#BUT I REDID IT AND I AM STILL NOT A HUGE FAN OF HOW HE LOOKS. BC ITS NOT MY BEST WORK. BUT ALSO THIS IS JUST A SILLY LITTLE POST | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spongebob-connoisseur · 3 years

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What are your thoughts on the Birthday special?

I had to rewrite this because tumblr deleted my answer like 3 times. I hate this shit app but here we go aaaagain.

I really adored it because it introduced us to Slappy my beloved💗🌸💗🌸💗🌷💗🌷💕💖🌸💗🌷🌷🌸💗💕💗🌸🌷💗🌷💕💗💕🌷🌸

My heart beats for youuuuu✨

Jk jk but I do remember my initial reaction to him was basically "tf is that thing" oh how times have changed.

Spongebob's Big Birthday Blowout is easily the superior anniversary special. Truth or square kinda sucked ass (no offense to the people who enjoyed it tho) When Patchy said he hoped to see us again for the 20th anniversary special, my 9 year old self was like "you better because WHAT WAS THAT"

anyways they well delivered with this special.

I really enjoyed this episode, it was amazing because you don't see SB and friends interact wirh the human world. Yeah they've been to the human world surface for the SB movies but often times just for a mission. They never had a chance to really interact and explore with the human world which is what makes this special so enticing. The bikini bottom is a reclusive world with no contact with the outside so its their first time encountering human culture and contact. Like aliens in a way.

Its also really amusing that they're getting wrong information from the tour guide since it shows how fish folk makes sense of things they don't quite understand about the surface world. It's just guesses, even though those guesses are very wrong.

Also I've really grown to like Rube. He's AMAZING✨

It was also very cute how the tour bus trip is just Sponge and Patrick. We need more episodes of their friendship!!

I also think it takes place from the fishes's POV and the human world isn't that weird. There probably isn't a gorilla mask office meeting😔

That's just how they make sense of the hustle and bustle of the human world. Which is a bit obvious enough. Either that or this is an alternate reality where the weirdness properties of random land leaked into the human world as well.

Anyways shout out to can-o beans. A true icon.

Oh also this episode raises the morality question of if its ethical to own fish. Probably as a joke but it was unusual. I actually wanted to talk about it! In the episode Feral Friends, Neptune's moon turns the fish folk of the bikini bottom into less evolved versions of themselves which is pretty much the realistic versions of fish in the wild. In SB's Big Birthday Blowout, they end up at a place that sells pet fish, those fish also look really realistic. Which was basically like encountering a horror show for the fish in the tour bus. They recognize the fish in the tanks as their own people. Despite looking different. Patrick even has a crush on one of them. How does that work??? I have a lot of questions about that scene. I'll dig into it another time.

The Trusty Slab is the best part of the episode. They are exactly the SB characters. Tom Kenny really embodies Spongebob (which is obvious since he's been playing this character since before I was born) This is the most acceptable Humanbob out there. Nothing can top this. The energy is unmatched.

Same goes for all the characters. It's kinda funny how the voice actors all kinda look like their characters. Rodger Bumpass looks like Squidward. it's too funny to unsee.

Also Charlton (human Plankton) is adorable and the icing on the cake! Trying to rob the Trusty Slab but failing. This wouldn't be complete without Plankton. Though I wish Karen could have been there too :(

Though how would human Karen work? Why am I imagining one of those AI gf app thingies. That's a terrifying thought.

B plot for this episode is where a lot of the flaws come in. It falls pretty flat because it's just Sandy dealing with people fighting and causing a mess for the party which gets old fast. I liked seeing everyone's different ideas for the party and certainly they'd disagree but often times it feels like it's only Sandy holding this party together and dragging everyone around since they're so nonfunctional. Sandy deserved better.

I did enjoy the fact that they brought back old characters whether nonverbal or whatever. The guy from rock bottom, the whale from ripped pamts. Even princess Mindy! I wish they brought back Stanley though. There was a lot of guest stars in this episode too! Though unlike Truth or Square, they don't take much of a huge focus of the story. If you notice them then its just a fun thing to see. If you don't then you didn't really miss anything.

Spongebob's parents also wondered about Spange's huge array of friends. They barely know their own son lol

Regardless of the B plot, the episode was still really enjoyable. When spongebob came back from the trip and the end of the episode where they sing happy birthday to him was so so adorable!! They even redid the theme song just for his birthday! I love it!

Oh also! It was so satisfying to see Patchy meet spongebob. I've waited my whole life for this. But it does raise a question. Patchy is a spongebob (the tv show) super fan. Patchy actually got to visit spongebob (the character) so in universe there's both a show and the real character existing at the same time? I feel like this would fit into skin theory 🤔

This episode was such a joy to watch. They didn't reveal spongebob's age but we know it since his birthday was revealed on his drivers license. He's getting old. this episode actually aired the day before SB's actual birthday. Mainly to avoid it conflating with Bastille Day for international releases. But that also means this episode aired on Tom Kenny's birthday. Think of it as a birthday present to the irl spange. I think that's just a neat fact to share.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the special too!

#Ask #Princess-Unipeg #spongebob #spongebob squarepants #sb #spongebon squarepants #the spongebob connoisseur #spongebob meme

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bestfriends-0212 · 5 years

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Forgive me (Ashton Irwin imagine)

I feel like this is a dumb request but thats ok. Can u write an imagine where the reader is in a girl group (like little mix) and the reader and ashton had been together for like 3ish years and break up bc they cant see each other often and end of good terms and it spreads like wildfire (thru the news) and they run into each other and talk about things (you can decide) pleaseeee and thank you!!

Y/n POV

I was in my dressing room getting for my show with my band it was the last night of the tour. I was pumped it meant I could spend time with Ashton before his tour started. The day after tomorrow was our third anniversary together I had planned to cook him his favorite dinner and give him an autographed of Green Day on his favorite album. As I was putting on the last few touches of my make up my phone started singing Ashton ringtone.

With a smile on my face, I answered “ hey baby”

“ hi love how are you doing ?”

“ I’m great how about you? “

“ I’m okay do you got a minute to talk ? “

“of course babe what’s up? “

I heard him sigh and I could tell it was something major . “ what’s going ash are you okay? “

“ I’m not happy anymore, we barely see each other and our interactions have been through phone only lately. “ something in me broke but I understood where he was coming from. I couldn’t help but agree our relationship has been online lately no physical interactions at all.

“ okay are you saying we should break up ?”

“ I think we need a break from all of this! “ I didn’t like the idea but I agree.

“ okay that’s fine I wish you well Ashton I love you “

“ I love you too and I wish you the best if you need anything I’m here for you. We are still best friends “

“ um do we break the news now or later? Also, do you want to come by tomorrow to get your stuff? “ I felt my eyes watering I tried to blink them away but it just made them come down faster.

“ I’ll let you know “

“ I have to go, “ I said hanging up not evening bothering hearing him say bye. I could hold the heartbreak no longer as I fell to the floor in a disheveled heap as the grief poured out in a flood of uncontrollable tears. I heard knocking coming from the doorway

“ are you ready we go on in 10 “ said our manager “ almost give me 5” I mumbled hoping she wouldn’t hear the pain in my voice. I clean my face up and redid my makeup. Once I looked presentable I went outside everybody looked pumped. I had to match their energy or else they would know something is wrong. “Y’all ready to rock our last show for the year ?” I said trying to sound excited everybody screamed yes or wooo. We got into our circle and said what we were thankful for, I said I was thankful for the band and everybody who worked hard for this tour to come out so awesome. The concert went by so fast, once it was over I went back to my dressing room and packed everything. I went straight to the tour bus and went to my bunk bed. As I was laying there my phone started to vibrate, I picked it up to see my Twitter was blowing up. I clicked on one of the tweets and it asked if it was true that Ashton and I broke up. I guess he told them already, I sighed as my phone kept vibrating the notification of Ashton calling just broke me. I started to cry as the realization of us breaking up was real and it wasn't in my head.

It’s been a year since the last time I saw Ashton. I wish I could say I don’t miss him but that’ll be a huge lie. I miss him so much, after the break up we rarely saw each other. Eventually, we just stopped talking. The rest of 5sos kept in touch, they told me he hasn’t been the same since the breakup and has gone back to his old ways. I started writing songs about my feelings but they were only for me and only me. Over the months I started to isolate myself from everyone, the fans, the band, and even my family. I just couldn’t keep up with the questions

“how are you ?”

“Why did you guys break up, Y'all looked happy? “

“did one of you cheat ?”

Like all these questions were annoying and none of their business. The band was out tonight in some club having fun and here I am in my living room having a pity party and what if’s. What if we were still together? We would be cuddled up on the couch watching Harry Potter and eating Chinese food. I sighed as I went to the bathroom, I looked in the mirror and I didn’t recognize the girl looking back at me. I took a hot shower and grabbed some clothes. I looked in the mirror again and notice I’m starting to go back to my old ways before I met Ashton, wearing all black, isolating myself, and not taking care of myself. I grabbed my phone and my purse deciding to go to the cafe near my apartment. I ordered a hot chocolate and sat by the next to the window. After a while, the sweet waitress brought me my drink I continued to look out the window and wonder about the times Ashton and I had together. I sighed as I grabbed my phone, was I really going to call him after a year? A cough interrupted my thoughts I looked up to see him looking so broken. It broke my heart seeing him like that.

“ can I sit here?” He whispered I nodded not trusting my voice, it seems like the universe was trying to tell me something . He sat right in front of me we both just stared at each other like if we were just soaking up every details of our bodies .

“ I was going to call you just right now “ I barely whispered showing him the phone where I had his name up .

“ why didn’t you ?” He asked hurt

“ I was terrified that you wouldn’t pick up , terrified that you would just tell me to leave you alone and I was scared some girl would answer your phone asking me who I was. “ I replied shakily he sighed

“ I would have picked up “ he spoke quickly

“Would you really ?”

He nodded. I sighed.

“ was the rumors true did you cheat ? “

He took a deep breath and looked out the window .

“ ash is it true ?”

It felt like time has stopped and neither of us could breathe properly. He kept avoiding my eyes .

“ I did cheat on you”

My eyes started to tear up .

“ wow” I breathed out my hands started to shake. “Why? When? Do I know her ?”

“We can’t do this here Y/N let’s go back to your place .”

I nodded I paid for the drink and gave her a tip for being so sweet. We walked back in silence once we reached my apartment we sat down from across each other looking into each other eyes I don’t know what my eyes were telling him but his were telling me that he was in pain.

“ Her name is Hanna she was a fan, it was when we were fighting all the time and she told me some sweet things that I wanted to hear and bam it happened. It never meant anything to me .”

I looked at him with disbelief

“HOW DARE YOU SAY IT DIDNT MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU , DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT TO THAT GIRL,THAT WAS EVERYTHING FOR HER SHE SLEPT WITH HER IDOL HER FUCKING CRUSH.” I shout with anger

“I still love you, after all this time I still love you y/n” he whispered

“You can’t just tell me you cheated and then tell me you love me Ashton this isn’t how this work” I whispered back with tears coming down my face.

He inches closer grabbing my hand and pulling me into a hug. I tried to get out of the hug but couldn’t I just let myself fall into his arms. After that it seem was a while we finally pulled away.

”i missed you so much ” he gushed out

” I missed you too ash ”

” can we start over? Or we can resume from where we left off ?” He questioned

“ Ashton as much as I love you I can’t go back to you knowing that you cheated and it took you so long to tell me about it. You don’t keep secrets from the people you love even if it hurts them.”

“Please y/n. I love you. I need you in my life “

“You should have thought about that before you cheated ash “

He got down on his knees

“Ashton please get up don’t make this worse please don’t I hate seeing you hurting. It hurts me too just please get up.”

“Y/n I’m begging you! Please I love you so much. “ he cried

I was trying to be strong but I couldn’t help myself dropping to the floor pulling him into a hug sobbing. As much as i wanted to say I wouldn’t take him back I still did cause he brought out the best out of me.

A/n: I hope you enjoyed it, sorry it took so long - K&J

#5secondsofsummer #5 seconds of summer imagine #5sos preference #5 seconds of summer preference #ashton 5 seconds of summer #ashton irwin imagine #ashton 5sos #ashton irwin

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game-meak · 5 years

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A Proper Postmortem

Maybe?! Heck if I know how to actually format a good post but let’s try. As game development went on for almost four years, this is probably gonna be long... and also give away basically the whole game oops! Read on with caution.

Sometime around July 2014, a month after the initial release of my first game, my room was being remodeled and I was stuck with nothing for free time but a garbage laptop I could do anything on, an old flip phone, my sketchbook, and my 3DS. So beyond playing an obscene amount of Animal Crossing and Tomodachi Life, I at some point went “hey, what if I made a second game starring the kids.” So I started trying to plan it out! And it went

absolutely nowhere that I intended it to go!!!

For instance, this is the very first page of sketches. This squirrel was supposed to be really important. It’s not. I don’t even KNOW what’s up with that duck.

A thing I like to think about before I set off making any of the story, assets, or scripts for my games tend to be themes and motifs. And I kept circling back to a very important, very personal “theme.” Without using the internet at large as my therapy couch, I was emotionally abused and taken advantage of multiple times in my life and it greatly impacts how I interact with people to this very day, as you’d expect events of such a degree would. Particularly, I kept thinking that the RPG Maker fan crowd tends to skew young and be in the teenage range and at ages 14-16, I could’ve used something to help.

Of course, my entire thought process isn’t necessarily one of charity and selflessness. It was also a way of me expressing what I’d dealt with in ways I’ve only ever communicated with my friends who were also victims of the same circumstances, the closest I would let myself come to personal stories and retellings with a cover of plastic children and wild adventures. It was also in some ways a way of me verifying to myself that something ongoing was, in fact, bananas and should not have been happening, but that might be another story for another time.

As you can probably guess, Haze and Seal came into the picture since I needed to make two characters who would have this struggle. A lot of decisions came about because of my personal experience. They’re 15/16 because I was at the time of the incidents that primarily inspired me to make this game. They’re both nonbinary because I am. They love anime because I did (and do...?!) One of their friends is even directly modeled off how one of my friends looked in high school. To that degree, I guess someone, somewhere can call them self inserts. But they’re also not, since I didn’t want to just do a personal retelling with fictional characters. I’d just write a memoir or something at that point.

Haze’s design came first, and then Seal’s was sort of made as a foil to them. Haze’s “colors” are pink, black, grey, and red. Seal’s are teal and light purple... and also black. Haze had a rabbit motif (which got toned down as I went on), Seal had an owl motif (which is now just a single mention in their list of likes...), etc.

Though in the beginning, the story was entirely different. Initially, everything took place in the neon-ish areas with black sky and reflective, celestial water (that I, very eloquently, call “spacewater”). The idea was that Haze and Seal were beings from another dimension and that their “fighting” was causing a rip in the universe that the kids stumbled into and therefore got wrapped up in this mess. I had an entire script written and started making assets and when I went to sum up the game’s plot in a neat paragraph, I realized... I hated it!!!

So I chucked all I had done by that point writing-wise and started again.

In fact, I rewrote a lot. After the first it was mostly small tweaks and adjustments, but the biggest ones (and the ones that still present a challenge to me!) usually involved trying to make Seal feel like a believable character. I had shown an early draft to someone who said that Seal felt too much like trying to get back at someone, so I scrapped a ton of their lines and tried again. I still worry whether or not they come across too Strawman-y, but I’ve done the best I can and whatever criticism people have can apply to my next writing attempts. It’s very hard to separate yourself from subject matter you feel really personally attached to. I don’t want to write them in a way that you immediately hate them, or hate me for writing such a blatant “villain” character, but in a way that you can formulate your own thoughts. That said, though, I am violently allergic to people who call Seal a “tsundere,” even in jest. So I guess I want people to have their own thoughts as long as it’s not that specific one...! (;;;;)

You may be thinking “heck, this is a lot of paragraphs in and you haven’t even brought up gameplay thoughts” and yes... that’s very true. Shamefully, for a game where I thought “I should definitely, absolutely focus more on making it a Fun Game than a walking visual novel” I might’ve actually dropped the ball in that area. I’d like to think I was more adventurous than I had been with my first game. Some parts do kind of fall into the “walk to the next cutscene, find a key to unlock the next cutscene” pit, but I did put effort into figuring out what I could do with RMXP. My obligatory “please don’t use this engine here, people thinking of using RPG Maker” statements here. In the final product, though they’re very simple, I’m most proud of the chalkboard puzzle and the paint sorting puzzle.

Even if, y’know... I somehow neglected to include the letter “k”

Speaking of, I’m not sure if this is a general RPG Maker thing, a “man I hate RMXP” thing, or a “meaka cannot gamemake” thing, but I had several event/puzzles just up and quit on me a few times. Like they would work fine for months and months, but one day I’d go to them and just nope, suddenly they’re not working, sorry. Copy+pasting the event to a new map wouldn’t work, so I’d have to manually redo the event. One of them was the chalkboard puzzle. The other was the sliding puzzle when Tony is by herself. Which I’m also aware slows the game down a ton, but I have legitimately no idea how to fix that... I tried and I could never get to to not lag like crazy.

Like I said, I started in July 2014. I’d shipped the game off to my beta testers in March 2018. A vast majority of that time was spent creating the visual assets since everything you see in the game is custom. All the sprites, all the tilesets, every little pixel of it. All me! Needless to say... it was very exhausting and very time consuming. I grossly underestimated how much time I thought it’d take. I never accounted for the very real possibility of burnout, which is incredibly silly considering I was making something entirely by myself that was also an occasionally difficult subject matter...! There were quite a few weeks where I touched nothing because I couldn’t bring myself to and even a few times where I just considered deleting everything and cancelling the project. I knew I’d be mad at myself if I quit, especially as I got later into production, so I just tried my best to make sure I didn’t turn it into a huge chore. Obviously, there were parts that were more tedious than others, but this game really is a very large labor of love that I put a lot of my heart into.

Part of that time is also a little bit of indecision. Did you know I went through 3 possible title screens? I sure did! I’ve also publicly posted about redoing both Haze and Seal’s bust sprites before. I almost redid all of the kids’, too, but I didn’t wanna get caught in the loop of remaking everything, so I opted to just leave them as they are. Most of them don’t bug me as much. M...most of them!

I’m hopping back on the Story train since obviously that was my main focus, but the decision to have Seal sort of “reveal” their true nature (or at least have a jealousy-related anger burst) to Octavio as an animated cutscene was one I’d decided pretty early. Which is also why, unsurprisingly, I was debating getting voice actors for a hot minute. But I wouldn’t have used it anywhere else in the game, so I opted not to. I also wanted to keep the file size low, but that wound up not happening so much, h-haha... For someone who uses the only engine without native support for videos, I sure do like making animated cutscenes, huh.

Anyway. This scene originally bridged Octavio’s section of the game to Pablo’s, which would’ve been (for some reason) in an abandoned hospital. But that didn’t pan out because it didn’t fit what I wanted the game to be and also by switching the order of the two, it builds up more tension(?) on the kind of character you expect Seal to be. I hope their very first “fuck off, maybe” took someone out there by surprise!

This also was the point when I decided I wanted to commission an original soundtrack, since nothing quite got across what I wanted at the time. Which is when I put out my silly ad post and somehow managed to get the amazing ProjectTrinity to compose for me...! I’m still amazed by the sheer quality of music he made for my little RPGMaker game.

Having the teen characters curse was also something I waffled on for a bit. Clearly, I dwell on the important things as a writer. I wanted it to contrast the cutesy, kidlike way the siblings talk and also the sort of squeaky-clean image the witches (particularly Seal) present to the kids by contrasting how they talk to each other, most importantly how Seal talks to Haze and their other friends. I did have the same issue with the Mother in my first game, but I opted to not have her curse at all either since she’s childish in her own way, too. But that’s not for THIS game’s postmortem, get otta here!!!

I also very much was set on a “battle” with words being the final event of the game. Though I had a hard time imagining what that would be initially, but eventually arrived at a sort of fake battle system that was introduced in the mine. The setting for this battle changed with time (everywhere from the park to the academy and in between) was considered...! The dirty secret is that while I did like the decision to make it take place in the voids between worlds, I also sort of did not want to draw the staircase in the witch academy. Originally, the kids would’ve also helped Haze “reach” Seal (who was putting actual obstacles in the way), but I guess in my own way, I wanted to give Haze the ability to confront Seal on their own, one-on-one. Or something like that...! I also didn’t want to add too much needless backtracking.

I’m... unsure what other point I really want to make, so I guess I’ll end this here unless anyone has anything in particular that interests them they’d want me to answer!

All in all, this game means a lot to me and took a chunk of my life to make and I really hope it’s able to reach at least one person who might need it, even if it’s only a little.

To all of you who gave it a try, thank you, truly, from the bottom of my heart.

A shameless link to the game: [itch.io] & [RMN]

#living playground #the witch's puppets #rpg maker #postmortem

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dcarevu · 5 years

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Batman TAS: Fear of Victory

“He’s locked up in Arkham…isn’t he?”

Episode: 24 Robin: Yes Writer: Samuel Warren Joseph Director: Dick Sebast Animator: TMS Airdate: September 29, 1992 Grade: B

Hey! Robin is back! About time, huh? This is the first time that we have seen him since episode two, but the show explains this by showing him living in his college dorm. And it makes sense that, with his roommate being directly affected by the Scarecrow, he would get involved, working with Batman, even if he is not on any vacations or anything. I asked Char what she thought about seeing Robin again, since she is a DCAU-virgin, remember. Her response was honestly not what I expected, but it was nice to hear! I figured she would be really surprised that he was absent for so long, but she did not think all that much of i. I did tell her he was generally away at college after we watched Christmas With the Joker, so I suppose that’s what she was expecting early on. It was a nice treat to have him back, she said, but she seems to like the flow of Robin that we have gotten so far. And so do I. They were very smart about how they handled it. The show is stylistically best when it is just Batman for most of the time, but Robin is also a nice character, so seeing him occasionally is okay with me. He could have been overdone very easily, though. Like, if we got the Joker every episode, even though we love the Joker, that would get old. Same with Robin, noting his more happy-go-lucky/smartass personality. He is the type where it is wise to wait for an episode that needs him instead of attempting to work him into an episode. And while even though Robin worked fine this time, did they truly accomplish this task? Did this episode need Robin to work, or would it have worked better without him? There is a difference between being okay with Robin because we like him and we haven’t seen him in a while vs being okay with Robin because he actually adds something meaningful to the episode. Personally, I think that this episode falls into the trap of making Batman slightly less competent so that Robin seems more needed, while also making Robin the “damsel in distress”.

With Batman’s competence (or lack there of), I am referring to the end battle up high above the football field. The part where Scarecrow threatens to drop a vile of his fear powder onto the audience below, resulting in utter chaos, and at least a handful of injuries. After all, people in crowds are fucking crazy as it is. Just look at Black Friday. Now add some Scarecrow chemicals, and you have a messy situation. But what happens is that Batman seems to have an awfully hard time preventing Scarecrow from dropping the vial, despite Scarecrow really not providing any type of physical threat to Batman. They both fumble around on the catwalk, and I get that it is a small space, but I feel as though Batman could have done something to prevent one or two of the vial scares. And that box of lightbulbs up there is a little bit contrived too. It seems a little bit dangerous that anyone who works there would keep a box of lightbulbs above a football field, it could fall off and hurt somebody. And well, here it does hurt somebody! Batman was not even ready for it. The same guy who can quite often predict when someone is right about to jump him from behind. All this is to allow Robin the chance to save the day, catching the vial in midair. Which is fun, I like how his actions aligned with the football announcer’s commentary and all. Yeah, this segment was still enjoyable to me, don’t get the wrong idea…it just helps not to think about some of the silliness too hard. At least, as an adult. I think what could have been much more interesting is if Batman ended up absorbing some of this fear powder. Maybe Scarecrow could have ended up smashing the vial in his face or something. Then Robin could have had a much better chance at being the hero, without making Batman look like a putz. Batman has been affected by Scarecrow’s toxins before, and the imagery that he gets is incredibly powerful. What if he saw his parents, but then it was his own adopted son that snapped him out of it and kicked Scarecrow to unconsciousness, facing both of their fears and ending the problem.

And also, as I said, Robin kind of portrayed the damsel-in-distress. I’m referring to the scene where he first becomes affected by the toxin, and nearly falls off of a building from high above the ground. I think if Robin did something a little bit more meaningful at the end of the ep, like the idea that I had, this would work better and seem a little bit less flimsy. But this is only Robin’s second DCAU appearance, and already he is screwing things up like the ol’ trope goes. Again, though, this scene was perfectly enjoyable, and if Robin was not already jokingly known for this by comic book fans, I likely wouldn’t even mention it, but in the grand context of the character, I couldn't help but roll my eyes a little bit. As positives, his voice actor, Loren Lester, did a great job of the emoting, and it is hard not to feel scared for Robin. This scene also highlights the danger of what Batman and Robin partake in every time they don their costumes. Even something as simple as using their grappling hook to go from building-to-building is not recommended for your everyday, average Joe. One little mis-step and you can fall to your death. So in a way, Robin experiencing this adrenaline rush is bringing Robin down to our level, and lifting the veil for him, reminding him of what exactly he’s doing with his life. And he is not like Batman, where he needs to be a crimefighter to feel that fulfillment, to clear himself of guilt. So if Batman were to be affected by this particular fear-powder, I don’t think that Batman would gain that fear of heights that Robin did. I think that his visions would be much different. Batman simply does not share the same reality that Robin does. They are truly very different people, and the more I think about it, the more I am not surprised with what happens later on down the road with these two, but I will not give any hints to avoid spoilers. Let’s just say that once Robin grows up, there is an unavoidable relationship change just waiting to happen.

Scarecrow got a redesign in this episode, looking quite a bit different from when we last saw him in Nothing to Fear. Char ad I both much prefer the new version, but she noted to me that the straw hair is a little bit much. Yeah, I can see how that would bring the intimidation levels down a bit, but the face and body look so much better (partially because of TMS’ awesome animation) that it doesn’t bother me. I was surprised to see such great animation with this episode, honestly. Maybe it was because the last Scarecrow episode didn’t turn out looking that great (despite the debatably better story elements that it had), and they wanted to make sure that they could make Scarecrow seem like a more intimidating villain than he did prior. The show has also come a long way since then, and even though I’d call this episode a more mid-tier one, episodes like Nothing to Fear were once the standard! Seeing the new Scarecrow design can kind of represent that evolution, and it’s like we’re starting fresh now that Batman the Animated Series has most certainly found its footing. It’s as if they meant to say, “Here’s how we actually envisioned Scarecrow, guys, now that we are running a show that has the potential to display it!” If they redid Nothing to Fear this far into the show, I have zero doubts that it would have been way better than Fear of Victory. But we’ll have other opportunities for great Scarecrow episodes soon enough… For now, here, as usual, are some screenshots!

I love how in keeping with the show’s aesthetic, the player’s get old-style Football uniforms/padding. Great detail!

Take a look at that funky remote-control.

Robin’s first scene since Christmas With the Joker!

Awesome foreshadowing here, putting that heavy shadow onto Brian’s face, telling us subtly that something bad is coming.

Coupled with the roar that they give, this was way scarier than anything from the first Scarecrow episode. Great work by TMS!

Does Scarecrow really need to change into his costume just to watch the game from above? I guess he is an Arkham patient, though.

“Oh no! Not him!” Referring to Batman. Way to acknowledge Robin, guys.

Robin the height like many of us would if we ever tried this!

Another gorgeous movement, capturing the dizzying heights.

“Oh my...” Too bad Batman has work to do.

But that doesn’t mean Batman can’t give her a little smile as he leaves her apartment...

So where did Batman exactly get all these cats? Could they be Selena’s, and he’s looking after them? If so, I doubt she’s appreciate you testing some possibly harmful chemicals on them! This didn’t seem very Batman-like to me.

“Hey! Corn on the cob! A scarecrow’s gotta love that!”

Batman fades into visibility as he walks through Arkham Asylum. And in here we get to see...

Joker...

Ivy...

And Harvey! Oh. Harvey. This is the first time we’ve seen him since the end of Two-Face, showing us that he indeed ending up at the asylum. Poor guy.

But of course, Scarecrow is gone. The corrupt guard, who obviously helped Scarecrow out (maybe by bribe?) shows how some of these baddies always seem to escape.

“Be persuasive.” he knows what that means.

Once we see the powder coming off the envelope, we know what’s coming. A nice moment of anticipation.

Such a better design!

That’s the look of a man who just shit his pants.

Not your wisest idea, Robin.

“I’ll drive real slow.” I was half-expecting him to then blast out of there as top speed, hahahaha.

Again, Scarecrow, why do you need to be in full costume right now? You’re going to give yourself away! What if someone happened to walk by? Or, I don’t know, be hiding in the jerseys..?

That “R” on his shirt here is huge.

I love the way that Batman throws him across the catwalk. Also, I feel like his costume was inspired by Freddy Krueger.

This is why we don’t leave lightbulbs around.

Char’s grade: B

Next time: The Clock King Full episode list here!

#batman tas #fear of victory #dcau #dc animated universe #scarecrow #btas #batman the animated series #robin

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givemechoices · 6 years

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What The Hell Am I Doing

Pairing: Liam x OC (Ilham)

Rating: G for now

Word Count: 3082 (THIS ISN’T EVEN THE ENTIRE CHAPTER I’M SO SORRY)

Request: My brain at 1731h on a random Tuesday

Extra Note: Instead of waiting for PB to create a Muslim MC, I figured I’d just do up my own. She’s an OC for The Royal Romance. Just fyi, Ilham means inspiration in Arabic and Malay. It’s typically a boy’s name in Malay culture but I just love how it sounds for a female character. Also, this is a rewriting (sort of) of the first chapter of the book. Idk if it’s going to be an entire series reimagined but I just had to get this out.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters (except my girl Ilham, obvi) or the plot and some of the words because they belong to PB but I love them like my babies and I’m borrowing them for a while don’t kill me ^-^

Sweating under her hijab was the last thing Ilham wanted to do on her last night at the restaurant. The boss was a tyrant but at least he kept the air-conditioning at a good temperature usually but tonight, the AC had broken down in the middle of her shift and they could only afford the ceiling and wall fans. It was just lucky that she was wearing her black hijab.

She was standing at one particular fan, trying to cool her head down when a group of loud men came in in high spirits. The other waitress working that night, Hilal, was in the kitchen so Ilham pushed herself off the counter and away from her precious cool air to bring them to a table.

“Tell me this restaurant serves alcohol, love?” One of them asked her and she had to chuckle. They were a Middle Eastern restaurant with a huge Halal certificate out front. Surely they knew what that meant?

“Sorry sir. But there’s a bar right across from here-”

The same man clicked his tongue and was about to usher them out when the one in denim shook his head and said: “It’s fine, we’ll just have whatever your specialty is.” He smiled at Ilham who smiled back and nodded as she grabbed a stack of menus to hand over to the men.

“Good evening, my name is Ilham and I will be your server for tonight.” She announced and spewed off the specialties for the night before walking off to the corner with the ceiling fan, hoping the men would be the last customers for the day. She was already tired, having been on her feet for the past eight hours. This was definitely not the way she wanted to spend the last day on the job.

Hilal finally came out of the kitchen and made a beeline towards Ilham looking a little worried. “Il, I hate to do this to you on your last day but I have to leave. Family emergency. I’ll buy you the hugest apology cake your favourite bakery has.”

Ilham swept her dark brown eyes across the restaurant and nodded to Hilal. “Of course, yeah. Send my salam to your family, yeah?” She said with a strained smile, to which Hilal pouted apologetically. She gave Ilham a tight hug and kisses on the cheek before running out, leaving her with the group of men.

Speaking of which, when they were ready to order, the same man from before went off menu and asked for a filet mignon.

“We have lamb kebab, shawarma, more meat on sticks and the occasional veggie burger.” Ilham gave an amused smile when she saw the disappointment in filet mignon dude’s face. The one in denim waved a dismissive hand. “We’ll just have four orders of the beef shawarma and whatever this yellow drink is. Looks festive.”

Ilham chuckled and nodded, writing their orders down just as the one in denim waved at the door. She held back a groan when she realised there was another customer coming in but the moment she turned, she had to admit that for the last twenty-seven years, awestruck was never an emotion she felt until that moment.

A tall Asian man in a dinner jacket strolled over with an apologetic smile. “Sorry I’m late. Thank you for your patience, Miss…?”

“Ilham,”

“Charmed to make your acquaintance, Ilham.” There was a hint of an accent in his voice, one she couldn’t quite place. But she definitely liked the sound of her name in that voice.

“Pleasure’s all mine. It’s nice to meet you.”

As he sat with his friends, Ilham went over to the kitchen to put in their orders, all the while stealing surreptitious glances towards the only occupied table for the night.

The boss made an appearance to give her her last check and to kiss up to the customers, giving into most of their (or rather just one man) demands and jokingly chiding Ilham for not being able to tend to their needs. Ilham just gave him a tight smile as she started cleaning up everywhere else.

She was wiping down the cashier counter when the one in the dinner jacket came up to her, rapping the counter gently with a hand held up and still with that apologetic smile. “I think we’re about ready to head out. I just wanted to thank you. And apologise.”

A smile was creeping up on Ilham’s face but she kept quiet. She was genuinely interested in seeing where this was going.

“I know we kept you late, and my friends can be...demanding.”

She let the smile cross her face and she shrugged. “Believe it or not, they weren’t the most difficult I’ve had to deal with tonight.”

A wide smile appeared on his face and Ilham couldn’t help but smile even more.

“I had a feeling you were tougher than you looked.” He turned back to his friends and Ilham took the time to hide the blush creeping on her cheeks. “Let me make it up to you. We’re about to uh...paint the town red as Maxwell so eloquently said but we aren’t from here so we were hoping you’d be our tour guide. If you’re not too tired?”

A night out with four strange men? Her brother would have a cow. But she hadn’t been out in forever and she had just finished her last shift. She deserved a break. What Ihsan didn’t know wouldn’t kill him.

“If you’re not looking for a club or to get drunk, I might know a place.” This was definitely not something Ilham usually did. But she felt a strange pull towards this man with his somewhat regal manner of bringing himself about and his smile. And definitely his accent.

“I’m definitely ready to do without the bachelor party antics.” He nodded with a wide smile. She returned it, adding a nod. “Let me finish up here.”

The guy paid his bill and ushered his friends outside, leaving Ilham to finish her work and get out of her uniform and into a loose knee-length maroon blouse and jeans. A quick glimpse in the mirror in the break room had Ilham groaning before she undid her hijab, washed her face and redid it in less than five minutes.

She sent a text to her brother that she would be staying late and put it on vibrate before joining the bachelor party.

The guy in denim turned to her and the expression on his face had her frowning slightly, looking down to see whether she had anything on her. A small wow came from his direction and she couldn’t help but grin and look at him. “Wow?”

He seemed to take a moment to rearrange himself before shrugging nonchalantly.

“The uniform didn’t do you justice.” Filet mignon dude piped up from behind him before the other one called her hot. Her grin dropped and dinner jacket guy cleared his throat. He looked a little angry at the one in all black. “I doubt Ilham appreciates you talking about her like that, Maxwell.”

Maxwell gave her an apologetic grin, raising his hands in defense. “Sorry, Ilham. I meant to say you look lovely. Now let’s get the show on the road!” He exclaimed, seemingly forgetting the whole mishap.

But the one in denim raised an eyebrow. “So she’s our tour guide now?”

“Ilham was kind enough to agree to show us around. She’s doing us a favour, Drake so play nice.” Dinner jacket guy looked at Drake pointedly who simply shrugged once more and they were on their way. Ilham decided that she wasn’t a big fan of Drake but kept her opinion to herself.

A limo eased in front of them and Ilham suddenly felt a little out of place and wondered exactly who these men were. It should have been a sign to turn tail and go home but she still wanted to find out more about the one who had defended her and been polite to her the entire time.

With instructions to the driver given, she climbed in and kept a distance between herself and the men. Briefly, she wondered if she should just send at least Hilal her location pin but stopped herself from doing so. She kept telling herself she deserved a break. And if that happened with a very handsome man in her vicinity, well…

A short while later, they arrived at the cove and piled out of the limo. Ilham took in the salty air and sighed softly. Drake suggested they start a bonfire and filet mignon dude, the one she was informed was Tariq, scoffed at that. Drake rolled his eyes. “Oh sorry, I forgot who I was talking to. I meant to say, I’ll start the bonfire.”

Maxwell yelled out skinny dipping and Tariq persuaded him not to. Not so gently. Ilham couldn’t help but laugh before she was approached by the handsome man, Liam, she had been eyeing the whole night.

“The guys seem to be enjoying themselves. I’m glad you brought us here.”

“I bet you’re used to putting everyone else first.”

“And why would you say that?” Liam asked, curiosity clear in his eyes.

“The guys seem to be enjoying themselves. What about you, Liam?”

A little chuckle came from him and he nodded. “I love it.”

Ilham nodded and smiled. “Good. This is my favourite and very secret spot. I’m trusting you with this.”

Liam smiled and looked out to his friends. “I’ll make sure I’m worthy of that trust. But how do I make it up to you for tonight? I was supposed to at least buy you a drink but you’re the one doing me a favour.”

A little playful smirk coloured Ilham’s lips. “I suppose you’re just going to have to keep owing me.”

He turned to Ilham, his eyes lingering over her lips for a moment before looking up to her eyes. “Fair enough. But what should we do?”

She looked up at the cliff where she did her best thinking and turned to Liam. “Let’s climb up that cliff.”

Surprise coloured Liam’s expression. “Way up there?”

Ilham was already moving up with a little chuckle. “Try to keep up!”

Reaching the top, she looked down to see Liam clearing the distance quickly and once he was up with her, she looked down at the view of the ocean as the waves crashed against the rocks. The wind picked up and she sighed at how cooling it was against her face.

“What do you think?” She asked after a while. Liam seemed to be in a daze and turned to her with a quizzical look on his face.

“The view. Worth the climb, right?” She had a little grin of pride as she looked out. She heard his agreement and they stood there silently just enjoying the scenery.

She couldn’t help but laugh when she shivered, after the complaints she had before about being so hot. “Cold?” Liam asked, concern tingeing his tone. “Just a little.” She nodded as she turned to him with a grin. He looked down at his friends and then back up at her with a small smile. “I see that the guys got the bonfire going. Let’s head back down to warm up.”

Ilham nodded and they climbed down. Her hijab snagged a few times, much to her chagrin, but she managed not to get into too big scrapes. They walked over to the fire and watched the other guys playing in the water. She couldn’t help but feel like this wasn’t a regular occurrence for the men and still she kept quiet. Her thoughts were a little too fantastical at times, but that was the burden of a student of literature.

Liam broke the silence, commenting on how this wasn’t where he had thought his night was going to go. “Spending time with you tonight has been the most fun I’ve had this entire vacation.”

Ilham couldn’t help the smile spreading across her lips as she looked over at him. It then occurred to her that if this simple getaway was actually the most fun he’d had, it might not have been the best vacation for him. “You haven’t been enjoying yourself?”

He corrected himself as he straightened his back with a hand held up. “I have, it’s been wonderful. I just haven’t been able to do one thing in particular.”

Curious, she turned her body in his direction to give him her full attention. He lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck, an embarrassed look on his face. “It’s...well…you’re probably going to think it’s silly, but I’ve always wanted to see the Statue of Liberty. It wasn’t really in the guys’ plan so we just never got around to it. And now it’s my last day here…” he paused and Ilham could see the struggle in his face and she felt for him. It was obvious that he was a people pleaser, something that wasn’t entirely a bad thing but at one point, it made sense that he was feeling the toll it would take on him.

“I don’t mean to sound so ungrateful. It was thoughtful of my friends to throw me this bachelor party. They’ve done their best, but I’m not in the mood to celebrate.”

Ilham frowned when she realised that she’d had it all wrong. Liam was a taken man and whatever pull she had felt was completely uncalled for. The guy had just merely been polite and she’d thought they had something between them. Silly Ilham. Of course she would like the unavailable ones.

“Um...congratulations I guess.” She gave him a strained smile and he returned it with a sad one. “Thank you but I don’t know whether congratulations is really in order.” Liam responded. She frowned and grimaced as a thought crossed her mind.

“I actually don’t know who I’m going to marry yet...only that I’ll have to pick my fiancee by the end of the year.”

The thought became clearer and she winced slightly. “An arranged marriage?”

Liam shrugged. “I haven’t been completely honest with you. The truth is...I’m the Crown Prince of Cordonia.”

Ilham snorted, waiting for the punchline. Looking at Liam, she realised one wasn’t coming. The dude was actually a prince. She was in the presence of royalty. And then things came back to her. How the group as a whole reacted and behaved. And how they were dressed and the way they spoke. She was still a little sceptical but somehow it all made sense.

She fiddled with the small brooch against her shoulder and gave Liam a small smile. “I may have had a feeling.”

Liam looked up in surprise. “How?”

She mentioned her observations and chuckled with a shrug.

“You’re taking it a lot calmer than most.”

Ilham laughed and shrugged. “I’m a writer. Things like this happening to me are like gold. I’m not squandering the opportunity.”

Liam’s entire body seemed to relax and he smiled. “A writer. I would never have pegged you for one. But...I suppose it makes sense. You seem rather fearless. Like you have the world at your feet. All you have to do is pick an adventure and go with it.”

The smile on her face turned soft. “That’s one way of putting it.”

He inched closer and his hand hovered over hers for a moment before he pulled back. “What do you like to write about most?” He asked, looking up at her.

“People falling in love.” She blurted out. “I love romance. The ease in which some people fall into it. How they struggle to keep it. How much sacrifice or compromise is actually needed for it to work.”

She looked away, a little embarrassed that she had admitted to it.

“That’s beautiful, Ilham.”

She avoided looking at him and instead concentrated on how much fun the other guys were having in the water.

“Part of me wishes tomorrow doesn’t come. We’ll have to go back to Cordonia and go through the social season. I just want to keep this moment frozen. Where we don’t have to worry about anything but sand sticking to our hands and feet.” Liam’s voice sounded so far away and so melancholy. Ilham turned to him, wanting to just comfort him but only affording a small sad smile.

“Well, it’s not tomorrow yet. We still have five more hours until sun up.” She offered.

The corner of Liam’s lips quirked up. “What are you suggesting?”

The cogs in her brain started to turn and she grinned. “You want to see the Statue of Liberty, right? Well, I know a guy who can get us there.”

Liam raised his eyebrows in surprise. “It’s way past midnight, do you really think he’d be able to bring us there?”

It was a huge favour to ask but she knew Frank wouldn’t mind. His boat was always gassed up and ready to go. He owed her anyway.

“Hey, if it means that much to you, yeah. Frank’s a sentimental guy. He’s a total sucker for granting wishes. It’s what you’ve wanted to do since you got here, right?” She asked with an impish grin. Liam laughed and ran his fingers through his hair. “That is what I said earlier.” He sighed softly before looking at his friends.

“They’re not going to notice we’ve gone, trust me. They’re having way too much fun out there.” Ilham laughed and stood up, pursing her lips and looking at Liam expectantly.

He turned to look at her and then back at his friends and then at her again before he stood up.

“Let’s do it.”

#king liam of cordonia #liam x oc #the royal romance #nuwrites #g rated

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andrewuttaro · 5 years

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New Look Sabres: New Coach 2K19

New Look Sabres! How I miss you so! It’s only been a month and a half, but I really enjoyed writing New Look Sabres and this little break is actually wearing on me. I have a need to blog about the Sabres! I have such a need to blog that you may have noticed I redid the whole blog this appears on and even broadened what I can blog about in terms of hockey. All that is well and good, but nothing beats my good old warhorse, my sweet sweet New Look Sabres! I couldn’t wait for the Draft or the Schedule release, I had to write this: a bonus blog! A bonus blog if anything in Sabres fandom right now can give you that rush of energy that a bonus does. If I am the only thing giving you that bonus rush then so be it. Luckily, I’m writing this mainly because I don’t think I’m the only reason you maybe excited about the Sabres right now. We have a new coach! I touched on Housley’s departure in the Season Retrospective but that was a whirlwind and what feels like forever ago in yet another offseason the Sabres have failed to make the postseason. There’s a new guy in Housley’s old job on the bench and his name is Ralph Krueger! The news first arose over the weekend when Elliotte Friedman first sounded the inside alert that Krueger had rocketed to the front of the pack for the Sabres Head Coaching vacancy. Then he sounded twice as sure it would happen on a radio hit on WGR550 Monday morning. It turned into the waiting game again until Tuesday Night when Friedman went on popular Canadian sports show Tim and Sid to say he thought it was more or less imminent, in his words: it could happen as soon as tomorrow (Wednesday). Then came the bomb from the king of all hockey insiders Bob McKenzie: Ralph Krueger will be named the next head coach of Buf. That’s about as official as you can get without the confirmation tweet from the team account but that came Wednesday morning. It’s official: Ralph Krueger is the 19th Head Coach of the Buffalo Sabres.

Before we get into any of the dynamics of this hiring let’s just reflect on how we’ve not had a boring named coach since… Ted Nolan? Think about it: Dan Blysma, Phil Housley, Ralph Krueger. All great names to tell you wife to her bepuzzlement. Anyway, if you know nothing about this guy let me just say one word to you about him. Culture. No just kidding, we’ve been tortured enough in Buffalo; but that was a part of the interview apparently. No, the word on Krueger is he is an open mind. He’s not a math wiz so he’s not an analytics darling but by all accounts he’s far from turned off to it either. He’s a reliable leader but also a tactician not moored to coaching beliefs that haven’t worked since the 1980s. The word communication came a lot in the Press Conference too: communication with his bosses and the players under him. He is apparently such a good motivator of this generation of hockey players that he has helped groups overachieve their expectations time and time again. We could use a little bit of that for the Sabres couldn’t we? Believe it or not, players vouch for him. Imagine that! Tomas Vanek was excited for the Sabres to get him. Tomas Vanek. Let that sink in. Enough about the intangible stuff that is only talk until its proven on the ice next season, what is his actual record? Well, both of his most recent hockey coaching stints were with teams that were not expected to do great. He coached the Edmonton Oilers during the last lockout and did pretty well with the pre-McDavid club. His record there is nothing to gawk at but there are some layers to that onion that end up making you cry tears of joy. He coached Team Europe in the 2016 World Cup of Hockey all the way to the Final with a squad that was basically Leon Draisaitl, Anze Kopitar and a dozen other guys you didn’t realize were Europeans until you read their names on the roster. Just like with the Oilers he coached the team beyond expectations, this time he had a good enough team to give Canada a run for their money. He does special things with groups others see as nothing special and that fits so wonderfully into my narrative on the Sabres that I can’t help but be excited. It’s also worth noting he built a dynasty club team in Switzerland in the 1990s. He’s different than your average NHL coach for several reasons but the biggest and best maybe that he’s not a member of the old boy’s club that seems to still dominate hires in this league. For a Front Office that looked likely to hire Jacques Martin at one point and interviewed Lindy Ruff apparently, that is a huge, a giant confidence booster for fans who were prepared for a doomsday scenario this offseason.

Jason Botterill still has to have a big summer once he gets back from the World Championships, but this is one big sign he’s got his head on straight. Botts wasn’t afraid to tap the shoulder of a guy whose been an executive in the English Premier League for the last several years and that shows some big balls. He’ll need big balls to sign Skinner and do the roster surgery we’ve heard about. That’s right, he’s been in the Premier League as President of Southampton FC. If you got a problem with soccer that’s your flaw but it’s worth noting if he was rumored to come back to the NHL it would be for a Front Office job like President of Hockey Operations. In the presser after the hiring Botterill said the conversations with him were always about being Head Coach. I resist the idea Botts hired his successor, that’s a bit overzealous, but I speculate he was told if the shit doesn’t work again next season for the Sabres he can be bounced upstairs. This guy literally wrote a book on building a successful sports franchise so if that Armageddon comes I am fully prepared for Ralph Krueger to be our Bruce Willis and blow that asteroid to kingdom come! The key here is that he is 59. If things go good enough for him to be around more than two years he’ll probably retire from the job… and get bounced upstairs… ok we’ll sit on that idea. Only games will tell next season if this guy has the stuff, but Krueger is checking all my boxes. There is so much to like about this guy and its hard to really lend credence to individual pieces of information except this idea that he’s well respected around the Hockey world. Other coaches and players, like our old boy Tomas Vanek, vouch for this guy and that feels different from the last few years here. It looks like Chris Taylor will stay in his role and Steve Smith will stay on as an assistant coach. Otherwise you can look forward to Krueger bringing in some other new faces.

Perhaps a known face is what I’m most excited about looking forward here. Understandably Jeff Skinner was supposedly waiting to see who the Coach would be before signing. There are different reports out there locally and nationally but Botts himself said he would meet with Skinner and his agent again after returning from the World Championships later this month. I can’t help but say hurry up. Jeff Skinner is our Stanley Cup this offseason but when I say that I mean it more rhetorically. Getting him to stick around is really the break even point for this offseason. Look out for Botts to make moves before, during and after the draft. He set a bar in the hire announcement press conference that I will not let go of for months to come: “We should be in the discussion for Playoffs.” That’s as close to a guarantee as you’re going to get. Krueger’s phrasing was even more aggressive on that. The work starts now to make sure you got a roster that can do that. I for one am absolutely psyched for what might happen. Like, share and comment on this blog and keep your eyes open for non-Sabres content on this blog as well. I like to think this is a buffet now. Either way don’t expect another New Look Sabres post until June. If Jeff Skinner signs between now and then just know that I am on Cloud 9 about that. Let’s Go Buffalo!

Thanks for reading.

P.S. I didn’t bring up the Rochester Americans because I’m still very much mad at them for getting swept in a postseason they could’ve made the Finals. I’m not sorry.

#buffalo sabres #hockey #blog #nhl

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electricdazemag · 7 years

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Hello, I’m Sorry: Interview

by Tasha Bielaga

The sadboy party rock genre you’ve been missing is finally found, thank god. Seattle based indie pop/trash band Hello, I’m Sorry has been stirring up the Washington DIY scene for a little over 2 years. Songs like Good’s Not Great feature that panning of guitar lines between speakers, you know, the one’s that make your brain feel like it’s spinning when you listen to it with headphones. Vocalist Seth Little, drummer Paul Rhoads, and bassist Cam Richardson all live in Bellingham, WA, where their daily antics are filled with schoolwork and pestering their guitarist Alexander Henness, who lives south of Seattle, to come work on music. The band’s fuzz pop feels reminiscent of warm summer nights full of friends and basement gigs. It’s the embodiment of what goes on in most youth’s heads, set to a tune you can dance, or mosh, to. We talk about saying goodbye to Seth’s beloved 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee, the best cassettes printed to date, and their janky mic set ups, the epitome of DIY.

Electric Daze: How do you balance making music, working, and going to school?

Paul: School is the only reason I live in Bellingham actually, I’m from California. As much as I would love to just do music 100%, I’m paying a lot of money in tuition and I know what I’m studying, so a lot of my life is based around school. I always make time for music on the weekends though.

Seth: Music is the funnest thing for me, it’s what I enjoy doing the most. But, I am paying a lot of money to be here and should probably be putting more work into school. Whenever I have down time I always try to write something or be productive with my music.

Alex: I think it’s definitely worth it to find a good balance between everything. Since I drive up here all the time to play shows and hang with these guys, music is the most important thing that I want to spend my time doing when I’m not working.

ED: What was the first DIY house show you played that really pushed you to get into this scene?

Seth: We played the Karate Church in Bellingham with Roar Shack back in February of last year! It’s this church that, I don’t want to say renovated because it just looks like half of it got torn down on one side, but you know. There’s this basement part that has a dirt floor. That was definitely the first show where I was like “this is tight, this is such a cool DIY scene”

ED: You guys have obviously played a lot of different shows, from bars to house to dirt floor basements. What makes you want to keep pursuing the house show scene vs. a different approach?

It’s sweatier, they’re more fun! I’m a huge fan of the DIY scene. All the music we’ve recorded has been on laptops, and the DIY part just seems like people are always there more for the music. It’s a lot more intimate.

Are there any songs you particularly like to play live?

Bodies, Sleep by the Phone, Little Plan. People go wild to those. We played a house show with the band Cruise, and it got really crazy really fast. Somebody spilled FOUR LOKO on Alexander’s pedal board, SO sticky man. And then I was worried for the foundation of the house, I felt like I had to be a dad about it you know like “Yo! Let’s be safe out there!” and then give a thumbs up and play the next song.

You do so much releasing on cassettes, which is super tight! I saw there was a mini zine that came with one of them, what was the inspiration for that?

Our good friend Mimi Jaffe actually did those! She also did the cover art for Consolation Party, she’s one of my favorite artists in Bellingham. She did a page for each song and I printed them for the cassettes.

How was working on the Z-Tapes cassette compilation? How’d you get in on that and why’d you pick that song to cover?

Filip from Z-Tapes hit me up and originally wanted to put out some of our tapes, but he had a lot back ordered. I ended up putting ours out ourselves. Anyway, he asked if we wanted to cover a theme song to be included on this cover compilation, and I thought that was tight so we did. I originally wanted to do (Theme from) The Monkees, but it was taken. So I really dug deep and found this mini 70’s tv series that used a Sex Pistol’s cover of Eddie Cochran’s Somethin’ Else, and I thought ehh that technically works, so we covered it!

What’s your favorite cassette that you own?

Alex: There’s this rapper on Stone Throw Records named Koreatown Oddity, and he made a mixtape that’s him rapping from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air's perspective with these really late 90’s beats on it. It’s a 1/100 copy.

Seth: I’m really into The Replacements, but I’m not huge on the album “Don’t Tell A Soul”, but that album has a song titled “Asking Me Lies” that is Paul Westerberg’s attempt at a pop song and it’s SO awful and amazing at the same time, especially on cassette, so that’s my favorite right now.

Paul: When I was a little kid I had a cassette of The Lovin’ Spoonful that I used to listen to in the car, that’s probably my favorite.

ED: You guys did a west coast tour back in August. How do you feel the cities music scenes vary?

Well LA was hands down the best city we played it. They were very receptive to new music that they probably hadn’t heard before. We ended up meeting with mutual friends in most cities, which made the whole tour very cohesive, and not vary a lot surprisingly.

ED: Do you have a wild story from your tour?

OH! We bought a new car! This tour was very very DIY, we didn’t even rent a van. We had Paul’s 2009 Scion xB Box Car, that he just loves, and Seth’s 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee. On the way back up it was so cramped in the jeep, the engine light was flashing, and the gauges would go all the way up and then all the way back down, and we’re just thinking something’s wrong, something is terribly wrong. So we pulled over on the side off the road in Weed, California, and Seth found a dealership that would trade straight across. We get a 1999 Volvo cross country, and that car, was the worst car, in the entire world. It had a coolant leak, so we pulled over every 45 min from northern CA to Seattle, WA, to pour coolant in. At one point one of the covers for the headlights just flew straight off while we driving, and there was a huge semi truck that had exploded, so the drive just took forever. We got into bed at 7am the next day.

ED: You guys have accomplished so many cool things in 2016, like playing with Together Pangea, playing EMP Sound Off, and more recently you played with TV Girl. What goals do you hope to accomplish this year?

Playing with bands that we really like is always a goal of ours. We also really want to play a festival this year. We’d love to do, you know, like, Coachella, hahaha. Touring again and more shows! We have to figure out how our summer’s going to look individually and then work around that.

ED: Good’s Not Great has 20,000 views on YouTube, and 107.7 has been spinning it lately, which is so cool. Were you expecting that song to kinda be your single and the one people listed to the most?

Seth: Honestly, no. When I recorded it, I recorded all the instrumentals and I was super hyped on it. Then I recorded the vocals and it just sounded fucking awful, I was like this song is the worst thing I’ve ever made in my entire life. I remember going “holy fuck, these vocals suck, I forgot that I can’t sing” and I was super depressed for like two days. And then I went in and redid the vocals and went “alright these are better, this song is passable now”.

ED: Do you have a specific writing process? I know you do a lot of half done demos, what’s the process for that like?

Seth: Yeah! I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a total tool, but recording for me is part of my writing process. I normally have a half baked idea and I go in, record it and work with it. I send a lot of small ideas to the rest of the guys and they’ll give me feedback on whether I should continue it or not, and that’s what drives my song writing.

ED: Do you do most of the song writing yourself then?

Seth: Yeah, I do almost all of the writing and recording. We always rework the song live though, and sometimes they end up having a completely different energy which I’m a huge fan of. What I’m trying to new with the new album is make demos and then play them and work through them as a band, and then re-record them to match what we do as a band.

ED: What’s your mic set up like? I know small bands always have the coolest (shittiest) mics.

Seth: The jankiest for sure! I have two mics that I use for recording, one’s a Sennheiser condenser mic, and I think the other is an Audio Technica that I use for vocals and drums, sometimes everything. Sometimes when we practice, I take a 1950’s ribbon mic and run it through a solid state 80’s fender amp with chorus on it for a while, because I didn’t have an amp that could take the xlr input. That was probably the jankiest situation.

Paul: Sometimes when I’d use a vocal mic, we’d string it over the rafters in the basement because we didn’t have another mic stand. So it would just kinda dangle in front of my face.

ED: How do you guys feel about music videos? Any plans to do some soon?

We’re doing a live recording of our set today with Bellingham Sound Check actually! That’ll be nice to have a video of how our songs sound live vs. what Seth records. As far as our own music videos, we’d like to do one for Good’s Not Great. We like to sit around and talk about what would be a cool video for each song.

ED: Is anyone a different kind of artist? Obviously you’re all musicians but is anyone acquainted with other forms of art?

Seth: I am definitely NOT.

Alex: I play soccer, and I think Soccer’s an art.

Paul: Well I’m in a jazz band! Which is still music, but a different kind.

Cam: I have a friend who lives in Texas who asks me for beats that he can rap over. So I send him some terrible beats to rap over.

ED: Would you ever make beats for Hello, I’m Sorry, maybe less lofi more terrible rap? If you had to cover a rap song, what would it be?

I feel like we could rap. We could cover Gangsta Gangsta, or definitely Rap Snitch Knishes. Maybe Mathematics by Mos Def but it would be hard. We could take a stab at it though! We’ll make a bad demo and follow up.

photo by Emma Hatwell

Connect with Hello, I’m Sorry on Instagram at @hello.imsorry and on Facebook here.

You can listen to their music on bandcamp at helloimsorry.bancamp.com and on Spotify here.

The cassette with the mini zine can be found here, and the ZTapes compilation here!

This is the first installment of features on Seattle based bands. Check back here soon to read the rest!

Check out Tasha’s work for the magazine here.

#tashabielaga #interviews #washingtondiy #hello im sorry #helloimsorry

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missblurose · 7 years

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For Want of a Sister

It’s my first new fan fiction of 2017! Happy New Year! (Who cares if it’s belated? Let me have this, please…) I actually started playing FE: Fates during the first week of the New Year—specifically Birthright, but it got my mind on Awakening for some reason. So I wound up doing another fan-made support for Awakening. Or rather, I redid the support series that Lucina has with the characters that are her siblings, but geared towards Morgan’s memory loss. I hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: Blu Rose doesn’t own the Fire Emblem series. Only this story.

Summary: Despite technically being related through their mother, Lucina never really considered Morgan to be her brother due to never having one in her own time. But when Morgan desperately wants to remember his sister, she can’t help but want to aid him. (A different take on a series of Support conversations between Lucina and Morgan.)

It should have been a normal day like any other for Lucina. She trained, she did her duties around camp, and she assisted in the minor skirmish that occurred when a group of Risen dared to attack a nearby town. But through it all, she felt as if something was watching her. Quite frankly, it was unnerving and had put her on edge. She had thought that it was paranoia fueled by her imagination until later that evening, when as she was walking back to her tent to retire, she heard a sound that was too close to her.

“AH-CHOO!!!”

In what seemed like a flash, Lucina had drawn Falchion from its sheath, turned on her heel, and made to stab the source of the noise. Luckily, she stopped her blade in time just seconds before it hit Morgan in the heart. “Morgan! Oh, goodness… You frightened me for a moment. …Morgan?”

Morgan had frozen in place and paled from the shock of having a weapon pointed at him. Lucina put away the sword and that seemed to snap him out of his shock. “You were frightened?! I was almost stuck like a boar!”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been a bit on edge today… I think there’s an enemy in our midst that may be spying on us,” Lucina said as she looked out of the corner of her eye warily.

“Oh, that wasn’t an enemy. That was me.”

Lucina stared at the blue-haired young man in with an annoyed look. “You? Morgan!”

Morgan raised his hands defensively. “I’m sorry if I made you worry, but I’ve been observing you to learn more about you, sister.”

Lucina’s expression was difficult to read for Morgan. She looked as if she had regained her calm, “Oh. Of course. You…lost most of your memory.”

It had honestly come as a shock to Lucina when the Shepherds had come across Morgan. Here was a young man claiming to be another child from the future, the son of Lucina’s mother and father and in turn, her brother. The problem was that Lucina didn’t have any siblings. She had been her parents’ only child, so suddenly having to call someone who was a relative stranger her brother was confusing. Why, it often slipped Lucina’s mind that they were somehow related.

Lucina frowned, remembering what the problem at hand was. “If you want to learn about me, you should talk to me, not spy on me.”

“Sorry, sorry!” Morgan apologized as he bowed his head. “I wanted to try and remember you, so I thought ‘maybe all I need to do is spend some time with Lucina’! But it seemed as if you were always busy doing something or other, so I thought I could just…watch you from afar and learn about you that way! But I got nothing but a cold and knowledge that you break a lot of things when you’re training.”

The blue-haired woman blushed from embarrassment for a moment before folding her arms across her chest. “Morgan… As I’ve told you before, I have no siblings in the future where I come from. If you have a sister, then I’m sorry, but…I am not her.”

Morgan sighed and closed his eyes. “…But even so, we technically are brother and sister. We have the same mother and father, even if they aren’t exactly the same. Which is why I wanted to…um…spend time with you!” The young tactician said as a smile broke out across his face. “I want us to do the sorts of things that brothers and sisters do! Maybe then, I can remember you—I mean, my Lucina.”

“Brother and sister…” It was Lucina’s turn to close her eyes as she fell into thought. Did she ever want a sibling when she was a little girl? It didn’t seem likely. She always had one of the other children to play with. The idea of playing at brother and sister seemed pointless, but then Lucina opened her eyes to look at Morgan, who was staring down at the ground with a sad, thoughtful expression as he wrung his hands. Unlike her, he only remembered his mother and memories connected to his mother specifically. Lucina couldn’t begin to fathom how awful it would feel if she had returned to the past with no memory of her friends and family. “…Alright, Morgan. If it will help you remember,” Lucina began with a calm expression, “I’d be happy to spend time with you.”

Morgan looked up at Lucina, the light appearing in his eyes once more. “Really?! Oh, thank you, Lucina! I mean, sister! Thank you sister for agreeing to spend time with me! Let’s get together tomorrow, okay?”

“Tomorrow it is, then.” A small smile appeared on Lucina’s face as she waved goodbye to Morgan before he ran off, saying something about ‘reviewing sibling activities’. When he was out of sight, the smile still remained on her face. “A brother… I wonder how this will go?”

In the days that followed after Morgan and Lucina’s agreement to act as if they really were siblings, they did several activities together. They trained together, they did their duties around camp together, they battled together, they went shopping in town together—it was harder to give a time when they weren’t around each other than when they were. And to Lucina’s surprise…it wasn’t bad. When she first agreed, it was for Morgan’s sake. She assumed the experience would be as bizarre as Morgan’s attempts to remember their father and bond with their mother, but it was all surprisingly…normal.

At least until one day, when she once again felt as if someone was staring at her as she was training. She stopped swinging her sword to take a breath and sigh. “…Morgan.”

“Hey, Lucina,” came Morgan’s voice from behind her, sounding dejected.

Lucina turned around to look at the young tactician, who was staring at her with a frown and an upset expression. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything.” Morgan’s answer caused the blue-haired woman to stare in confusion, so he continued, “I thought that by spending time together, it would trigger a memory of you—I mean, my sister. But it’s been days and I can’t remember a thing about you—by which I mean my sister. I’m starting to wonder if I even have a sister.” His expression suddenly became panicked as his eyes widened. “Wh-what if Father isn’t even my father?! Heavens, it’s all falling apart now!”

“Morgan, calm down! You’re overreacting!”

Although he had calmed down a bit, Morgan still looked upset. “Anyway, since my plan was a failure, we don’t have to hang around together anymore or call each other brother and sister.”

Lucina stared at the blue-haired tactician, wanting to choose her next words carefully. “…If it’s your relation to father and I that has you so distraught, you shouldn’t be worried. At the very least, we share the same mother.”

“But I want to remember more than just Mother. I mean…I might have siblings or I may not. I naturally have to have a father in order to exist… I want to know if I have any fond memories of them, or even bad memories!” Morgan sighed. “N-never mind. I won’t bother you anymore with this sibling stuff, Lucina. See you later.” He turned around and walked away, slumped over in depression while Lucina stared sadly at his back.

Although they still participated in battles together as a pair, it had been days since Morgan actually spoke to Lucina about something that didn’t have to do with strategy, duties, and messages from others for her. Ordinarily, Lucina would have been hurt and upset by the sudden way that Morgan was trying to block her out of his life now. But she had been too busy thinking of something she considered of great importance to the young tactician to speak to even speak to him until that afternoon.

“Lucina! I’m here!” Morgan called out as he entered the barracks. “Mother said you wanted to train with me, so here I am.” He stopped walking when he noticed Lucina sitting on a log in the middle of the room. “…There’s a log in the room.”

“Yes. There is,” Lucina answered simply.

“…Why is there a log in the room?”

“Because we’re going to use it to confirm something.”

“And that is…?”

Lucina stood up and approached Morgan, staring him in the eye for a few seconds before drawing Falchion and holding it out to him, hilt first. “Morgan, we’re going to see if you can use Falchion.”

“Huh?! But I’m not—!”

“Only a select few of the exalt’s bloodline have been able to wield it. If you can use Falchion and cut that log in two, it’s proof that you and I are siblings.” ‘Or relatives at the very least.’

“And if I can’t, this will have been a huge waste of time.”

Lucina shook her head and smiled. “No, it won’t. I believe in you, Morgan.” Of course, the chances of one being capable of wielding the Falchion were very, very rare, but who knew? Maybe Morgan did have the potential to wield it.

Morgan stared at the blue-haired woman with wide eyes before looking at the sword being offered to him. He took hold of Falchion and approached the log. Morgan held the sword out in front of him and raised it up in the air. But as he was about to cut it in half, he saw something crawl up on top of the log from behind it, right in his line of sight. Something so grotesque, horrifying and monstrous that he couldn’t help screaming in terror. “AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!”

“Morgan?! What’s the matter?!” Lucina asked, too busy looking at Morgan to look at the creature on the log.

“A…a…roach!!”

Whatever bit of concern she felt towards her brother became pure skepticism. “A bug. You’re scared of a mere bug?”

“I like bugs! I love bugs! I hate roaches! And this one’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen!” Morgan exclaimed as he pointed Falchion at the roach on the log.

Lucina turned her head to look at the log and her face quickly shifted to the same disgusted expression that Morgan had. “Gods, that’s a roach?! It’s huge! It’s almost as big as my hand!”

“See?! Kill it, Lucina! Kill it!” The young tactician pleaded.

“Why do I have to kill it?!” Lucina asked, suddenly frightened with the prospect of having to kill the behemoth of a roach. “Why can’t you think of a way to kill it?!”

“Because there’s only one strategy for killing insects and that’s to squish them! Besides, you’re the older sibling! It’s the older sibling’s job to protect the younger sibling! What would our parents say if you let a roach kill your little brother?!”

“I doubt the roach will kill you, Morgan.”

As if to prove her wrong, the roach took flight and flew at Morgan. His reaction was to scream and swing Falchion like a madman, all sense of how to properly wield a sword replaced with frightened flailing done with his eyes closed. “Take that! And that! And that!” Of course, the roach managed to somehow dodge his attacks with unnatural ease, but that may have been because Morgan was attacking with his eyes closed. Eventually, the roach changed targets and began flying towards Lucina.

“EEEEEK!!!” Lucina’s scream made Morgan open his eyes in time to see the roach flying towards her. From a combination of reflexes and fear, Lucina reached for Falchion to shoo away the monstrous bug, only to wind up grabbing air. She watched in horror as the roach drew closer.

“NOOOO!!! You won’t have my sister, foul thing!!” Morgan screamed as he ran after the roach and swung falchion downward. The roach couldn’t evade in time and was sliced in half down the middle. Morgan was too busy flailing wildly with his eyes closed once again to notice that the roach had died after the first swing, but Lucina had.

“Morgan…” Lucina spoke, surprised by what she saw. “That was amazing!”

“HA! HYAH! ARGH!”

“MORGAN!” Lucina raised her voice to get her brother’s attention and snap him out of his frenzy. “You did it! You actually used Falchion to cut the roach in half instead of just smashing it!”

Morgan blinked in surprise before noticing the remains of the defeated roach. He suddenly smiled. “Oh! I guess I did! Hooray for me! Not only did I slay the monster, Falchion likes me!”

The blue-haired woman laughed, “I suppose you could say that. I’m proud of you, Morgan. You killed the roach with Falchion!” Then, realizing what had happened, she spoke again in a less pleased tone of voice. “You used Falchion…to kill a roach. You used our father’s sword—the last earthly possession of his that I have to remember him by…to kill a roach.” Her tone of voice became increasingly more upset-sounding, and in response, Morgan’s expression slowly became one of fear.

“Um…! At least we know we’re related now?” Morgan spoke in a questioning tone as he gave a sheepish smile. “And that Falchion is the best insect-killing tool ever.”

“You won’t be making jokes when I’m done with you. Come here.”

“AHHHH!!!” Morgan screamed as he ran out of the barracks, pursued by Lucina, still holding onto Falchion. “No, wait!! Lucina!! Have mercy on meeee!!”

It had been a few days since the “roach incident”, as the Shepherds had come to refer to the day when Lucina and Morgan caused bedlam with their chase until their father scolded them. Morgan had been walking around the camp while reading a book when he suddenly felt like someone was staring at him. He hummed thoughtfully to himself before continuing to walk. Hardly a minute passed before he was startling into stopping by a noise.

“Morgan!!”

Well, a voice, actually. Morgan turned around to look at Lucina, who was approaching him. “Hey, Lucina.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the other day.”

“You mean the thing with the roach?” Morgan smiled and closed his eyes as he remembered what happened. “Father really laid into us, huh? But it was…kind of nice to be scolded like that. I don’t remember much about our family life where I came from, but getting yelled at like that made me feel like we were a normal family.”

Lucina blinked before she gave a short laugh and smiled as well. “I guess it did have its moments… I never got scolded for anything like that when I was a child.”

“Maybe, if you did exist in my time, we got into trouble together a lot. It sure felt familiar to me.”

“Morgan.” Lucina spoke up, getting the young tactician’s attention. “Do you consider me your sister now?”

Morgan blushed and avoided looking at Lucina by looking up at the sky. “Well…I think we’re related, at the very least.”

“But when we were confronted by the roach, you called yourself my little brother and called me your sister.”

Morgan’s blush got darker. “Y-you remember that? It was a slip of the tongue, I guess. I won’t do it again if you don’t—”

“You don’t understand. I want you to be my brother.”

“Huh?!” Morgan looked back to Lucina in shock. “Seriously?! Even after using Falchion like it was some bladed bug swatter?!”

Lucina frowned. “Don’t get me wrong. It was still wrong of you to use our father’s sword like that.” She soon started to smile again as she placed a hand on Morgan’s shoulder. “But as I’ve come to know you, I’ve come to care for you. It doesn’t matter if your parents, my parents, and our parents of this timeline are all technically different versions of the same people, because they’re still the same parents we love. And even if you didn’t exist in my time or you were unable to use Falchion, I consider you my brother.”

“Lucina…” Morgan sniffed and quickly rubbed his eyes to avoid having his potential tears be seen. He quickly began to smile with a look of passion in his eyes. “Luci— No, big sister! Pat me on the head!”

And just like, the touching moment was interrupted. “…What?”

“Isn’t that something older siblings do to younger siblings? I’ve seen Father do it to Aunt Lissa a couple of times.” He ignored the part about Lissa not liking it when Chrom did so, though.

Lucina stared at her brother a few seconds before sighing. “Alright.” She began patting Morgan on the head. He smiled and laughed childishly while Lucina smiled as well, mainly at how odd Morgan could be sometimes. ‘I had actually been meaning to discuss his ability to wield Falchion, but he looks so much happier now. Another time, perhaps.’

“Say, since I can use Falchion now, can I use it to cut the vegetables when I’m on kitchen duty?”

The affectionate patting stopped and Lucina laid her hand on Morgan’s head, gripping it tightly. “Morgan…!” The mere tone of her voice as she spoke his name was a threat.

“I’m joking! I’m joking! Just kidding, Sis! P-please let me go. Heh-heh-heh…!”

A/N: Okay, so I altered a part of the actual support conversation from the games, but the roach incident was probably my favorite one of Lucina’s sibling support conversations.

#fire emblem #fe: awakening #fire emblem awakening #Fire Emblem Fan Fiction #Lucina and Morgan

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itsworn · 7 years

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Hot Rod Builder Roy Brizio Tells Us How to Build For 40 Years

In a Rolling Stone article a few years ago, seminal guitar player Jeff Beck said he almost quit playing guitar to go to work building hot rods at Roy Brizio’s South San Francisco shop. There is almost a cult to the building of cars from Roy Brizio Street Rods. Roy’s been one of the most prolific builders of hot rods ever. In the 40 years he has been in the building business, he’s become the king of the 1932 Ford, but he’s built a lot more than just Deuces. His upbringing with father, Andy, a central figure in the Bay Area’s drag-racing culture, gave young Roy ample time and plenty of examples to educate him in the intricacies of building cars from scratch. With Fremont Drag Strip being where nostalgia drag racing came to be in the early 1980s, it was a perfect time to be Roy and to be building cars in close proximity to the action, which accelerated his prominence and building chops. Since then his output of hot rods has increased, no doubt aided from the publicity around building multiple cars for the likes of Eric Clapton and Neil Young, and he’s had the distinction of winning the Grand National Roadster Show twice. We wanted to find out what the magic was and what it takes to build hot rods for so long, for so many, with such a flourish to each one built.

HRM] Did you think you would be building cars this long?

RB] I didn’t think I could last this long. I really thought that since all of my friends were going to college and getting real jobs that if I could just do this for five years, then I’d go get a real job. But I never would have dreamed I’d be doing this when I was 60.

HRM] What’s a real job?

RB] One that normal people have. I’ve never been normal. I grew up in an abnormal family. We didn’t do what other people did—we went on road trips in hot rods and spent weekends at swap meets, car shows, and drag races. It was all good and fun, and I was a lucky kid to get to do that stuff and am happy I was interested in what my dad was doing. My dad never had to make me do this stuff. I enjoyed doing it and enjoyed his friends, and they spoiled me and stuck me in their Top Fuel dragsters. I’d go to car shows and sit in Ed Roth’s hot rods and George Barris’s cars. I guess because I was a kid that liked cars they took a liking to me.

HRM] What did you think you wanted to do for a living as a kid?

RB] I wanted to be a Top Fuel driver. Most of my early childhood was at the drag races because my dad was the starter at Half Moon Bay Dragstrip and he was really good friends with Jim McLennan, who owned Champion Speed Shop. He always had a dragster, and we were always around drag racing. He and Ted Gotelli had a Top Fuel dragster, so on the weekends we always went to the drag races—every Sunday was either Fremont or Half Moon Bay for probably 8 to 10 years of my life. I thought I wanted to be Don Garlits, Prudhomme, Ivo, all of those guys. Then I got older and got a chance to really sit in a nostalgia dragster. When Prufer and Burnett started nostalgia drag racing, we got involved in it and we built the Champion Speed Shop replica dragster, and old friend Louie Poole had an old dragster we ran, and it scared the hell out of me. Once I got strapped in and the engine fired up and I couldn’t see around the blower, I knew right then that it was not for me. I was never going to be a dragster guy, but it sounded cool.

HRM] How many employees do you have now?

RB] We have 10 employees now, and me makes 11. We’ve had as many as 15, but 10 seems to work well for us right now.

HRM] How many cars would you guess have come out of your shop?

RB] We always have at least 20 projects going—always. I’m sure that someday that number will go down, but we’ve had at least 20 for over 20 years.

HRM] How many cars have come out of you shop over the years?

RB] I’d say 300, but I say that every year, so I don’t know. We are averaging 10 cars a year, and we have been doing that for a long time. September 2017 will be my 40th anniversary in business. Those early years we weren’t cranking out as many cars, but the last 20 years we have been on a roll. Over 200 cars in the last 20 years for sure.

HRM] What’s the secret to being in the business of building hot rods for 40 years?

RB] Me loving what I do, but also being blessed with a lot of great people that give me the opportunity to service them. Also a lot of our customers are repeat customers. I’ve done 10 cars for the Edelbrocks, and we’re doing the 11th car for Eric Clapton. We’ve done 10 for John Mumford, too. I always take care of the customers, not because I think they’ll be coming back, but just to make sure they are taken care of for the one I do for them. Our philosophy for building cars has helped—I never want to go too far out. I have a niche market for building the kind of cars these people want. It looks good, sits right, and you can get in it and drive it. For me, this is what works. I didn’t plan on it happening that way, but that’s how it has worked. I’m not the guy to do a Ridler car or go after the Roadster Show every year. We’re the guys you come to if you want a hot rod you can get in and drive and still put on the floor of the Grand National Roadster Show [GNRS] and be proud of. We won the GNRS twice, and the first time was back when I thought it was important for me to do and it was a dream for me to win. We didn’t win the first time. We came to the show and we didn’t deserve to win. We lost in 1986 to Don Thelan. We redid the car and came back in 1987, and I think we deserved to win. We tried a couple more times over the years. These customers wanted to, but I told them I’d do the cars if they promised they wouldn’t have a problem if they lost. If they had a problem with losing, then I was not their guy. We did it for some nice people and didn’t win, but we did win with John Mumford’s track roadster in 2013. That was a lot of fun, and I was really proud of the guys involved in that build. Steve Davis had so much to do with it—that was his project we took over 25 years later and got to finish. I was so happy the car finally got done and that Steve was such a big part of it.

HRM] Why do you attract the Eric Claptons, Jeff Becks, and Neil Youngs?

RB] Well, Jeff has been a family friend for a long time. He came into my dad’s shop and bought a T-bucket chassis in 1972, took it home, and then we lost contact with him. When I opened my shop in 1977, he reappeared again and we became really dear friends and I still do stuff for him. I just built him another 1932 chassis. Eric Clapton came along through Jimmy Vaughn, who I have been a friend with for years, and he was a friend with Eric and so Eric…

HRM] But this is how it happened; I want to know why it happens?

RB] Eric didn’t know who I was. He came to me because he trusted Jimmy.

HRM] But Jimmy has never had you build a car for him.

RB] No, but we’ve been dear friends, and once we started building them for Eric, he felt comfortable with me and so it continues. Now Neil Young, that was different yet. I was always a fan of his, and my sister and I always listened to his music, and she told me some day he was going to come into my shop. I told her he never would because he doesn’t like hot rods. He’s into original cars. Then one day he broke down about two blocks from my shop. He was doing a video just down the street, and when his car broke down they told him there was an old car shop on the corner. He just walked into my shop with his 1957 Cadillac, and that’s how it started. He had no clue who I was. He never heard of me and didn’t know anything about me. That was nine years ago. We service and take care of cars for him and he’s become a good friend, too. When I called my sister and said she wouldn’t believe who walked into my shop, she said, “Neil Young!” Deb said, “I told you he would some day.”

HRM] If you weren’t building cars, what would you be doing?

RB] I’d be begging for a job at HOT ROD Magazine, but I can’t read or write. Honestly, I don’t think I had a chance to do anything other than cars because they were there, so I never thought of doing anything else. I grew up working in a speed shop—Andy’s Instant Ts and then Champion Speed Shop—so when I say I don’t think we were ever normal, we were as normal as you could be if you grew up around a dragstrip and a hot rod shop.

HRM] What’s been the most difficult project to come out of your shop?

RB] We did that 1937 Cord last year that HOT ROD did a story about, and it was probably the most difficult car we’ve done. The owner was a customer of ours; we had built two other cars for him. He asked me to do the car for him. He was adamant about having a front-wheel-drive, independent-suspension 1937 Cord like they all were, but with a late-model drivetrain. It was such a huge project and I was so busy at the time I told him I couldn’t do it. He was OK with that and took it to another shop. There was a problem and it never got finished. We stayed in touch, and when I asked him once how the Cord was going, he told me he stopped the project. Then he asked me if I would again do it for him. I told him I’d get the car back for him and think about it. It sat in my container for a year. Finally, I went to one of my guys and told him it would be overwhelming for me to run the shop and do this car, but if he would head the project we’ll do it. He was excited about it, and the owner was excited, but it was a huge project and it took us over two years to do it.

HRM] How about Neil Young’s electric 1958 Lincoln, the “LinkVolt”?

RB] Yeah, that was big, but we were not involved in the electronics, which was done at AVL in L.A. They do work for the OEs. The electronics were out of our deal, but yes, this was a big project because it’s hard to see the end. When a guy comes in and says he wants a 1932 Ford roadster, I know the end will be a year from now. We schedule it like we do with each car; we do the chassis and it goes off to the body shop, and when it comes back, we reassemble it and then it is off to Sid Chavers for upholstery, and that’s what we do every day. They are all done on a schedule—all scheduled a year in advance. I make all of my upholstery dates with Sid in November for the following year. I know what I’m building this year, and that’s how we get cars done. When somebody asks me how I get these cars done and how I get shops to work for me, I tell them I pay them, I don’t grind, we all work together. I’m fortunate to have some great body and paint guys to work with; I’ve got a great upholsterer that comes through for me all of the time, but we are on a schedule. They know when they are getting a car, and they do them in the time allotted. We’ve got that formula down, and that’s how we get them done.

HRM] What about a car that looks great when you get it and then you strip it and it’s junk?

RB] When we get a car that’s a Brookville body, we know what we are getting, but if it’s a car that we are not sure about, then it’s not on a schedule. As it get’s closer and I can see what it will take to make it right, then I will schedule it and it goes into our normal scheduling procedure. We strip the original cars early enough that we know where we will be, even if they are a lot worse than we expected.

HRM] Who did you learn the most from professionally?

RB] I was a lucky kid growing up in my dad’s shop and picking up stuff from the guys in his shop. Denny Craig taught me how to tig-weld at my dad’s shop. Partly, I was a pain in the ass because I was asking a lot of questions, so they either loved me or hated me, depending if I was a pain in the ass or not. Lil’ John Buttera was a huge influence in later years and Pete Chapouris helped with business stuff when I would call him. We did a lot of stuff with Pete and Jake’s parts, and still do to this day. I’d go to Dick Magoo and Boyd Coddington, and they would tell me anything because we always got along. I think that Magoo built some of the greatest hot rods ever, and now that I look back at all of the cars he built, I don’t know if he always got credit enough for some of the cool stuff he did. He had a great eye. Those Model A roadsters he did that he dropped the hoods on and the first 1932 Ford he built that I really liked, I’d look at it and couldn’t figure out why it looked so good. Then I found he lowered the hood line, and I borrowed that from then on. I learned to detail my cars from him, too. I’d detail my engines with a spray can or brushing them, and then I looked at Magoo’s engines and the detail. He’d paint the fins on the valve covers, and like the oil pressure sensor—he’d detail those things. He detailed cars so nice, and I knew I needed to make my cars look nicer. I’d never steal from them, but I’d ask questions and they would share with me. I used to spend summers at Dan Woods’ shop in Paramount [California] and he taught me how to arc-weld—he didn’t have a tig-welder, that’s all that he had. This is back when Jake Jacobs and Dan were partners. Grinding things and cutting out parts, that’s what I did. I used to sit in Lil’ John’s garage and just watch him work, and I was so proud to show him stuff I had done, and you didn’t get very many “atta-boys” from John. When I wanted him to see my cars he’d ask, “Did you do the best that you can,” and then I would question myself. He’d always say to do the best that you can and keep doing it. He looked at things differently than everybody else, and he took hot rodding to a different level. Whether you went the billet route or not, everybody stepped up their game and made their cars nicer because of him. No more square edges—they rounded edges off and finessed their cars to be nicer. There was more than one guy, but John, Magoo, and Pete Chapouris were probably the three guys I looked at the most. Pete for simplicity for sure, and that’s how I wanted my cars to be so you could work on them if you broke down—not too sophisticated because, to this day, I want my customers to drive their cars. And hopefully if there is a problem they can fix it or at least get it fixed on the road, instead of having to ship it home in a container because it was too exotic for anyone to fix.

HRM] What do you recommend to a young builder thinking about building cars professionally?

RB] If you have your heart set on it and you’re still young enough, then do what makes you feel good. You’re young enough that if it doesn’t work out you can still get a real job. I look at Billy Ganahl, he started at my shop sweeping the floors, and he’s become one of the most talented guys doing this today. He learned from my guys. I used to tell him to pay attention to what we are all doing. You don’t have to agree with what we are doing, but learn from these guys. I told him not to go into it thinking he knew how to do everything. Go in thinking you love what you are doing and you don’t know how to do anything and you want to learn from them, because all of my guys would show him anything he wanted to know, but if you tell them you know it all, they won’t show you shit. So if you’re a young guy, if you show your enthusiasm, you can go to any of the builders today and ask them for advice and they will tell you to call them, email them, or come back tomorrow when the show’s more quiet and I’ll talk with you. I believe all of the builders out there want to see this continue on and want to help young guys. HOT ROD has gone through many things that have kept people interested, and hot rodding will always be hot rodding because it doesn’t matter what you’re hot rodding—if you’re modifying it, you’re hot rodding it. There’s times I’ve looked at a car and thought it wasn’t a hot rod, but if it’s modified, then it’s a hot rod to the guy that built it. If it’s a Toyota and the guy wants to change the wheels and lower it and put a turbo on it, then it’s a hot rod. What they’re doing with fuel injection and electronics today, the cars are going faster than they’ve ever gone. If you’re a hard worker and can show your employer you are, then you’ll always have a job somewhere building cars. Go for it.

Five Things About Roy Brizio

His shop, Roy Brizio Street Rods, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.

He’s the only boy in a family of six children.

His father, Andy, was the starter at Half Moon Bay Drag Strip in the 1950s.

The Jeff Beck song “Roy’s Toy” is a tribute to his friend, Roy Brizio.

Roy’s shop has built more than 300 hot rods over the 40 years he’s been in business.

The post Hot Rod Builder Roy Brizio Tells Us How to Build For 40 Years appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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