Andrew acknowledged the question, Aaron sighed and clambered up from his seat to direct Neil to a large storage cupboard filled with hundreds of large plastic boxes. One of them was stuffed full of umbrellas, wallets and souvenir cups. There was also a worn copy of Watership Down shoved inside. Neil dropped the map and credit card in there, before following Aaron back to the main rooms. Renee was ushering Matt and Dan into their cinema and they waved at him as he walked past. He didn’t wave back. He wasn’t here to make friends.

#all for the game #aftg fic #aftg fanfic #aftg fandom #neil josten #andrew minyard #andreil #aftg #matt boyd #dan wilds #nicky hemmick #andrew x neil #tfc fanfic #ao3 author #read on ao3 #ao3 fic #The Foxhole Cinema

[salamoonder]

OKAY LET’S TALK ABOUT CALEB.

he is NOT doing well yall; let’s get the elephant in the room out in the open. this island is traumatic. he’s been extremely quiet since they arrived on rumblecusp. i can’t think of a single conversation he’s had that lasted longer than twenty seconds. he’s been scratching at his scars almost constantly. he’s been literally physically tense. if you go back and watch 102, there is a moment where liam, ooc, is SUPER excited about matt introducing dinosaurs to the island, and it makes the snap back to caleb absolutely dizzying because he goes very clenched-teeth-muscles-coiled tense. we go from liam’s body language, which is very open and relaxed, to caleb immediately closing up. (i’ll go back and edit this to include the timestamp when we have the youtube video).

caleb is processing a ton of stuff right now. in game it’s only been about a month since they last saw trent and it has been less than a month since essek’s betrayal, and i’m willing to bet that he is replaying that counterspell moment and thinking “what if i had failed and fjord had died permanently”, because caleb motivates himself with personal guilt. he is in a baaaad headspace.

and yet....the necklace. the necklace. let’s just think for a moment about the necklace and what it symbolizes.

we know he’s not supposed to have it. he stole it for his own protection as opposed to having it gifted to him at graduation; i think that if the timeline were fudged a little bit and he had been gifted it then gone rogue after graduation, he would’ve gotten rid of it much sooner, maybe around 49, out of pure shame and or guilt and said fuck the consequences. but up to this point, it has still been useful to him in hiding himself and feeling secure, and although it is still a symbol of his time in training, i think the fact that it was stolen lessens the weight of such a symbol. regardless: the necklace means protection and safety, but it also means trent, and on top of that it means astrid and eodwulf and what he could have been, whether being a vollstrecker means failure or success. (caleb’s brain is math brain; he weighs all of his options against each other.)

up until now, the protection and safety of the necklace has, i think, outweighed all else. the fact that he’s just given it up gives us a variety of options, in my mind:

1) now that he knows that trent knows for sure that he is alive and who he travels with, the bad associations of the necklace far outweigh the protection it was giving

2) he has come to trust in the m9 enough that he knows that their protection will more than make up for the protection of the necklace, rendering it useless

3) the protection of the necklace no longer has any value for him; or, at least, its value is not enough to combat the negative associations of the necklace. (ie. he would rather be unprotected than keep that tie to his past).

4) he believes he longer deserves the protection granted him by the necklace (ie. he thinks he no longer deserves the peace of mind he got from it OR he actively wishes that trent/the empire/etc would hunt him down)

5) he is willing to give up the protection of the necklace in order to be more easily traceable by someone or something (ie. astrid or eodwulf)

i think this is the lowest we’ve seen caleb in a while, and i can see it pushing him to either wonderful or terrible things. or both.

my main point is that he is walking a very fine line between bravery and trust (1 + 2) and self destruction/outright passive suicidal tendencies (3-5).

in conclusion: critrolestats is the best, not having talks hurts like a motherfucker, and as always i am very interested in both similar and dissenting opinions.

#caleb widogast #trent ikithon #astrid #eodwulf #the mighty nein #critical role #thane watches critical role #meta #critical role spoilers #cr spoilers #tw: suicidal ideation #edit: i am SO sorry i forgot to tag initially

[smol-tactician]

Hello, I just came to ask what do you think would happen if Digimon and Sk8 the Infinity had a crossover?

Oh I've been waiting for this one

It's a little late for me and I have quiet a bit of possible ideas for this, so imma put my favorite ones. Also this idea brings me joy.

I feel like they would meet because of a digimon attack and/or a skateboard tournament.

And it would either be like "let's all help the nice citizens around us" or just bumping into each other on the street. I feel like Tai and Reki would meet each other first no matter the scenario too.

For the digimon attack scenario: I feel like it would happen during a race at S and then like Reki and gang decided to help everyone get to safety then BOOM, Tai and Greymon come in and fuck shit up. And of course the question of "Is that a fucking dinosaur?" Is asked. Then like Reki gets too close for a sec and Tai pushes him out of the way and then its like "bro thanks for saving my life who are you by the way?" And then their automatically best friends, and then they introduce each other's squad and explain the digimon stuff. I also feel like adam would some how be involved in the digimon attack. I also think that Reki and Tai would just straight up be the most badass of them all meanwhile Langa and Matt stand there like "This is what you deal with on a daily basis?" And then of course they team up and stuff. And I feel like Cherry and Izzy would do something with Carla and like hack into something because why wouldn't they?

For the Skateboard tournament scenario: So Adam post something about a tournament right? And they're like "Yeah ok let's do this I guess" but they do it during the daylight instead of night time. And so they have to travel because it's like the Olympics but skateboarding. And at somepoint they're walking around the place and then like Reki and Tai cross paths on the street. And Tai would be like "Hey that's a really cool skateboard" and Reki would turn around and say thanks but then see Augmon and be like "Why do you have a dinosaur?" And after explanations and stuff they become best friends. (leave me alone no matter how it would happen they would be friends I want them to be friends) Then later the sk8 fam is hanging out right and then they see Tai and Reki introduces him and Tai's like "hey wanna meet my other friends?" And they're like "bet" then they meet the other digidestined and the digimon and be like "Yo this is weird but cool" I also feel like Miya and Davis would instantly just be like "So I heard you like being chaotic" and boom another friendship complete.

For the scenario of both it's honestly too chaotic to put into words at the moment but yeah Adam would so have something to do with whatever digimon is attacking. Being honest I think it would be some for of Piedmon because Adam gives me piedom vibes. But to sum it all up, they'd all be friends and have fun together no matter what.

#digimon adventure #digimon #sk8 the infinity #crossover #crossover idea #bring on the chaos I'm ready lmao #tai kamiya #taichi yagami #sk8 reki kyan #sk8 reki #sk8 langa hasegawa #sk8 langa #matt ishida #yamato ishida #izzy izumi #koushirou izumi #sk8 cherry blossom #sk8 miya chinen #davis motomiya #daisuke motomiya #thank you anon

[almasexya]

Return of the King (King Kong vs. Godzilla, 1962)

It’s difficult to overstate the impact of King Kong vs. Godzilla, the third movie in what was to become the Godzilla series and the first to be shot in color, yet a movie that has also been almost completely overshadowed by everything that came after. Produced to coincide with Toho’s 30th anniversary, King Kong vs. Godzilla was the most ambitious kaiju movie to date, a landmark production involving two of the most famous movie monsters put on screen. To try and give a modern day comparison, this was the equivalent of the first Avengers movie or Avatar (remember Avatar??)

That said, something tells me if you’re out looking for a Godzilla movie from this era, you’d pop in vs. Mothra or Mechagodzilla or one of the other more popular entries. The fact that until 2019, the only legal version that most of us in the west could get our hands on was the inferior English cut due to a licensing agreement between RKO (the original owners of King Kong) and Toho didn’t exactly help either.

But really it goes deeper than that. King Kong vs. Godzilla is a downright weird movie no matter which version you watch. And I’ve seen both of them, the Japanese cut a few times and the American version exactly once last night, since it came with my Criterion Blu Ray set. More importantly, that set came with a decent restoration of the notoriously shitty-looking Japanese cut, and represents the first time that version was ever legally available stateside, so that’s nice!

The Japanese cut was put together by the usual crew, with Ishiro Honda directing, Eiji Tsuburaya on effects, Akira Ifukube on soundtrack duties, and Tomoyuki Tanaka producing. The writer is again Shinichi Sekizawa, though from what I’ve read, the sheer wackiness of the plot has more to do with Honda and Tsuburaya than it does Sekizawa, though I highly doubt he wasn’t an unwilling partner in all this.

The main plot (of the Japanese cut at least) is that the constantly riled up Mr. Tako (Ichiro Arihima) is tired of the TV shows his pharmaceutical company produces bombing in the ratings, so when he hears of the news that a giant monster has been sighted in the south pacific, he sends two of the salarymen in his employ off on an adventure to bring the monster to Japan so they can make a TV show about it.

This plot, frankly, is fucking ridiculous. Even knowing what comes later in Godzilla’s career, it’s really difficult to take the first half of this movie seriously, and even when the second half introduces some tension, it barely ever lasts, usually foiled by the monsters mugging and clapping, or the antics of Mr. Tako and his two cohorts.

This was, in part, Honda’s idea. He had apparently been disgusted with the “ratings wars” numerous TV producers were engaged in at the time, and took that idea to its logical extreme by making a TV producer start a literal monster war.

And go to war they certainly do. Sakurai and Fujita, Mr. Tako’s subordinates, bring Kong back from the island just in time for Godzilla to pop out of the arctic fresh from his seven year nap after Godzilla Raids Again, and after some general dicking around they go at it for the first of two times, and the results are... interesting. Tsuburaya apparently wanted to take the monster action in a lighter, more family-friendly direction, a move which Honda was very much opposed to. The result is the inception of the boulder-flinging (get used to it) and a lot of mugging and general wackiness that couldn’t be more different from the animal savagery in Raids Again. Harou Nakajima and Shoichi Hirose, who played Godzilla and Kong respectively, apparently did their own choreography, and took a lot of their inspiration from pro wrestling.

It’s here that I’ll bring up the effects which, sufficed to say, are a disappointment. While the few city sets that the film shows look good, Kong sure as hell does not. With a dopey, blinking face and ratty fur, Kong looks like an old rug somebody forgot to throw out. Godzilla fares quite a bit better in his first color appearance, with a mean, angular face and great proportions. The matte work used to put the human characters in the same scenes as the monsters is downright repugnant, and has been done better in earlier movies. I’m inclined to think it was just that Tsuburaya’s team bit off more than they could chew, but it’s still hard to look at the effects of a movie this big and see literal green screen outlines around the main cast.

That said, the movie is still a fun watch, if only to try and make sense of it all. Kong miraculously gains the ability to eat lightning, (a relic from when the movie was planned to be a Frankenstein vehicle, let’s not get into it) Akihiko Hirata has a small role as a doctor, and this also is the first movie to use Ifukube’s famous Godzilla theme.

Almost none of these praises can be sung of the American version, which is a dreadful and boring disaster of a movie that seems to have had a singular objective of making as little sense as possible.

The team producing the English dub did have their work cut out for them, if I can say this one thing in their defense. The plot they had to work with of a deranged TV producer sending his underlings out to bring back a monster in order to boost ratings was so distinctly Japanese that, instead of trying to work with it, they just threw it out entirely.

Well, they threw out as much as they could. Sakurai and Fujita’s expedition to Faro Island and their retrieval of Kong takes up a significant portion of the film’s first act, to the point that they’re so integral to the plot that you really can‘t remove them and then explain where the hell Kong even came from.

The English cut solves this problem by trimming their appearances down to the sheerest atoms of footage they could, resulting in a movie that has no real protagonist or focal point at all. While Mr. Tako and his dynamic duo were hardly great protagonists, they at least have some claim to the title. Characters from the Japanese cut whizz by with the slightest possible introductions when they get one at all, leading the viewer to not understand what the hell they’re doing their in the first place.

In place of the original plot, we get a pair of talking head newscasters and a doctor who reads dinosaur facts out of a big picture book. I would have been alright with the removal of the original plot if what they’d replaced it with was worth something, but this just isn’t. The general plan was to present the movie as if it was being told through a newscast, meaning that many of the new actors stare unnervingly into the camera while reading their lines, which are often presented with the complete absence of emotion, befitting the detached newscaster aesthetic. Not to mention there’s something really disappointing about seeing shots that were simply part of the movie in the Japanese cut shrunk down to the size of a TV screen in the English version just to service this frame story that’s not worth shifting focus to.

To give them credit, this strategy worked for the American edit of the original Godzilla, a movie I decided not to cover due to the fact that it’s generally fine at what it does in that it tells the story through an American narrator but generally leaves the plot alone. Not so here, where the bizarre first half is replaced by something equal parts confusing and dull, with stock Universal monster music replacing Ifukube’s score to boot. They did at least dub over the American submarine crew who become Godzilla food, who sound like they’re reading their lines at gunpoint in the Japanese cut.

I don’t hate this movie, though it may seem like I do. King Kong vs. Godzilla is more of a mixed bag than anything else, a film that’s remembered more for what it started than what it is. Pretty much every Godzilla sequel we’re in for follows the whimsical template that started here, and whether that’s good or not is totally your call. But we did get Godzilla’s infamous dropkick out of the deal, so it isn’t all bad. Watch the Japanese version while you wait for Godzilla vs. Kong to come out, but stay far away from the English cut.

#monster monday #godzilla #king kong

[introvertguide]

King Kong (1933); AFI #41

The latest movie for review was the one and only creature feature on the AFI top 100 list, the iconic Kong Kong (1933). This was the equivalent of a blockbuster for the time as it was first presented at Radio City Music Hall for 4 days and all shows were sold out. The film incorporated layering technology that had never been utilized before, which I assume made the experience of watching in a 9,000 attendance capacity crowd on a 30 foot screen an amazing experience. The film did not win any awards, but has since been recognized as a defining film for special effects in Old Hollywood. I was able to track down a version of the movie with commentary by Ray Harryhausen and I want to discuss what was revealed about the film production, but we should do a quick summary of the film first. I will not go into too much detail since the film has been remade three times now and most everybody knows the story, but I still need to do the standard...

SPOILER WARNING!!!! I AM GOING TO GIVE AWAY THE PLOT OF A MOVIE THAT IS 90 YEARS OLD AND HAS BEEN REMADE TWICE!!! IT WON’T EVEN BE THAT IN DEPTH, BUT I GET IN TROUBLE IF I DON’T SAY SOMETHING ABOUT SPOILERS!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

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The film starts out with a movie director named Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) who is looking to discover an actress. He has a map to a secret island and he wants to shoot a film there. He hired a ship with a crew and his producer has secured a camera, but an actress is still needed. Denham scours the streets looking for a pretty new face that is desperate enough to not ask questions. He quickly discovers Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) as she is trying to steal an apple from an apple cart. He pays for her, gives her some food, and whisks her away on the boat.

On the ship, it is revealed that only Denham knows where they are going. He has a hand drawn map to a place called Skull Island where there is a giant wall that contains a world of monsters. Ann Darrow falls in love with the first mate, Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot), by the time boat makes it to the island. A large group goes ashore and they run into natives in front of a huge wall with a giant door. There seemed to be some sort of ceremony involving the sacrifice of a young girl, but that changes when the natives see Ann and they want to take her for their ceremony. The group from the boat decides it is a good idea to get off the island, so they row back to the ship. In the night, a group of natives spirit away Ann and her absence is quickly noticed. 

Fires and celebration light up the sky and the crew figures out that the natives stole their actress. The tribe is then shown opening up the giant door, tying Ann to some rocks inside the enclosure, closing the doors leaving her alone, and then hitting a gong to summon the beast.  The sailors all run up on the natives right as Kong appears and takes away Ann. The group including Denham and Driscoll open the door and half the group chases after Kong deep into the enclosure. 

All of the men who go inside are slowly picked off by either Kong or dinosaurs that live in the enclosure, which turns out to be somewhat of a Jurassic jungle. Kong has to constantly fight off beasts that want to steal Ann from him including an allosaur, pterodactyls, and what appears to be the Loch Ness monster. With the constant barrage of predators, the chase team of sailors is whittled down to just Driscoll and Denham. Denham goes back to the gate and Driscoll goes after Ann. During one of Kong’s monster distractions, Driscoll is able to steal Ann and they flee back to the gate with Kong following behind. Everyone gets out of the enclosure successfully, but Kong is so mad he breaks down the gate and wreaks havoc on the native village killing many. Our three main characters and a few of the sailors that stayed behind to guard the gate run back to the boats with Kong following, but Denham is able to throw a gas bomb in the face of the giant gorilla and he is subdued.

The beginning of Act 3 has the hardest cut between settings of any movie I have ever seen, yet it makes sense in the movie. Kong is somehow transferred to New York from Skull Island where the beast is chained up. Time has passed (I am not sure how much) but the giant ape will be revealed to the public at Radio City Music Hall. Denham has made $10,000 in one night in ticket sales to see the beast and gotten ahold of the press to document the occasion. It turns out that Driscoll and Ann are about to be married as well. All of this is neither shown nor explained outside of about 1 minute of dialogue. Anyway, back to the film...

Kong is being displayed for the public and Driscoll and Ann are dressed in their best that Denham has bought for them. The couple are introduced on stage and then the press is brought in to take pictures of the beast. Kong becomes so enraged by all of the flashing that he breaks his bonds and escapes. He is somehow able to get out into the streets where he stomps on people and destroys an elevated train. Ann and Driscoll escape and hide in a hotel which Kong is able to find. He does pick a lady out of the wrong room initially and he just drops her to her death. Second attempt gets a jackpot and Driscoll basically faints while a giant hand steals Ann. 

After some more destruction, Kong takes Ann and climbs the Empire State Building. They get to the top and planes are sent in to shoot Kong off the building. Eventually he falls and dies on impact. Ann and Driscoll are OK and Denham walks out of the crowd to see the body of Kong at the base of the giant building. The movie ends with Denham saying the famous line. “Twas beauty that killed the beast.”

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First, let me say what an absolute treat it was to watch this film with the commentary from the great Ray Harryhausen. That man is a class act with so much great insight into film making during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was apparently 13 when the movie was released and he saw it in theaters on many occasions. The work of special effects director Willis O’Brien and producer Merian Cooper in King Kong influenced Harryhausen when he made The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, and Clash of the Titans. The special effects in these films then influenced a huge list of great directors like James Cameron, Guillermo Del Toro, Tim Burton, Peter Jackson, J.J. Abrams, Wes Anderson, and George Lucas. I learned so much about the connection between King Kong and my favorite movies, it was just a great watch.

King Kong was actually made in three different sizes and there were multiple models of each. One giant gorilla head, which was manned by three men, with a single giant foot and a single arm with a hand, were made for the close up interaction shots with the actors. The fingers and toes on the full sized limbs had to be moved by hand (many very strong hands presumably) so there is no movement from the digits in these shots. A bunch of 2 foot wire framed puppets of Kong were made that could interact with the dinosaurs and the buildings around New York. Finally, a couple of six inch puppets were made to superimpose onto stock shots of the Empire State Building for the famous ending shots of Kong climbing the giant building.. 

Almost every shot in the film that didn’t involve a simple human interaction was created through layered shots. All the shots of the island, any shots of King Kong or any monsters, many shots of the jungle, and many shots of King Kong interacting in New York. The use of matte paintings in the far background with paintings on glass in front of those made all the shots seem deep and lush. In front of these were layered the stop motion puppets of Kong and the monsters and at the very front were humans and directly interactive props (cars, plants, huts, etc.). I never realized how much work went into every single shot of this film and I can see why it is so famous.

Another note is the direct influence on some of the most famous films of all time. The approach of King Kong started with sounds, went on to the effect of the great apes weight hitting the ground, and ended with the giant figure coming out from the trees. This method of introducing a monster has been highly copied, most notably the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. 

The film was somewhat risque at the time and some of the film was cut on first release. Kong biting people and squashing natives was not originally included. There was a scene in which Fay Wray fell into water in her ripped white dress and that was not included. Also, Kong picks up a lady from the hotel that Ann is in and promptly drops her (she wasn’t blond so she has to go), which was harsh enough to be cut from the original release. None of this seems that bad today, but there were no restrictions on film in 1933 and studios didn’t know what would upset audiences. 

One thing that struck me as funny while watching (and the commentators noted this as well) was how every character immediately loved and was willing to die for this blond white lady. Denham just found her on the street and the entire crew didn’t think she should be on board for about 3 minutes, then suddenly Driscoll loved her and the entire crew was willing to die horribly to save her. The natives took one look at her and thought she would make a better sacrifice then the young girl they had. Kong was willing to fight off all forms of monster to protect her. I thought he might have simply wanted a companion, but he tossed that other poor woman from the New York hotel down off a building. At the end, men shot the ape off the Empire State Building sending bullet spray everywhere in an effort to save the girl. I honestly don’t think she was worth it, but that is just one man’s opinion. 

So is this film worthy of being on the AFI List? Absolutely yes. It does not have great acting, but the contribution to American cinema through the effects, the story, and the pure ambition is well worth a spot on the list. Would I recommend it? Across the board yes with no hesitation. I especially recommend watching with the commentary, if that is your thing, because watching this film and listening to Ray Harryhausen tell stories is an absolute treat. Definitely one of the best film watching experiences I have ever had. 

#King Kong #1930s #black and white #american cinema #AFI list #special effects #stop motion #miniatures #introvert #introverts #classic film #ray harryhausen #commentary #dinosaurs

[armageddon-generation]

The Big Moffat Rewrite: Series 7

Following on from my Series 5 and my Series 6 rewrites

XMAS SPECIAL The Snowmen

The Bells of Saint John

The Rings of Akhaten

Cold War

A Town Called Mercy

The Slow Invasion

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

Asylum of the Cybermen

Nightmare in Silver

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

Hide

Supremacy of the Daleks

Extermination of the Daleks

The Name of the Doctor

The Snowmen

·         11 is still a recluse in Victorian London, but because in my Series 6 he left the Ponds instead of losing them, it’s because he’s convinced he’ll screw up if he travels again. After wiping himself from history he’s lying low, not helping because he’s convinced he’ll make things worse

·         (also he’s totally wallowing in self-pity because of his self-imposed exile from the Ponds)

·         Clara re-convinces him he can make positive change, drags him out of his self-absorption, shows him something new

 CLARA’s CHARACTER

·         Clara gets all of series 7. Moffat originally wanted The Time of the Doctor to be a whole series, so we can fit some of that stuff about the Silence and Trenzalore in here.

·         GIVE CLARA A FUCKING ARC – the Doctor takes an ordinary girl who he thinks is special, and accidentally makes her special

·         Most people seem to prefer Victorian! Clara to her in S7B anyway, so she becomes that flirty, authoritative character by the finale

·         The pieces were already there – her being scared in Cold War compared to her taking charge in Nightmare in Silver, but make it explicit – the Doctor realises he is changing Clara and turning her into the person he met in Victorian London and the Cyberman Asylum

·         This sets up her arcs and relationship with 12 – he brings out the liar in her, forces her to become cold and calculating. This is now already happening with 11

The Rings of Akhaten

·         Introduce Trisha Lem, the head of the Church of the Silence, here. The best part of this episode is The Speech, but we could easily say that the Silence is presiding over the Long Song ceremony to appease the Old God, taking the place of those creatures hunting the little girl. 

·         (I imagine the Church pre-Trenzalore as a kind of Shadow Proclamation for religion - presiding over and safeguarding the religious traditions of species across the universe)

·         This way Trisha and the Silence’s role as confessionals doesn’t come out of nowhere in The Time of the Doctor

·         11 and Trisha’s relationship being so flirty confuses me - as the head of the Church, 11 must associate her with all the pain the Silence caused River and the Ponds. Instead, he acts really flirty but Clara notices he’s faking it – a reflection of their own relationship?

·         Trisha doesn’t understand why 11 is being elusive.

A Town Called Mercy

·         Use this story’s framework – a Western where 11 is forced to protect war criminal – and insert River

·         Partly bc River and Clara interacting seems super interesting

·         River is angry at 11 for ‘replacing’ the Ponds. I also think she’d be competitive with Clara? As she’s scattered all over the Doctor’s timestream, Clara is the only person who really could compete with her

·         As an archaeologist expert on the Doctor River knows about Clara, but can’t tell 11 exactly what she is

·         Also 11 agreeing with River’s more violent methodology is really interesting and shows how they can feed into each other’s dark sides – think River’s line from The Angels Take Manhattan – “One psychopath per TARDIS, don’t you think?”

The Slow Invasion

·         A version of The Power of Three told from the perspective of the Alice character who replaced Craig in S5/6. 11 pops in and out of her life with different versions of Clara

·         It’s revealed that 11 has tried to travel with different versions of Clara before, tracking her down all across the universe, but she always, always dies. Our Clara doesn’t know.

·         Alice is deeply critical of what 11 is doing. She acts almost as his therapist; he comes over for tea and talks to her about what’s going on.

·         Instead of the cubes being alien exterminators, this is a plot buy the Great Intelligence (series 7′s big bad) inspired by the Skith from DWM comic The First and Superman villain Brainiac – i.e. the Intelligence is collecting all information it can about a thing, and then destroys it to stop that knowledge becoming commonplace and therefore losing its value. Specifically, the Intelligence is also investigating Clara (because she keeps appearing across its timeline). The Intelligence’s fascination is a dark parallel to 11’s

·         Alice asks 11 what happened to the Ponds, and he reveals they still think he’s dead. Alice tells 11 to go see them (the ending scenes of The Doctor, the Widow and The Wardrobe). She also tells him to start treating Clara like a real person, not a human question mark

·         11 takes Clara to meet them. River is also there, having dinner. The episode closes with them reconnecting

Pond Life

·         After The Slow Invasion launch this minisode series about life post-11, with River barging in instead of the Doctor

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

·         Tie the TARDIS disliking Clara into the series arc – it’s because the TARDIS knows Clara is an anomaly scattered through the Doctor’s timestream. Have a scene in Journey To the Centre of the TARDIS where 11 argues with the TARDIS about it – “Do you know what she is? You do, don’t you? I miss the time when you could talk and just tell me.”

·         The TARDIS went to the end of the universe to throw Jack Harkness off, and 11 abandoned Future!Amy in The Girl Who Waited because the TARDIS hates paradoxes – this is the same kind of thing, just make it clear by the finale (Clara even jumps into the time stream INSIDE the TARDIS)

·         Clara remembers the events of the episode so she can be be active in the investigation of who she is, (also fixing how the episode undoes the three brothers’ arcs, but still insists they grew as people at the end)

          This represents 11 opening up to her and trusting her more

Asylum of the Daleks (retitled Asylum of the Cybermen)

         Roll Nightmare in Silver and Asylum into a 2-parter, because the best part of Nightmare is Mister Clever. Both episodes even have the same ‘someone’s about to destroy the planet’ ticking time bomb.

         The army fighting the Cybermen kidnap 11 to get him to destroy the Asylum with a bunch of expendable grunts they can afford to lose to a suicide mission.·         Clara meeting/interacting with another version of herself is really interesting, so we keep converted Oswin saving them·

         Changing it to Asylum of the Cybermen makes more sense thematically

        All those people, including Oswin, being converted – the Asylum’s security system is its conversion machinery – attackers become part of the security system. Instead of a nano-cloud, use the tiny upgraded Cybermats·

         It would also be scarier (a haunted hospital a la World Enough and Time- botched cybermen > insane Daleks) and would add an interesting layer to Cyberman lore instead of making the Daleks look weak. It can also use old models to explain the Cybermen’s multiple backstories, touched on in The Doctor Falls (”everywhere there’s people, there’s cybermen,” 12 says)·

         The ‘subtracting love’ thing makes more sense with cybermen too – instead of Amy and Rory, focus on Clara holding onto her connection with 11 – emphasising their genuine, emotion-based bond over ‘flirty quirky plot device’·

         This renewed focus on the Cybermen is good because the last full-on Cyberman story was in Series 2 (in The Next Doctor they’re just kind of in the background), and Moffat is much better at writing the body-horror of the Cybermen than he is writing the Daleks.

Nightmare in Silver

·         11 deliberately lets himself be ‘infected’ by the asylum’s nanocloud and begins conversion in attempt to save the converted Oswin’s mind.

·         Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the origin of Handles, the Cyberman head from The Time of The Doctor: the remains of Oswin’s cyber-converted mind downloaded into a head.

·         11 uses Mr Clever to get information about her - i.e. that she just appeared one day as a fully-formed person without any family. This sets up the other Claras being time remnants. 

·         It also lets Mr Clever play more psychological games with 11 and Clara – Mr Clever reveals 11 is scared of Clara, putting more strain on Clara having to hold on to her emotional attatchments

·         The Cybermen are actively trying to get out. This way we dig into their primary drive – survival at all costs,

·         What happens when a Cyberman’s emotional inhibitor is broken, but they don’t die? Driven insane and desperate, and fiercely intelligent.

·         I like the idea of the Cybermen like the Xenomorph in Alien; blending in with thoier broken down, mechanical environment, plugging into it and using to separate and play games with the soldiers.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

·         Replace The Crimson Horror with a version of Dinosaurs on a Spaceship with the Paternoster Gang replacing Brian, the Ponds, Nefertiti and that hunter bloke

·         I just really need to see Vastra interacting with her culture OK? Seeing her be taken back to her childhood, opening up to Jenny about it. Her anger, realising what the villain Solomon has done to her people. Use this conflict to call back to and explain how she met the Doctor, how he stopped her slaughtering humans before.

·         Clara and 11 go to the Paternoster Gang for help investigating her other selves

·         Clara researches and finds her past selves, not only in Victorian London but also throughout the 60s and 70s, when she’s helping the past Doctors – finding this research is how the kids find out she’s a time traveller

·         This is how THE DOCTOR REALISES HE’S SEEN HER MANY TIMES BEFORE, setting up The Name of the Doctor’s out-of-nowhere, un-guessable resolution.

·         Dark!11 again. Matt saoid they would’ve explored a ‘meaneer’ version if he’d stayed on for series 8. Clara is the perfect way to bring that out as they lie and manipulate each other for their own ends.

DALEK CIVIL WAR STORY

·         Progenitor Daleks vs the regular Time War model. Display how the Progenitor Daleks are different - each of them having a different weapon/role etc. The crux of the story is that the Progenitor Daleks are better at fighting the Doctor and come close to killing him, but the other Daleks value their ‘purity’ and survival more

·         Maximum Dark!11

The Name of the Doctor

·         When 11 rescues Clara she is changed – she retains bits and pieces of her time remnants’ experiences, it’s at once traumatising and exhilarating

The Time of the Doctor

·         Whereas The End of Time felt stretched-out (135 minutes) this felt really rushed. Make it 2 parts.

·         We see the set-up of Trenzalore and the Church of Silence in the first.

·         The second part is the long siege of Trenzalore – we need to see 11 age fighting these monsters, taking his turn being left behind, the tragedy of him slowly losing his memory, focusing on his character

·         We can also flesh out the citizens of Trenzalore and Christmas so their safety is important to us

·         Let’s see Madame Kovarian and her splinter cell break off from the main Church of Silence and leave to try and kill the Doctor – make her a supporting character

·         Then have Trisha Lem explicitly talk to the Doctor about how Kovarian blowing up the TARDIS caused the cracks in the universe in the first place, allowing the Time Lords to get their message out. Instead of a montage, have this be the moment that unites the Doctor and the Silence – they are both fighting to make up for their mistakes and the problems they caused

·         We see the many races surrounding Trenzalore form the alliance from The Pandorica Opens

#doctor who #eleventh doctor #matt smith #clara oswald #clara oswin #jenna louise coleman #jenna coleman #steven moffat #stephen moffat #dw #bbc doctor who #doctor who series 7 #11th doctor #series rewrite #amy pond #the paternoster gang #madame vastra #strax #The Big Moffat Rewrite #doctor who dalek #cybermen

[softtashoney]

stoner voltron fic

okay so like i have seen a few hc’s about the team smoking weed but there’s not much and i kinda want to write something for it but iDK WOULD ANYONE READ IT???? like here ill put some of my thoughts for it below

Lance, Pidge, & Hunk have been best friends their whole lives basically

Lances parents are out of town and they’re all staying at his house

His sister is like hey y’all are 15 now do you want to smoke with me

Since then they’ve grown into huge fucking stoners-

Hunk literally makes the weirdest shit when he’s high but it always turns out so good

Lance has zero filter and says all the stupid shit in his head out loud ‘do fish breath water’

Pidge laughs at everything- like you can say fuckin ‘baboon’ and she will laugh for like fifteen minutes

One day they’re in her basement and Matt comes down and they’re like shit no we’re in trouble-

But matt just sits in their circle and takes the FATTEST bong rip they’ve ever seen

now he occasionally smokes with them & once he stole their dads credit card and they ordered $200 worth of dominos

Matt was grounded for a week, when his dad asked why the fuck he needed so much food he was just like ‘uh im a growing boy’

‘Matt you’re literally 20’

Shiro who is Matt boyfriend- gets introduced to them & his brother Keith

Keith legit is so innocent and pure he can’t even properly use a lighter

One day shiro is like ‘hey guys do u wanna meet my cousin and uncle??’

They show up to this huge fucking mansion with tons of land

It’s just huge fields of fucking weed

The cousin & uncle are none other than Allura and Coran

Coran literally is a drug lord- he makes bank, he sells to all the top rated dispensaries

For birthdays & Christmas coran gives everyone huge bags of fucking weed

The groups favorite thing to do is use the huge game room @ the mansion and get super high and play Just Dance & smashbros

Pidge, Keith, & Matt go into conspiracy mode when they’re stoned together

Once they tried to play twister and lance ended up with a black eye bc shiro fell and kicked him in the face

Lance gets super high one morning & his mom texts him ‘we’re going to a picnic with the family today’ and lance is stoned to the bone and trying to act normal around his 48478347 relatives

‘Holy shit look at that pigeon go whatta fuckin beast’ *a pigeon bathing in a puddle

‘Lance honey are u ok’

His sister knows and just laughs

One time lance, pidge, keith, hunk, shiro, & matt decided to go to Walmart at 3am

They bought the weirdest shit

‘Keith why the fuck do you need glittery cat ears’

‘They show who I really am’

‘What a raging homosexual?’

‘Yes’

Their cart is filled with things like: a 40ft garden hose, three cans of shaving cream, a 5 foot dinosaur stuffed animal, and a congrats ur a dad card

The cashier is so confused

Keith and Lance were arguing in the ice cream isle and Keith fucking shoves lance into the freezer and closes the door and refuses to let him out

Matt pushes Pidge in a shopping cart while sprinting and they accidentally knock over a huge case of soda and it explodes everywhere

i have so many ideas idek man this is just yEah

#voltron #pidge gunderson #lance mcclain #hunk garrett #keith kogane #takashi shirogane #matt holt #coran #allura #weed #stoner vld #trins dumb ideas

[nestleeds]

Leeds Dads. What they do and the impact they have.

In 2011 a group of new dads looking for ways to spend more time with their babies set up their own playgroup in a café in Leeds City Centre. Now they’re opening their doors for hundreds of other dads in the city.

‘Child Friendly Leeds Award Winning’ Leeds Dads is a voluntary charitable organisation that is supported by LCCT (Charity No. 1096860).

They bring together a diverse community of fathers for social interaction and support and host regular free playgroups and breakfast clubs for around 30 dads and their kids, organise social events, host an active presence on social media for dads to share their experiences and signpost towards expert parenting support. Leeds Dads is unique in their key aim of supporting fathers to actively engage with their children, and build lasting relationships. Their vision is to expand their output to build a Dad-Friendly Leeds - a city-wide culture of dads engaging with their pre-school kids.

Here is an example of what they do......

Pre Covid Activities

Leeds Dads Meet Up is a playgroup for dads and their pre-school kids. We met every third Sunday of the month from 2-4pm at The Holbeck Club. Around 30 dads and grandads meet with their children to enjoy arts craft, games, a singalong and storytime. It’s the home of Slung Low theatre group, who play an active role in promoting our message to dads in south Leeds. Leeds Dads Breakfast Club ran in partnership with Aireborough Children’s Centre in Guiseley. It was launched following a series of suicides of local dads with young children. Taking place on the first Saturday of each month, our Breakfast Club provided a space for dads and preschool kids to enjoy cooking breakfast, arts and crafts, or just jump around!

Leeds Dads had a fantastic reaction in Guiseley, bringing in 16 dads/session within just four sessions. The dads said the group helped combat stress and build a sense of peer support.

Adapting Under Covid

Coronavirus has stopped all face-face activities. So they have reinvented their services to cater for dads in this new environment: Leeds Dads #AskADad Facebook Live on facebook.com/leedsdads Tuesday nights offer parents an opportunity to talk to experts during a Facebook Live about issues affecting them during the current coronavirus situation. It includes topics such as:

Accessing health and care support Employment law, regulations around furlough, Benefits information, supporting children’s behaviour Going back to school Living with a disruptive or abusive partner Supporting both parents and childrens’ mental health

Leeds Dads and Kids Walks

Leeds Dads launched Pram Friendly Walks to help support dads mental health and maintain their connections with the group. They are within government guidelines and maintain social distancing. Up to 30 dads struggling with isolation meet other dads to share their feelings whilst gaining some well-needed exercise.

Leeds Dads Virtual Playhouse Playtime for dads and kids, Sun 2pm with Daddy Alex and his daughter Imogen! It includes a dance session, Baby Raves,  and singalongs. They also check out dads #Dadventure videos – kids’ adventures with dads in dinosaur suits, on obstacle courses, having water pistol fights, and whatever family fun they can create.

Free Food Parcel Service Leeds Dads distributed a thousand parcels of free fresh food through a confidential service every week to families in need across the city.

During lockdown from March to June 2020 over 21,000 meals were distributed by volunteers within Leeds Dads. In April 2020 this service helped The Real Junk Food Project to distribute 400 tons of redistributed food in one month.

Dadstastic Day Online Leeds Dads hosted the biggest online Fathers Day celebration in England! They ran free activities offering dozens of sessions that create opportunities for dads to interact with their families and kids up to primary age, and introduce them to: music, dance, science, storytelling, and arts and crafts with over 500 activity packs delivered free to families in Leeds, so they could join in with the online fun at their own homes.

Social Media 

By expanding their 100-strong ‘WhatsApp’ group and Facebook reach of 70,000 users/month, they are able to support families and dads experiencing hardships, especially during the current crisis.

Personal Stories

In August they lost one of our volunteers who took his life. Leeds Dads launched a fund to support his family, and signposted our dads to bereavement support and support for those at risk of suicide.

Mental Health Support via Signposting to Wellbeing and offering Peer Support:

“My wife imagined maternity to be 1:1 time with baby and taking weekly classes. Instead she’s taking care of two children as I’m working full time other than for paternity.”

“I’ve had a complete loss of work/life balance. A lack of productivity, a lack of routine. No exercise.”

“The kids are becoming more irrational, badly behaved, unhappy.. throwing things.. bouts of anger.. serious fights with siblings.” “All the money that was saved from not travelling to work, lunch breaks and travelling back has gone into the increased food shopping bill. I am really struggling to get the kids educated.. they seem disillusioned, not communicating.”

In a recent survey:

78% of Leeds Dads said they come to Leeds Dads to spend quality time with their children.

“It helped me feel confident to spend time with my son on my own”.

*Matt and Mark (NOT REAL NAMES) - both suffered from depression, Matt also from PTSD. He hadn’t been out with friends for years. Matt now helps organise Leeds Dads Nights Out. Mark manages part of our Dadstastic Day event.

*John and James (NOT REAL NAMES) had problems with alcohol and depression. We signposted both to support, and stayed engaged.

John now manages his alcoholism and is working. James’ IAPT course helps him to combat his depression.

*Aaron (NOT REAL NAME) lost his first child at birth. Leeds Dads helped him to combat anxiety, bond with his new baby, and build a lasting relationship.

*Leo (NOT REAL NAME) was unsure of how to raise his new baby because of his disabilities. Our support has helped build his confidence to be active in his child’s life.          

Leeds Dads - Community Group of the Year, Compassionate City Awards 2018 Adult Making a Difference, Child Friendly Leeds Awards 2018

www.leedsdads.org

www.twitter.com/leedsdads

www.facebook.com/leedsdads

#leedsdads #dadsupport #suicideprevention #dadsmatter #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness

[this-book-has-been-loved]

All Hallow’s Eve

For @platonicvldweek Day 3: Tricks / Treats (Halloween)

Read it on Ao3 | Read it on FFN

In which the Paladins discover that Keith’s birthday is only a week before Halloween

They had a clock in the castle.

It wasn’t too hard to set up. They knew what day it had been when they left Earth, and were able to make a rough estimate about what time it had been as well. With just a quick search into the castle’s timekeeping systems, they were able to determine exactly how long it had been since Allura and Coran had awoken from cryosleep. The thing that took longest was just pinning down a precise conversion from Altean timekeeping to Earth’s system. But once that had been calculated, it wasn’t hard to figure out what the date and time was back home.

The clock was set to the same timezone as the Garrison; so Lance and Hunk had to add or subtract a few hours to get the right time for their own homes. And since they had only approximated the time it was when they left Earth, they knew it was bound to be off, by minutes or even hours.

But it was there. A basic system that they could look at if they ever wanted to check what day it was back home. It wasn’t until after they’d made it that they realized just how homesick it would make them.

In the beginning, Hunk would check it obsessively, constantly worrying about just how long they’d been away from home, how long it had been since they left Earth without warning, how long it had been since they all just disappeared without their families knowing anything.

Lance’s solution was to just ignore it. He went without opening the program, saying he didn’t want to remind himself. But Pidge caught him on more than one occasion, sitting in the bridge in the dead of night, staring mutely at the numbers ticking away in front of him.

It was worse for Shiro, having left Earth over a year earlier than the rest of them. Every once in a while, they’d catch him looking at that clock for just a little longer than usual, the year being what set him off the most, reminding him of just how much time he’d spent in Galra captivity.

Pidge had initially set it with reminders, so that it would notify everyone of birthdays and holidays. They’d all input the dates that were important to them, family birthdays and anniversaries, saying it’d be nice to be alerted for that sort of stuff. But when the castle alerted them all of Matt’s birthday and sent Pidge into a fit of tears, they’d collectively decided that it would be best to avoid all that. Hunk went into the system and erased the alerts; he left the dates themselves untouched, but deleted the program that would send them notifications.

And gradually, they all decided to leave it be. What was the point of reminding them all how far from home they were, how homesick they were, how long it had been since they last saw their families?

And so, most of the time, the clock went largely untouched.

Keith seemed to be the one least affected by it. He checked it on a semi-regular basis, viewing the date in a disconnected sort of way.

As a result, he was the one most on top of things. He’d let Hunk know about the other Paladin’s birthdays a few days before they happened, so that he’d be able to surprise them with a cake.

It wasn’t until it was later in October that any of them realized that he’d skipped his own.

“Guys.”

It was Pidge who noticed, pulling up the clock on her laptop in a moment of curiosity. She was in the lounge, working quietly, while the rest of the team relaxed. The five of them were resting after a training session, while Allura and Coran were working on the bridge.

When they looked over at her curiously, she looked up from her screen in mild shock. “Tomorrow…tomorrow’s Halloween.”

There was a pause. Then Lance, in excitement, “Seriously?! Man, I love Halloween!”

Hunk had brightened considerably, sitting up straighter. “Should we, like, do something to celebrate?”

“I can’t believe we’re missing Halloween,” Lance bemoaned. “I had so many ideas for, like, group costumes, and Halloween parties.”

Shiro frowned. “Wait, Keith, isn’t your birthday, like, a week before Halloween?”

Everyone froze, looking over at Keith, who was doing his best to just disappear into the couch cushions. “Um—”

“Yep,” Pidge confirmed, looking back at the calendar on her laptop screen. “The twenty-third. Exactly a week ago.”

“Keith!!” Hunk exclaimed. “I’ve been counting on you to tell me when everyone’s birthday’s are coming up! Why didn’t you tell me?”

Keith shrugged, self-conscious, uncomfortable with all the sudden attention. “I dunno. Didn’t really wanna call attention to it.”

“Dude,” Lance said emphatically. “It’s your birthday. You’re supposed to call attention to it. So we can all celebrate.”

Keith crossed his arms, leaning against the wall and stubbornly refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. “I’ve just never had a big birthday celebration before. It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s totally a big deal!” Lance insisted.

“Keith,” Hunk said calmly. “We are going to throw you the biggest, best, birthday-slash-Halloween party you’ve ever had.”

“You…really don’t need to do that.”

“Of course we do,” Pidge told him, tilting her head and giving him a curious look. “You’ve always made sure that our birthday’s got celebrated. Why shouldn’t we do the same for you?”

Keith blinked, taken aback. “I just…I don’t need all the attention.”

Shiro put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Keith.”

“Listen,” Lance said flatly. “We get that you have your whole angsty teen thing going on. But you realize that we’re still your friends, right?”

Keith leveled a glare at him. “I’m not an angsty teen.”

“Dude, you totally are. It’s one of your character traits.”

“Alright,” he said, standing abruptly. “I’m not dealing with this.”

“Keith,” Shiro called after him, but Keith ignored him, stalking through the door. Shiro sighed. “I’m gonna go talk to him. I’ll see you guys later.” Without another word, he’d followed Keith out of the room.

And so Pidge and Lance and Hunk were left alone. Lance grinned slyly, steepling his fingers. “Party planning committee?”

“Party planning committee,” Pidge agreed, shutting her laptop.

Hunk cracked his knuckles. “Alright. This is gonna be the best birthday-slash-Halloween party in the whole universe.”

“What is…Halloween?”

Allura had entered the lounge mid party-planning, joining them on the sofa and listening with curiosity. The birthday part she understood; the Paladins had already introduced her to their strange traditions for celebrating the anniversary of their brith. But she was unfamiliar with the other thing they were discussing.

When she asked, the three Paladins paused their talk, looking over at her in mild surprise.

Lance recovered first, smiling at her brightly. “Only the best Earth holiday,” he replied enthusiastically.

“It’s like, you dress up in costume,” Hunk continued, “wear whatever you want. And then there’s trick-or-treating, where kids go door-to-door and get free candy.”

“And everything gets decorated to look scary,” Pidge added. “Like, skeletons and ghosts and witches and stuff.”

“Ghost stories!!” Lance exclaimed. “Aw, man, those are the best.”

“I just really liked the excuse to go outside dressed however I wanted,” Pidge replied. “It’s the only day of the year where it’s socially acceptable to go out in public while dressed as a dinosaur.”

“…I want to see you in one of those inflatable dinosaur costumes.”

“Not gonna happen, McClain.”

“Dressing up was always the best,” Hunk agreed. “Did you guys ever do any of those, like, group costumes? I never really had, like, a group to do that with.”

Pidge rolled her eyes. “Be thankful. My parents were really into matching costumes. They made it a family thing, where we’d all dress up in a group.”

“Oh my god, please tell me you have pictures.”

“Lance.”

Allura watched the exchange in fascination. “So,” she started hesitantly, “you dress up in strange costume, get sweets from strangers, and try to scare each other…?”

Hunk blinked. “You know, when you put it like that, it does seem a bit weird.”

“Well, all the Halloween traditions have historic roots,” Pidge told them. “Like, it was originally supposed to be a festival for honoring the dead, which is where the ghost stuff came from. And back in ye olden days, it was thought to be a time when, like, the veil was thin? Something to do with the changing of the seasons from summer to winter. So they thought that spirits were able to walk the earth or whatever. That’s where the costume thing comes from too—they’d dress up to try to confuse evil spirits.”

“Huh,” Lance said.

“What about trick-or-treating?” Hunk asked.

“I….” Pidge paused, frowning. “I’m actually not sure.”

“Or carving pumpkins!” Lance added. “Man, I always loved carving pumpkins.” He paused. “…Think we could find anything like a pumpkin out here in space?”

“I think the pumpkin carving also stemmed from the whole scaring-away-evil-spirits thing,” Pidge replied. “Though they were originally turnips.”

Allura leaned forward, resting her chin in her hands. “And what exactly is a pumpkin?”

Hunk frowned. “Like…a big fruit, kind of roundish. Usually about this big.” He held out his hands about a foot apart. “Orange.”

“And you carve them?”

“Usually faces,” Lance explained. “But sometimes other pictures. It was a part of decorating.”

“And this is to…ward off evil spirits?”

“Nah,” Pidge said. “Well, I mean, it was. But not anymore. Now it’s just for fun. None of that stuff about ghosts and monsters and stuff is, like, actually real.”

“That you know of!” Lance said with an eyeroll. “Until a few months ago, we didn’t even know aliens existed. Who’s to say there aren’t ghosts out there?”

“Science,” Pidge said flatly. “Aliens make sense. It’s just statistically improbable that we would be the only intelligent life in the universe. But there’s no scientific evidence for ghosts.”

“Remember that time the castle was haunted?”

“That was a corrupted AI system. Not a ghost.”

“Why are we celebrating this Halloween of yours now?” Allura interrupted. “As an aspect of Keith’s birthday, I mean.”

“Oh,” Hunk said. “It’s tomorrow. Back on Earth, Halloween is tomorrow. So we’re just sort of celebrating them together.”

Allura’s eyes brightened. “Ah,” she mused. “Excellent. What can I do to help?”

Hunk spent all morning working on the cake. Cakes in general were’t the easiest to make, since they required a number of ingredients that could be pretty hard to track down. But Hunk had stocked up on “flour” and “eggs” and “sugar” the last time he’d found them, and so he locked himself in the kitchen for hours, doing the best he could to recreate a red velvet cake.

Lance and Allura were in charge of decorations. They closed off the lounge, filling it full with both birthday and Halloween themed memorabilia.

Coran and Pidge had gone on a field mission to collect the closest thing to a pumpkin they could find. They weren’t quite the right size and shape (let alone color), but they shared a similar structural build-up to Earth pumpkins, which meant that they could be carved.

“They’re pink,” Lance observed, as Pidge and Coran carried the “pumpkins” into the lounge.

“Yep,” Pidge muttered. “Pink pumpkins.”

“Technically,” Coran said, carrying in the next pumpkin, “they’re not ‘pumpkins’; they’re Rnslaefs.”

Lance blinked. “Rin-whatta?”

“Rnslaefs,” Coran repeated.

“Rinslay…I can’t even pronounce that.” He shook his head firmly. “They’re pumpkins.”

“Bright pink pumpkins,” Pidge agreed.

And Shiro was on Keith-watch, delegated to distract him and keep him away from everyone else. “I should let you know,” Shiro had told Hunk early in the morning, as he was only just pulling out ingredients for the cake, “Keith doesn’t really like his birthday that much. It’s never really been a big thing for him. So maybe don’t go too crazy.”

Hunk had saluted. “You got it, Shiro.”

And when Hunk passed this along to Lance and Pidge, they’d nodded seriously. “We’re gonna have to fix that,” Lance decided.

“Don’t worry, Hunk,” Pidge agreed. “We’ll make sure this is the best birthday party he’s ever had.”

So when Shiro lead Keith through that door, and they all turned on the lights and yelled “Surprise!”, they took his initial shock and silence as a good sign.

“Happy birthday!!” Hunk exclaimed, holding out the cake platter. “It’s red velvet,” he told him. “Or, at least the closest to red velvet that I could manage. Cuz you’re the Red Paladin, ya know?”

“I—”

“And look, look!” Pidge enthused, dragging Keith over to the table covered in space pumpkins. “We even have pumpkin carving!”

Keith blinked. “What pumpkin?”

“I know, I know, the color’s a bit weird. But they share a lot of similarities with the ones back home—”

“Guys—”

“We also managed to find some virtual board games or whatever,” Lance added. “Including something that looks remarkably like a ouija board, if you’re up for talking with ghosts or something.”

“Really, guys—”

“Basically, we just wanted to give you the ultimate birthday-Halloween combo party,” Lance continued.

“You—”

“Your Halloween holiday just seems so fascinating,” Allura said, clasping her hands together. “And we wanted to make sure you got as much of the experience out here as you could—”

“Everyone just—everyone just STOP!” Keith yelled.

The room fell silent.

Keith took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. “Look,” he started. “It’s clear that you guys put a lot of effort into this, and I really appreciate that. But I really, really, didn’t need any of this.”

Hunk deflated. “Do you…not like it?”

“It’s not that,” Keith griped. He wiped furiously at his eyes. “It’s just. I didn’t really need the reminder that another year had gone by. I don’t need all this attention!”

“Keith—” Shiro tried.

“Stop,” Keith repeated firmly. “I didn’t…I didn’t ask for any of this. He shook his head. “I. I’m gonna take a walk.”

No one stopped him as he stalked from the room, for the second time in the past two days.

Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose. “I thought you guys weren’t going to go so crazy.”

“We didn’t mean to,” Pidge squeaked. “We just…wanted to give him something that would make up for all the bad birthdays.”

Shiro sighed. “I know,” he said. “But it’s not really that easy.”

Hunk winced, staring at his cake dejectedly. “Sorry, Shiro.”

He shook his head. “This is my fault. I should have stopped you earlier—”

“No,” Lance interrupted firmly. “This is on us.”

Pidge was still staring at the closed door that Keith had disappeared through. “I’m…gonna go talk to him.” Without waiting for a reply, she ran through the doorway and down the castle halls. Green was in her mind, gently directing her until she located the Red Paladin.

He was in his chair on the bridge, his legs pulled up into the seat with him, using his knees as a forehead rest.

Pidge stopped a few feet away, rubbing at her arm. “Keith?” she asked hesitantly. When she didn’t get an answer, she pressed forward. “I’m really sorry. We should have paid more attention—”

“You don’t have to apologize,” he mumbled. “I know you guys means well and everything. It’s fine.”

Pidge sat down on the floor next to him, using his seat as a back rest. She tapped her hand against her leg anxiously. “I…I think I’ve got some Halloween movies saved on my laptop,” she offered gently.

After a long moment, Keith let out a deep exhale, looking up to glance over at here. “I…yeah. That sounds nice.”

Pidge offered him a smile, standing up and holding out a hand to him. “Let’s go, buddy.”

Upon re-entering the lounge, they noticed that the decorations had been taken down. All the orange-and-black and confetti-print everything had been removed from the walls and taken out of the room entirely. Even as they stepped inside, they saw Coran tugging the pumpkins out of the room.

“Keith,” Lance greeted, glancing at the doorway in surprise, his face flushed in embarrassment.

Hunk sent him a look of concern, his eyebrows furrowing. “You okay?”

Keith offered a weak smile. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Uh, happy Halloween.”

Lance quirked a lopsided grin. “Happy Halloween.”

Pidge jumped down onto the ring of sofas, grabbing at her laptop. “Alright, what do you guys wanna watch? Ghostbusters? Hocus Pocus? Scream?”

“Do you have Stranger Things?” Keith asked, walking over so he could peer at her laptop over her shoulder. “I know that’s a TV show instead of a movie, but—”

“Hell yeah,” Pidge interjected, pulling up the folder in question. “Every episode.”

“Oh, dude, I am so down,” Lance said, flopping onto the sofa beside her.

“I’ll get the system set up,” Hunk offered.

Shiro put a hand on Keith’s shoulder, giving him an apologetic smile. “You sure you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he insisted. “Really.”

Once Pidge’s laptop was hooked up to the larger viewscreen, Hunk turned off the lights, sitting down by Lance. Allura and Coran joined them, asking in hushed voices what it was they were watching. And when everyone was situated, Pidge hit play.

Keith sat down on the floor at her feel and pulled one of the remaining space pumpkins into his lap, drawing his knife to start carving. “Thanks, guys,” he said, as the show’s opening sequence played on the screen before them.

“Anytime.”

#platonicvldweek #Voltron: Legendary Defender #Voltron Legendary Defender #Voltron #vld #Voltron fanfiction #vld fanfiction #Voltron fanfic #Keith Kogane #Pidge Gunderson #Katie Holt #Lance McClain #Hunk Garrett #Takashi Shirogane #Allura #Coran #i'm a writer #mine #my writing

[myheartbeatskids]

7,700,000,000,000,000

7.7 Zillion people in the world

I have met with T.V. executives, literature experts, political allies, every country in the world.

Before I forgot all of it, I,designed an educational program for my mom at Preston High School which was passed all over the state to teach to incoming freshmen, and elementary grades 2-4

Those were the worst... In 1999 they had to teach it to the entire school 2x.

Preston stopped in 2011 because death threats against me that went to the school. Bitches didn't know we got the whole state already.

I taught all the Abu, Mother Teresa.

They took my dad. Then my whole family.

I had nothing but the rest of the world.

All of you.

Who did you have? Like me I knew you all had no one.

So I had to be someone. Just like I saw in all those that helped me.

My information saved 19,000,000,000,000 people 3 years ago.

Not really me.

My information helped an infinite number of people to learn to help an infinite number of people that has been calculated to be 19Trillion.

But you wanna know a secret?

Nineteen Trillion people walked through those church doors in order to save themselves.

I wouldn't even walk them to that door. I would hide and peek only my eyes usually in sunglasses so they thought I was looking I the street and not at them looking back at me for what they thought was the last time.

They had to. I had to see them on 2 limbs or a skateboard or whatever leave my safety and walk into the unknown to save themselves.

19 TRILLION people. Saved themselves.

I know because I didn't hold their hands and drag them any where.

They walked with their heads held high with the past behind them and the future surrounding them.

I designed the missle and satellite to purposely fail. I could not betray 19 Trillion people.

I didn't want it to. Boy i wish this house I am in was done already!!!

But i knew it was the right thing to do.

I did however help create Saints. Armed with my knowledge 18 Million people just in the United States of America alone deserve coronation into Sainthood. I think that is amazing. Worldwide 1,800,457,956 people deserve sainthood since 1985-1995

So someone needs to call the fucking church cause I actually have a list. With their correct phone numbers

And i expect that shit to get done immediately.

And since 2017 I have saved an additional 3,000,0000,000 with the Abu until November 2019.

Which then added during WWIII a savior of 3 zillion once all the bunkers are empty.

But wait! There's more! These beautiful saved themselves and didn't say anything, no DNA tests. No nothing. Just went home or went into another,bunker,to,get their friends,and families,as,I,taught them to.

In all, 74,596,512,245 deserve sainthood. Not inckuding me.

I have a list. 5,000 pages long in 6pt type.

Not many in Valencia County -- but a lot!

I moved here without any memories or power for a period of 20 years. It has been 20 now exactly on this day.

And every single day I was treated human and didn't hate it.

How did you feel when I treated you human?

Did it make you want to stay on Planet Earth?

Now i can finally have my Earth family back and my dinosaurs cause fuck y'all I'm getting and keeping mine. Stay the fuck out my fort and we will fer along alright. I don't say shit about your cows running all over the mesa and in the road and They have horns too!! Mine don't. They don't need them.

Lets pause for the votes.

99% votes on the Flintstones post.

90% cool on video of Tiny. That's his name.

Insane amounts of positivity on the news article.

Looks like we're gonna have to rename this planet Saint Earth.

We have the fort for a controlled release. Unlike humans.

New forest in current desert will be where they pop up. And they are owned and will be tagged and chipped and will follow their own instinct home.

Talk to them like hey and hi.

They won't use the sidewalk. Tiny runs 70 mph.

Just be like dude a Fucking car because they do Fuck.

That will be on the night of my wedding.

Our personal dino friends will return before. And we will introduce via video on social media

On second thought... Tiny was terrified of the Chinnook and nearly had a heart attack

Dino,were machines and so they don't know what one is -- most anyway

Since we are downsizing them we will do neighborhood release

So the eve of my wedding world wide they will be released.

No traffic. World locked down. Out side waiting.

Or,maybe in hoise Idk

But they are potty trained!!!

Matt is reading my notes which was never a final draft so that why,its all Uhhh..

So what i think is

After they are released then we lock it down. No work or shopping or school. So they can be acclimated

They were already gentle I'm,not fucking with them.,just changing their size.

You'll have a toilet their specific size in the house. And plant life greenhouse or garden

They eat like dogs. Anything.

Remember mermaids. Half human. Half dinosaurs. They are only our legs. They think on their own and feel emotions on their own. Hug on their own. Speak, hear, sense.

[fandomwriter39-blog]

College - Dan Howell

"Hey Emma! You won't believe who I just saw at the libr- oh shit! Oh... eh... okay? I'll just leave now, yeah..." Aubrey slowly closed her dorm's room and stepped back. She stood where she was for a full minute, a frown plastered on her features.  "What the hell did I just saw there?!" She thought out loud as an image of her roommate with her boyfriend crossed her mind. She shook her head furiously, trying to get both of their naked figures off her brain. Soon, another thought took over the previous: where was she going to stay? She had been studying in the library until late, it was around 11:30 now, which meant Emma's boyfriend wasn't going to leave her room any time soon. And who was he anyway? Tony? Harry? Chris? She'd had so many boyfriends in the span of 2 months that she couldn't remember which was which. She somehow pictured seeing a law book in their room's table yesterday, so she assumed that's was he was studying.  "Did he ever mention who was his roommate?" She pondered as she walked through the endless halls. Maybe she could stay the night with them, since she didn't quite know anyone but Emma, and didn't feel like sleeping in the restroom or baths. As she walked she tried to remember said boyfriend's name, which came to her quite quicker than she had expected. "Matt!" She exclaimed, then covered her mouth with both hands as she realised most people were already asleep.

She crossed what seemed like hundreds of corridors, looking at the small whiteboards on each door to try and find any with the name Matt on it. Right before she was about to give up she saw one. 'Matt & Dan', those were the names, and she hadn't seen any other Matt until now, so she hoped it would be that one. Reluctantly, she knocked at the door. Some ruffling sounds were heard on the other side, and then the door opened. "Hi. Uh, you're Dan, right?" "Yes..." The boy answered confused. "I'm Aubrey. Emma's roommate, she's dating Matt." "Right. And you're here 'cause?" "Well... Let's just say Matt and Emma were having quite some fun in our dorm. And now I kind of have nowhere to stay." Dan looked back at her puzzled. Of course, this scenario was the last he could be expecting on a Wednesday at 12 am.  "I was just wondering if I could maybe stay here for the night?" Aubrey concluded, hoping that Dan wouldn't just kick her out. "Sure, yeah. You can stay." "Really?! Oh my god, I owe you one." Dan stepped aside to let her in, and signaled her in which bed she could sleep. "By the way, sorry for appearing all of a sudden. I hope I didn't wake you up or anything." "Nah it's okay. I was just doing some stuff on my computer."

The first awkward moments soon ended, and in a matter of minutes they were both laughing nonstop.  "But seriously, did you actually see them right in the middle of it?" "Yes! Don't mention it, I think I've been traumatised for life." "Ewww I'm just imagining it." Dan scrunched up his nose as he said this. "You should've taken some pics, we could blackmail them with those later." "I wish I had. I just ran away as fast as I could. I'm sure they didn't even notice I opened the door in the first place." "Oh I'm so gonna annoy him with it now." "You have to!" Aubrey encouraged, at this point exaggerating her movements to make it look more dramatic. "He's taken my dorm without permission, I'll need some kind of revenge." "I'll help you out with that."

She hadn't payed much attention to the room until that moment, and she scanned quickly what was there. The typical, she thought. A large, messy desk full of open books and notes, and the walls covered with posters. There was something odd though, a videocamera.  "By the way, what's that for? Aren't you studying law?" "I am, but I also make videos in youtube. For fun." "Oh you're a youtuber!" She exclaimed in realisation. "I gotta say I wasn't expecting that." During that time YouTube was still quite a brand new site, and only now the term youtubers had began to spread widely and gain popularity. "Now that I know it I gotta check out your videos." "I'm sure you'll like them." Dan said grinning widely.

           *time skip*

As Aubrey opened her eyes she was startled at the new surroundings. It wasn't until later on that she remembered the past night's events. "You finally woke up." Dan said, already dressed and packing the books he needed for that day. "I don't think I even heard your alarm." "Yeah, that's what happens when you stay awake past 3 am." She looked down, realising she was still wearing the same clothes as yesterday, and seeing their state after having slept with them, she could imagine what a mess her hair would be. "Gotta go back now and get changed. Let's pray Matt has already left by now." "Yeah. Well, I'll see you around." "Yup, see ya!" With that Aubrey left the dorm and made her way to her's. She was a lot more lucky this time when she opened the door, as she was met with Emma apliying some makeup on. "Had fun?" Aubrey casually asked. "Why you mention it?" "I happen to have witnessed, sadly for me, some of last night's events." Emma's face grew pale after Aubrey's words."Oh my- How did you even-" "It's my room after all! I had to come back to sleep at some point, did you even consider that?" "Not... really... no..." Emma sighed defeated. "Where did you sleep?" "In Matt's room." Again, another comment that left Emma even more confused."Wha-" "He takes my room I take his! Plus, there's no one I know, so that was my best shot." "And his roommate, eh..." "Dan." "Right, Dan. How is he?" "He's a really nice guy." Aubrey said, smiling from ear to ear as she thought of him. "Guess the whole situation wasn't so bad after all, I got a new friend now."

           ~ ~ ~

They were reaching the end of their first year in college. Dan and Aubrey's bond had only grown stronger ever since that day. They'd had some of the best times together. But lately Aubrey had been getting the feeling that Dan wasn't exactly ok. He was a lot more quiet, thoughtful, as if there was something of great importance that was bothering him. At first she had let him be, thinking he wouldn't want to be asked about it. But in the end she couldn't contain it. She needed to know what was going on, she had to help him in someway.

Dan remained quiet at first when she asked. "C'mon Dan, you know you can trust me. Please, I'm really worried." She insisted. Of course, the last thing Dan wanted was to make her sad, and seeing her like this made him say it all in a rush, words tangling among each other. "I can't take it anymore." He started. "It's all too much. All the exams, all the pressure... All the effort and time wasted in something I don't really care about." Aubrey was confused at this. "That you don't care about? About what, your career?" "Yes. I didn't really want to study this, you know. It was a career many were choosing and my parents constantly insisted that it'd be a good choice for my future. But I can't get the hang of it. My interest have always revolved around scenic arts, videogames... Not law." "Are you planning to drop out then?" "Well, yeah, I hope so. I can't take being like this for much longer. I'll finish this year and then leave." His expression transformed into one of concern and expectancy, as he looked at Aubrey hoping that she would, in a way, approve of his idea. "If it's making you unhappy then you can't continue. It'd be stupid to do so. Though I'll have to say, I'll be missing you, so don't you dare regret it." "I'm sure I won't." "But, what will you do? I mean, after hearing your parents where so eager for you to study this they might not be too happy to see you back, have you thought of where you'll stay? Or where will you work?" "About that..." Dan took a moment to continue, replaying in his head all of the ideas he'd had over the last month. "I've already planned it all. You know the YouTube thing I'm doing?" Aubrey nodded as an answer, already perceiving where this was leading.  "You see, lately the idea of earning a living with it has becomed more popular. Seems like it can actually work out. And that's what I like. Making videos, sketches of my very own, editing them and all that sort of things, that's what I really enjoy." "Who would've thought that'd be a thing... But yeah, I've read some things about it, and from what I've seen you're really talented. I'm sure you'll be among the lucky ones." Aubrey said encouragingly.  "Let's pray for that. But I'll be living with an already lucky one, so that'll be some good help." "You're gonna live with a former youtuber?!" Aubrey's eyes opened wide, both surprised and excited about all this news. "Yup." Dan said smiling sheepishly. "AmazingPhil, one of the dinosaurs of YouTube, as he's called. He's just the nicest dude I've ever met, and he's helped me out so much. He lives here in Manchester and has an apartment of his own. I already asked him and he's eager for me to arrive already." "That's great news! He sounds like a great guy, you'll have to introduce us some time." Her smiled turned to slightly melancholic one as she thought of Dan having to leave so soon already. "I'm really gonna miss you." "Me too Aubrey. I'll miss you too."

          ~ ~ ~

It had been four years already. A 23 year old Aubrey closed the door of her new apartment, trotted down the flight of stairs and then began her daily afternoon walk, happily pacing down the busy streets of London. She began the half an hour journey that would take her to her favorite café. In exactly 30 minutes a beautiful pastel blue wall, contrasting with the rest of the dull façades, came into view. The tiny doorbell chimed with it's cheerful melody as Aubrey entered, smiling widely as the warm smell of coffee surrounded her. She greeted the waiter and went to her usual place, a fluffy cushion in one of the corners of the establishment, besides the window. In a matter of minutes she had her drink beside her. She didn't even need to order it, having that for the past 2 months it had been her only drink of choice, and she hadn't missed a single afternoon ever since she arrived to the city and discovered this small, cozy place. She took a sip of her hot beverage and pulled out from her bag a book she had been reading, or shall we say devouring, for the past days.The envolving atmosphere could have her lost in her own world for hours, losing any notion of time. Not that she minded, those peaceful moments made her the happiest. But today the routine was about to be broken.  The doorbell tinkled again. Usually, she wouldn't care to look, but this time she forwarded her sight to the new costumer. She could only see his back now as he headed to the counter: awkwardly tall body, completely black clothes and shortish chocolate hair which had been straightened, but because of the light rain outside it was now curly on the tips. There was something familiar in the male who she was staring intensively.  With his order in hand he turned, searching for a free seat. And that was when she finally realised it. It was Dan! After so many years, destiny had somehow given her a perfect chance to see each other again. She couldn't contain her happiness as she rushed towards Dan, tackling him and nearly making him and his drink fall down. Dan's shock was easily noticeable as he had not seen her yet, but right as Aubrey pulled back, what had been a sudden hug from an extranger wasn't from and extranger anymore.  "Dan! Oh my god, I haven't seen you in ages! I had no idea you were in London!" "Neither did I!" "Oh, we so need to catch up." Aubrey said as she dragged him across the shop back to her seat, pulling close to her another chair for Dan and preparing for all the stories they'd have to hear from one another. It felt weird in a way, but seeing him now after so long made her aware of how much she had really missed him. And just by looking at him she could see that feeling was reciprocal. There was no doubt that from that day on it'd be practically impossible to have them apart again.

#danisnotonfire #dan howell #amazingphil #phil lester #dan howel imagine #dan howell one shot #2009 dan #phan #phandom #dan howell fanfiction #dan howell fanfic

[aion-rsa]

Amethyst Brings Magical Fantasy to the DC Universe

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Amethyst returns to Gemworld and the DC Universe in a new series.

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Among many surprise introductions in the pages of Young Justice, bringing back Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, was one of the best. The character has been around for nearly 40 years, but has mostly been a supporting character for story arcs. That changes in February. Back in October, DC announced plans to put her front and center in her own series, written and drawn by Amy Reeder.

The series follows Amy Winston (the Earth name of the magical princess of Gemworld) heading back to her homeland to celebrate her 16th birthday. When she arrives, she discovers that her kingdom is in ruins, her subjects are gone and anyone who might have any shred of loyalty for her has turned their back on her. And while the mystery of Gemworld is going to be the plot that the book runs on, it sounds and looks like her life on Earth won't be neglected. “I love that the princess herself has ties to Earth," Reeder said in an interview with DC. "She represents us in this strange world, and we get to experience it with her. She’s an earnest 16-year-old who wants to do the right thing—the real trick is, how do you know what’s right?”

Reeder is a terrific choice for the new book. The story follows the princess as she heads back to Gemworld to discover her loyal subjects vanished and her country destroyed. Reeder has experience with the weird side of DC, having drawn Madame Xanadu with Matt Wagner; and as the co-creator of the hit Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, she knows how to tell a good story for readers of every age. “Princess Amethyst and Gemworld embody all the best elements of children’s fantasy from my childhood,” she said.

Gemworld was a popular locale before the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. Amethyst was introduced in 1983, created by Dan Mishkin, Gary Cohn, and Ernie Colon, and her series ran steadily up until the multiverse-shattering mega-crossover, but following the reconstitution of the DC Universe as one Earth, it was relegated to the occasional guest host for other books' stories. That gives Reeder a lot of latitude to play with as she builds out the world - a strong foundation, but lots of different ways to color in the picture. "This is a dreamland," Reeder said. "It’s divided up into 12 realms, all based on the birthstones—which I love. I’m giving each realm a different geography and a distinct look to each set of people. I have a fascination with landscapes and cultures, and with that I’m trying to create something that feels entirely new."

That freedom suits Reeder's art style well. Her figures and fashion are sharp, recognizably of our time but never mundane. But it's her colors and layouts where it looks like this book will sing. A comic about twelve realms based on different gemstones almost demands that the layouts be as complex as the realm's namesake, and Reeder dazzles making the page look like it's refracted through the different facets. And the color pallette is similarly perfectly matched. Even in the Earth scenes, everything in Amy's life looks like a princess named Amethyst would have decorated with. 

We've got exclusive preview art from the new book for you below. Amethyst #1 is out in February, 2020. For more on Amethyst, Dark Opal, Lady Turquoise or any of the other Gemworld realms, stick with Den of Geek!

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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News Jim Dandy

Nov 14, 2019

DC Entertainment

from Books https://ift.tt/2Oce9cx

#aion-rsa #Books