#also hilarious that the guy who breaks the 4th wall more than anyone got hit with it first

[sea-buns]

The thing about the qsmp using a code monster as an antagonist is that it makes it difficult to determine if a theory is too meta to have any real value. That said:

Do we think they chose to impersonate Chayanne and Tallulah cuz they're QNPC01 and QNPC02? Are we just going down the list in numerical order?

[corpsentry]

behind the taylor swift gundam was in fact another, smaller gundam: a brief inquiry into the events of june 2020

so back in june this year june and i got together and we made this motherfucker of a story with this motherfucker of a thread to keep track of it all. but you already know that! and i’ve already got one foot and three elbows in my grave, so i’ll spare you the long-winded stuff. you wanna know how i wrote 93,035 words in 4 weeks? i’ll tell you how i wrote 93,035 words in 4 weeks-

-by linking you guys to copies of my planning documents because i feel like those words speak louder than any words i can offer in the present day. these are long documents. but they are also historical artifacts. very interesting. very weird. very, uh, full of cussing. so anyway, here’s

BIG DADDY: THE ORIGINAL PLANNING DOCUMENT

for those, like me, who have no motivation left in life to do anything and rely on summaries from others to acquire new knowledge, it all started with a single line.

prince of a fallen kingdom atsumu tries to kill hinata but falls in love with him instead

june, april something, 2020

with that in mind i tested the concept out with a few paragraphs of text, which you can find at the bottom of the Big Daddy document in the graveyard segment, accidentally sold my soul to the image of hinata with epaulettes, and then worked backwards, structuring an entire plot around two images:

a) hinata getting the shit beat out of him, with snark b) hinata and atsumu dancing in an empty ballroom under the stars

if you want a betrayal, you have to have something worth losing. if you want to fall in love with someone you don’t know, you have to meet them. if you have to meet them, there has to be a reason for that meeting, and so somewhere in between atsumu became a sword instructor and hinata the prince with daddy issues. june and i used this method of glancing anxiously over your shoulder to see what you’d missed to fill out the blanks in the story, after which i tacked up a bunch of post-its, typed out the plot, consulted june, typed out the plot again, and then broke the characters down into a bunch of questions, like ‘what do they want?’ and ‘what do they have?’ and ‘what are they afraid of?’

with the plot more or less ironed out, i decided it was time to start writing, and then i decided that i was actually too scared to start writing after all, so instead i set a couple of timers using classroomtimers.com (15-20 minutes long) and i sat down and i wrote about the world that hinata and atsumu inhabited.

each warm-up was 300-500 words long, and for the first few days, i’d write one before getting into writing the story proper. later these evolved into simply picking a scene from the story and launching straight into it, which became useful for opening those scenes later when i got to them organically.

then i got lazy! so i stopped. but these shitty little exercises were really useful for me because, unfettered by plot, convention, or any kind of tradition hovering over my shoulder, i was able to fuck around loosely enough to realize what i wanted this story to be. it was a very contrived kind of trial-and-error, an exploration of the characters, the story, but most importantly, the tone.

RESEARCH, PLANNING, AND VICTORIAN BOUGIE FASHION

this is a loose map of the castle and Important Locations within it, which i drew up at the start so i could keep track of where everything was and how i could get my characters from point A to point B. i wanted the story to have Some kind of internal logic, you know, even if that logic amounted to ‘a compass would function normally in this world whereas kageyama tobio would not’.

99% of my planning and organizing within those five weeks took place in this lovely dotted cat journal which my sister gave me for my birthday and i repurposed into a metaphorical Diary of Suffering while working on juno. i used it for everything from keeping track of narrative threads to clothing consistency checks, but the main purpose was this: each day at about 10 pm i’d crack open the cat book to a fresh page, stamp the date and the day of suffering at the top, and then write down a list of things i wanted to write, address, or fix today. then i’d sit at my laptop and write like a madman until about 7 in the morning. with breaks, of course, for sitting in the bathroom and staring at the wall and sitting in the kitchen and staring at the wall, but mostly i was writing. and complaining about writing. you were there, you probably remember that.

anyway, here are some pages from the cat book.

aside from the fact that my handwriting is complete shit, you can see that i made zero effort for any of this to be presentable. it was mainly a way for me to keep track of my thoughts because i have the attention span of an ikea wardrobe and tend to forget things as soon as i think of them. the lack of structure also mirrored the way that i went about writing juno. while i did proceed, for the most part, in chronological order, i had a lot of weird and useless revelations during lunch, which by this point was happening around 2 am, and in the 5 minutes before the exhaustion finally hit and carried me down to hell. i changed A Lot. again, to understand exactly how much the story evolved from day one onwards, please consult the big daddy document.

in the meantime, here’s something else.

once june sent over hinata and atsumu’s character designs i sat down like the fucking fool i am and spent 2 hours poring over a document about victorian and other fashion movements of the past so i could assign a noun, adjective, and verb to each element of their outfits. i don’t know why i did this. i certainly could have not, but i attempted to make sense of their ‘fits from a logistical perspective and that went into the cat book too. everything went into the cat book. the cat book is a relic of the past now, stuffed with artifacts such as the birth of oikawa tooru, and also his demise.

MEDIUM DADDY: EDITING, PROOFREADING, AND CREEPY MURDER CATS

i finished writing on june 26th, 2020, approximately a month after i’d first started planning, somewhere around may 27th or 28th. at that point i had about 90,000 words’ worth of story and no sanity left whatsoever, so i took a day-long break to stare at a wall and listen to taylor swift’s enchanted on loop.

and then i made a new document, which you can look at using the link above, and i laid out everything i had to do. i’d discovered a fuck ton of plot inconsistencies and general errors while writing and lying awake in bed at 9 a.m., sleepless in seattle, and now that i was free of the demon egging me towards the first finish line, it was time to Deal with them. i speed-scrolled through the draft, which was 200+ pages compressed into one google doc, because i like to tempt god’s wrath, and fixed up all the plot issues over the course of a few days. this was the fun part.

the actual, hard editing was the extremely un-fun part. i reread the entire thing, paragraph by paragraph, line by damn line, from start to finish, paying especially close attention to awkward phrasing, incomplete dialogue, and moments which had fallen flat in my haste to get on to the next one. this was really fucking terrible. i spent more time lying facedown on the floor than actually editing anything, but after a long time (about a week), that, too was done.

SMALL DADDY: TITLES, SUMMARIES, AND GOOD FUCKING BYES

i spent a good eighty days thinking about the title, though hilariously enough we ended up with something that was a blend of our names. june + elmo = juno, which is, all things considered, pretty perfect, but the process of picking the title was Hell, and i Did Not Come Up With The Title until about 2 hours before posting. you can take a look at the haphazard clusterfuck of my title-selecting process in small daddy, which is linked above.

so the title was a last-minute choice. so was the summary. and the chapter divisions. and actually all the songs in the playlist for juno. the day we dropped juno onto planet earth like a newborn baby pitched out of the sky, i spent an hour hunched over my laptop, cutting my 213 page google doc into chapters based on nothing more than a Vibe. two days before that, i also attempted to voice-act the entirety of juno, an affair which ended at the 20,000 word mark with a sore throat and the kind of exhaustion one typically wants to sleep in a coffin for 23 years to get rid of. so in all honesty, i did very little editing, which is why there are definitely minor typos and/or mistakes hanging out somewhere on that chunky ao3 webpage. but whatever.

my attitude by july 5th (was it july 5th? or 4th? somewhere around there) was basically whatever. anything so i could get finish this damn thing, chuck it out of the window, and never see another google doc until the next century. i’ve been asked a few times how exactly i wrote at a rate of roughly 2000-3000 words per day for four weeks straight, and my answer has always been this: i died. what died, you ask? my soul. my spirit. my Will To Live. i’m a creature of fixations, and juno was my fixation for june. will i ever be able to do this again? would i recommend this experience to anyone? is god real? the answer to all of the above is probably no. juno was a fever dream, and so is my cat book. and so are all the lattes i had. and so was my 9 am to 4 pm sleep schedule.

but what we made is real. the research, oikawa tooru, the 4 am conversations in which i was like ‘how the fuck do i end this’ and june was like ‘jade proposal’ (the proposal was her idea. all rise for twitter user atsuhinas. she is the mastermind behind all of the Inch Resting moments in this story; i just flapped a korok leaf in her direction and made sure the air circulation was working properly) are real as fuck, and looking back, there’s a lot i’d change, but i’m lazy. and college is starting. and anyway, i did write 93,035 words in just under five weeks, four if you don’t count the week of Editing Hell, so i think that’s pretty cool.

thank you for reading this to the end, and for following us on our journey through the enigmatic taylor swift gundam fic which quite literally consumed my entire twitter account for the five weeks i spent working on it. retrospectively speaking i really was butt-obsessed so i am frankly incredibly impressed with everyone around me for putting up with a Husk of a Man for a month. thank you for doing that. thank you for indulging my vague tweeting, and our butterfly dns, and for reading 93 thousand words of gay fanfiction set in a high fantasy world with epaulettes and galettes. on behalf of june, once again, we are incredibly grateful for all your support.

if you have any questions about specific aspects of the writing process, or anything you’d like to know in general with reference to JUNO, feel free to drop me an ask through my tumblr inbox, or through my curiouscat over here. i’m aware i didn’t cover everything, but there’s frankly too much to put in a tumblr post without passing away somewhere around the 56% mark, so let me know what’s on your mind, and i’ll try to answer that to the best of my abilities. but anyway, before i go, here are some

TAKEAWAYS

one: don’t try to write 93,000 words in five weeks. seriously don’t fucking do it you will end up jittery and sleep-deprived and you will leave all your friends on read for a month. pace yourself. set realistic goals. you wrote 2k this week? that’s fantastic. you wrote 4k in a day? you absolute motherfucker. i hope you’re taking a long fucking break tomorrow. your story will not run away from you, but if you run too fast, you will get tired, and then you will pass away.

two: you don’t have to know everything about your story before you start writing. in fact if you have a single camera shot of two characters holding hands under a rose garden awning, i think that’s fucking wonderful. if you look at big daddy, you’ll realize that my initial plot draft, and all the ones following that, are not perfectly aligned with the final version of juno. i improvised over half of the scenes in this motherfucker, and to be completely honest, some of the improvised scenes were the best. fucking oikawa tooru was improvised out of nowhere. he only got written in way later, around chapter 8 or something, because i realized i needed a plot device and a source of information to keep the playing table from toppling over. i Sat Down one day and was like ‘okay, it’s time to write oikawa into the introduction. because he matters now. he didn’t matter last week but now he does, and soon he’s going to be the fulcrum of the entire story, because it’s like that with oikawa tooru’. it’s okay to change your mind halfway. it’s okay to go back and rewrite entire scenes or segments. it’s okay to highlight 4 pages of fresh, sentimental writing, and hit delete. writing is a fluid process, and you Will make discoveries as you progress through your story alongside your characters. be understanding of that iterative process. be kind to yourself.

three: You Are That Motherfucker. you, me, your dog, your dog’s friend, your dog’s enemy, all of us are that motherfucker. i never thought i’d be able to write anything longer than the great big map, which was a much simpler, linear story in which the other main character did not appear in the current timeline until like the eighth chapter. juno was different. juno was the motherfucker, and i was scared shitless of it, and to cope with that fear joked constantly while writing that it’d never see the light of day.

but it did. it was a rocky process, and i was awake for 48 hours after posting it because of the sheer adrenalin stuck in my skull, but i got through it. and i wouldn’t have been able to do it without june, who stepped in when i flopped over facedown on the floor and dragged me to my feet like the badass friend she is, and without everyone else in my life, who put up with me talking about The Thing that i couldn’t really talk about, but juno’s up there now. forever, or until the internet collapses and civilization goes extinct. and if the nineteen year old clown with the attention span of an ikea armchair and an a level certificate from hell wrote the 93,000 word long thing, so can you. i mean this completely unironically and with every ounce of genuine emotion i can summon from the cracked asshole of my heart.

writing is hard. writing is scary. writing is an investigation of the world around you and therefore, by extension, yourself, and that kind of honesty is freaky. it’s like going skinny-dipping next to the president’s mansion. who’s going to see you? what if they take a photo? what if you lose your spot at university?

but don’t think about that. our world is overrun with stories the way cereal bowls are full of cereal, but it’s those stories that keep us all sane in the disgusting day-to-day muck of reality, so think about your story. what’s haunting you today? what message do you want to leave printed in font size 666 comic sans across the southern hemisphere of the planet? what will you be tomorrow?

a writer. you’re going to be a motherfucking writer.

[schibi12]

Review/Reaction for "Let's Get Dangerous!"

Sorry for posting this a bit late i tried to post these a day before the new episode but this being an hour long episode and i got a really busy week it took its time to write but know its here so enjoy!

This post is gonna be long, longer than my usual posts, not only because it’s a 1 hour special but im gonna be fangirling real hard even though i haven’t watched OG Darkwing Duck so take this as a biased or unbiased review, but still this episode was amazing, everthing was so on point the story, characters, animation, music, action, comedy, etc., everything was great so Let’s Do This!! And LET’S GET DANGEROUS!!!!

Spoilers!! Read at your own Risk!!

Love that intro of Launchpad narrating their entrance to St. Canard, Dewey and LP accidentally revealing Darkwing's identity to Huey and Louie and Scrooge forgetting to turn off the laptop on his video call with Bradford and Darkwing failing to glide like Batman everything was great and then we get the titlecard no theme song oh it was perfect.

I like Taurus Bulba's introduction like we already know he is a villain but i like that he is this friendly and knowledgeable to Scrooge and the kids which can be seen as kind or a bit stalkerish once they reveal his true intentions.

I love Darkwing's hideout, all the gadgets, the super computer every little detail i love it,and that Fenton helped him and that Drake is oblivious to Gizmoduck real identity is just funny.

I love W.A.N.D.A. her sarcastic tone and i especially love that she is voice by Jameela Jamil who also voices Gandra Dee, but i like that she kept her accent.

Of course there is no crime in St. Canard they got the best mayor, and im glad that Owlson finally got a job where she is respected.

Ooh Huey is getting is suspicious of the RAMROD and of Bulba and ew Haggis sounds kinda nasty not gonna lie.

No crime kind of an awkward situation but at least Darkwing had the decency to finish the job for them. Ooh we get to see Gosalyn damn she can hold her own, oh my gosh i think we all have the same thought that the first triplet to be arrested would be Louie, and of course Scrooge doesn't remember Darkwing at all. Interesting Bulba is on DW side but not for long. Damn Huey that hat is like Mary Poppins bag.

They made a set for Dewey Dew Night, these pics of DW and i need that cookbook in real life.

And Gosalyn i love her design, personality everything and Stephanie Beatriz did an amazing job voicing her she had big shoes to fill and in my haven't watched OG Darkwing Duck opinion i think she is a worthy sucessor and a big plus that she is Latina and i love the reference to her original design

And honestly i thought that Dewey was gonna be the last of the kids that she would form a friendship with, so i was genuinely surprised when they teamed up and i loved that they related with the whole mystery of a missing family member a nice callback to the 1st season, and i love that Dewey is trying to make a catchphrase for her.

Of course DW is gonna help her but i do like that Launchpad is the one who encourages him to help Gosalyn, nice shot of all them driving DW motorcycle but where is Dewey in the motorcycle WHERE??? Huey knows he knows Bulba and tell a parent or caretaker how to educate their children, Did Darkwing just dislocated his jaw ouch! and nice hiding spots guys, that’s a really big and heavy book.

Taurus what a good liar and yeah some nice teamwork from Dewey and Gos!!! And that’s a lot of papers and plans for one machine oooh this episodes ties up with the whole missing mysteries plot wasn’t expecting that and wait so that means any Disney Media is an alternate dimension/universe so maybe DT17 is a universe where Mickey Mouse doesn’t exist ok crazy theory aside i like the explanation they have for the RAMROD and the whole dimensional stuff.

Caught in a lie Taurus Bulba!! What a jerk he just hit a child what is wrong with you (well he is a villain so why am i surprised). Good Guy Launchpad helping as always. Some more good teamwork with DW and Gos! Oh my the Fearsome are Fearsome indeed and what an entrance! 

So like i have said many times i haven’t seen OG Darkwing Duck so i have no reference to compare or critique but as their own version i really liked it their design. personality and etc., everything was good with these 4.

Come on DW you already breaking down and you haven’t even fought anyone. Aw Fenton/Gizmoduck has his own kind of Iron Man Hud and geez so rude DW. Hey Bonkers another Disney Afternoon show i haven’t seen (im gonna get my Disney Fan Club Card revoked after this post). And aw Launchpad is making another Adventuring Family and Oh my Ducks!! LP is the uncle he has a lot to live up to.

Oh so he is a part of FOWL i was kinda suprised not gonna lie, oh Bulba gone rough and kinda crazy, and the kids with Bradford what an odd team up and of course Louie can pick locks,The chase scene with the Quackerbot and Liquidator and DW and Co. was great, was that a Sonic reference? and that scene with Bushroot was suspenseful and  creepy as heck! That saxophone solo was hilarious. Duck boys getting suspicious especially Huey.

Did LP broke the 4th wall?!?! Aw what a funny and wholesome moment with Gos and LP.

Aw is DW is doing the best he can for Gos, aw what a sweet tender moment im not crying your crying LP is crying. LP made pancakes what an uncle and ouch DW can take a beating.

What a reference to OG Ducktales this was really unexpected and hilarious!! And i really like Dewey’s sarcastic tone at Bradford. Holy cow the boys know about FOWL and they are in ther classic design Oh bother!

What a plan LP kind of dumb but it worked. And what a nice message of LP about what it means to be a hero wise words my dudes. And what a fight it was amazing great references, action-packed, clever and funny it was beautiful. Oh those references to OG Ducktales good stuff. 

Aw poor Gosalyn having to make the ultimate decision the animation, music and voice acting were great and you really feel for her and i gotta be honest i cried in this scene.

Oh snap!! Scrooge knows about FOWL now!! The tables have turned for this season!

And aw they formed a nice found family and Launchpad is an honorary member of team uncle!

Amazing episode everything was so good this is the perfect pilot for a Darkwing Duck Reboot, Disney if you don’t do it you’re crazy.

This episode was greatly balanced i liked that it wasn’t all Darkwing Duck but it also followed Scrooge and the boys and it all perfectly meshed together with the whole FOWL plot line which i wasn’t expecting at all but it was an awesome surprise and i honestly don’t know what to expect for future episodes or the season finale.

Overall a perfectly made episode funny, clever, action-packed, great character interactions and great introduction to Darkwing Duck universe for peeps who haven't seen the OG like me and others.

I give this episode 5 out of 5 ducks.

🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆

[milocrespi-blog]

My Little Pony: The Movie (2017) Review

At Last.

As far as animated films go there was no other film that I was more anxious, yet terrified to see than My Little Pony: The Movie. The film of the heavily popular current animated series of the same same has finally hit the big screen.

But I was a bit concerned with it at first. Don't get me wrong, when I saw the teaser trailer for the film I was hooked, but my biggest concern was on whether or not the film would work as a standalone film. So when I left the theater for the first time impressions, I surprisingly had mixed feelings on the film. I returned home frustrated, I had difficulty getting any sleep, I was stressed for no reason the next day. So I thought that in order to alleviate my problems, I decided to go see it a second time. And I am happy to say that I had a much more pleasant experience re-watching it.

But that's not to say that there aren't any flaws in the film. Far from it. One flaw includes the story. It's not a bad story, but it is very weak; and this was the element that I was worried about before. Since this is a movie that is primarily made for the fans and younger audiences, I feel that non fans wouldn't get into this because the story is not very strong or interesting. I think I found it the most noticeable when at the film's second act low point. Not to spoil anything, but the way that it's handled felt stock in my case. Now true the reasonings behind the character's decisions made sense when you look at from their viewpoints, but the scene's end result had me rolling my eyes. Thankfully I was able to accept it as well as the rest of the story upon the second viewing. Yes, I thought that the story was very weak, and it is a legit problem for introducing this film to newcomers, but it's something that's basically harmless on re-watches.

The Storm King: Good lord was he bland. He's trying to be funny like Hades from Disney's Hercules, or even Discord for that matter, but he's still trying to be intimidating like Tempest at the same time. His writing was really weak, and his screen time is about as brief as the time it takes for you to finish reading this review. So again, he's not only un-interesting, he's also barely given enough screen time in order to be seen as captivating. Ok, so those are just some flaws, they're easy to overlook for me. So what's the problem here? It can be described in one word: Purpose. You may have already noticed that The Storm King doesn't have a whole lot of screen time. You know who else doesn't have a lot of purpose to this movie? The three princesses. Yeah, as soon as they show up, they're instantly tuned to stone and are essentially gone for the rest of the movie and are only used as plot devices. Michael Peña as Grubber? Geez, has anyone ever heard about "forced comedy relief" before? The same also apply's to the Pirate scene. We spend ~ 10 min with these guys, and when the scene involving them is finished it makes you wonder what was the point of even having that scene if we're not going to spend a lot of time on it? And that's the main problem with this movie for me: there are so many things that either could've been cut or could've been given more screen time to develop. You know how people really like to market the "Extended Edition" of certain movies - not using it as a means to fix really crucial elements in the film but only using it as a marketing gimmick - this is the one instance where an extended edition copy of a movie could be a godsend. We could get extra footage of the Storm King so that way we can not only get to see more of his character and his personality, but also leave more of an impact. We could see more of the pirates so they can feel more developed, and hell we could give more screen time for some of the Mane 6 cause there's a few of them that really need it!

So with that said...let's talk about the stuff that I liked. I don't think I need to say this, but the animation was stellar. This is some of the best 2-D animation I have seen in years. The visuals are so stunning, the characters are so expressive, and the movement so smooth. If this movie didn't have the animation, then I would've been singing a different tune. Because in my opinion the animation is the movie's saving grace. Although I really do agree with Cellspex's criticism about the characters movement. Everyone moves really slow in this movie, which works well in some scenes but not in others.

The characters are also pretty good, both the old and the new. For a while I wasn't as big a fan of Tempest Shadow as much as everyone else. But after listening to Emily Blunt's performance and seeing her act very intimidating towards other the characters, I decided to change my thoughts on her. She's very graceful, very quiet, and massively powerful (kind of like Maleficent in a way). My only problem though is that her past and overall character is very one-noted. She's not the kind of character who would be described as "complex." But it was Emily Blunt's performance, the design and intimidation that sold her for me; not really the character herself. I thought Capper was very charming, I thought the pirates were fun (and by that I mean that their musical number was fun, not so much in the personality department), Kristen Chenoweth as Skystar was...ok. The voice acting was pretty good too, for the most part. A lot of these actors brought their A material, and it shows. I wouldn't really say that the film was particularly hilarious, but there were a few jokes and reactions that got a chuckle out of me here and there. I was surprised that Pinkie Pie was the emotional center of the film. She has some of the most dramatic scenes of the film, and I'm thoroughly pleased (Although I would've liked to have seen some of her 4th wall breaks in the film, I thought that would've made the film a lot funnier). And not to mention, she's not forced comedy relief and actually get's to express drama! The others do get things to do, but my biggest disappointment was with Fluttershy. She's barely given anything to say or do. She's only given - yes, I counted - 22 lines in this movie, and that's not even counting the moments where she sings along (again, an extended edition would be really nice so that way she can stick out in the group).

On that subject, the music was pretty good. Ok maybe not every song is memorable, but I found myself tapping my foot to quite a few of them on the way out. It did take me a really long time to get used to it, but Rainbow by Sia...I mean damn. True in terms of vocals it was a bit distracting because she sounds like she's slurring all of her lines, but in terms of lyrics and rhythms, this song is amazing. I occasionally end up in very dark places in my life; but whenever that happens I can always seek comfort from my very supportive friends and family, and that usually makes me overwhelmed and kind of saddened knowing that I receive a lot of love. This song is kind of like that: it's sort of the song equivalent of a hug after a long depression. It's not the greatest song ever, but it is one that I like to listen to a lot.

So as a whole, I thought the movie was fine, as is. Is it perfect? No. Much like the show itself, you will never hear me say that this movie is great or perfect. Its failings do exist, and they are big and distracting ones if your looking for a movie that has a good narrative. Again, this did indeed bother me when I first saw it and I was stressed out the ass the following day. I generally dislike movies that require the audience to watch or read something in order to fully appreciate something whether it be a movie or a show. Remember, I had conflicting feelings about Wonder Woman, and in the end I acknowledge that the movie is great for D.C fans, and only ok to everyone else. The unneeded characters is a big, BIG issue for me; I can maybe ignore the weak story, but the way the movie throws in all of these pointless and brief scenes and characters and clichés is something that I cannot defend. If there's one thing that I'm glad about this problem, is that I finally came out and admitted something that I really didn't like about the film. For most of my weekend I went through denial thinking that this movie is good, but now that I confessed that the film has a weak spot, I can hopefully relax for once.

But I'm really hoping that shouldn't be enough for you to turn down this film if you're a non fan, cause there's a lot of talent and effort that went into this film (of course I know that it's a fool's wish to think that). If the story were a little bit more original, if some of the characters were more fleshed out, then I think we would've had something really special here. Is the film challenging? No. But like the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, it doesn't have to be challenging in order to be fun.

5.5/10 Slightly Above-Average

[itsiotrecords-blog]

http://ift.tt/2r1oKyd

A sad fact of professional athletics is the tenuous relationship that these athletes have with the sport that defines their lives. Whether due to deterioration of skill, an ever competitive arena, or other exterior factors, the career rate of professional athletes continues to be incredibly low. Perhaps the greatest plague on professional athletes is the ever present possibility of serious injury. Anyone who has played sports knows that injuries are an integral part of the game, however, they also recognize the fear of those potentially catastrophic injuries which can greatly alter an athlete’s career or life. With an increasing amount of TV coverage on professional sports (I mean heck, ESPN had a girl’s high school basketball game on!), so many more of these injuries are witnessed live by fans. As such, this list will count down the 15 Most Gruesome Sports Injuries of the 2000’s. As the name suggests, the only qualification for the injuries on this list is that they be sports related and that they have occurred since January 1st of 2000.

#1 Giancarlo Stanton – Facial Fractures and Dental Damage I think an underrated aspect of baseball at the major league level is just how fast the gameplay is. Specifically, the speed at which pitchers can throw in the big leagues far outdistances what hitters regularly see at the amateur or collegiate level. Giancarlo Stanton got an up close and personal view of fast pitching during the #15 incident on our list, which resulted in severe facial fractures and dental damage to the Marlins slugger. During a game against the Milwaukee Brewers, Stanton got hit full in the face by a pitch. The worst part about this incident was the fact that Stanton was in half swing when he got hit, so his face was turned towards the incoming pitch with no protection whatsoever. The man formerly known as Mike Stanton is lucky that this injury wasn’t more serious.

#2 Kevin Huber – Broken Jaw and Fractured Vertebrae As far as careers in professional sports go, an NFL Punter has to be considered one of the safest. I would have said that, anyways, if it weren’t for the #14 gruesome injury on our list. In week 15 of the 2013 season against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Huber was blocked by Steelers linebacker Terence Garvin, which led to a fractured jaw. Not only this, but it was later revealed that Huber had fractured his vertebrae on the play, causing him to miss the rest of the season. Kudos to Huber for at least being close enough to the action to actually have the chance of making a tackle, but seeing the results, it’s hard to argue that it was the smartest play for him to make.

#3 Rashad Johnson – Missing Finger For the #13 entry on our list is an injury which I’m surprised does not happen more often in the NFL. During the 2013 season, in a game against the New Orleans Saints, Johnson’s finger was smashed between two helmets. The impact of this collision was so forceful that it literally snapped off the tip of the middle finger on his left hand. Johnson played it cool when it happened, much cooler than I would have had one of my appendages just been permanently ripped off. Further showing his toughness, Johnson would return from this gruesome injury later that same season. We will see another (and much more hilarious) NFL finger injury later on this list, but the injury to this NFL safety certainly deserves its spot on the bottom half of our list.

#4 Mike Cameron – Broken Nose and Cheek I think the most miraculous part about this incident was the fact that Carlos Beltran was actually running in his attempt to play the ball. That’s probably why Cameron was recklessly diving for the ball, because he just assumed that Beltran wasn’t going to be able to run fast enough to make the catch. But all kidding aside, collisions in the outfield are one of the primary causes of injuries in baseball. Whether the collision is with the wall, or another player (like it was here), outfielders who are tracking a fly ball are uniquely susceptible to collisions and other incidents. This particular incident left Mike Cameron with a severely broken nose and cheekbone and the sheer force of this unseen collision makes it the #12 most gruesome sports injury of the 2000’s.

#5 Marcus Lattimore – Dislocated Knee A sad fact of this article is that many of the afflicted athletes never fully recovered from their gruesome injuries. The #11 entry on our list is a perfect example of this, as South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore would never recover the speed and explosiveness that he had prior to his devastating knee injury. I highly recommend watching the video on YouTube because I don’t think anything I can write can do justice to how truly gross this leg injury was. The injury would cause Lattimore to miss the rest of his college career, and he would not get drafted until the fourth round of the subsequent NFL Draft. Despite being drafted, Lattimore would retire in a few short months as it became evident the toll his gruesome injury had had on him as a player.

#6 NaVorro Bowman – Tore His ACL and MCL I honestly think the San Francisco 49ers might have the worst luck of any team in the NFL. As opposed to teams like the Browns and Bills who, through bad decision making (hey Johnny Manziel) and policies, have made their franchises into laughing stocks. In contrast, the 49ers in recent years have been victims of annual bad luck that has devastated this once great franchise. A perfect example of this is the severe leg injury which occurred to star linebacker NaVorro Bowman against the Seattle Seahawks in the 2013 NFC Championship game. Bowman has declined significantly since the injury and this, combined with the retirement of Patrick Willis, has had a hugely detrimental impact on the 49ers once vaunted defense. We hope he’ll be able to stay healthy the rest of his career.

#7 Tim Hudson – Broken Ankle  Many writers and commentators have affectionately called MLB pitchers the “the least athletic athletes” of all time. While this doesn’t apply to all pitchers, it would apply to an almost forty year old Tim Hudson when he received a devastating leg injury while pitching for the Braves in 2013. Hudson was pitching a 4-hit shutout against the New York Mets when Eric Young, Jr., who was trying to beat a throw to first base, accidentally stepped on Hudson’s leg above the ankle. This resulted in an ankle fracture that ended Hudson’s 2013 season. In the video you can see Hudson’s lower leg bend (and eventually break) under the weight of Young. Hudson would successfully resurrect his career with the San Francisco Giants, thus showing that life doesn’t always end for these athletes after their gruesome injuries.

#8 Willis McGahee – Torn ACL, PCL, MCL A sad fact of this list is that many of the injuries listed here had devastating effects on the careers of its victims. As such, I thought it would be nice to include an athlete who would go on to have a very successful career after their gruesome injury. Such was the case with the incredibly intense leg injury that running back Willis McGahee suffered during his career in College as a member of the Miami Hurricanes. During the 2003 National Championship Game, McGahee would catch a screen pass before being on the receiving end of a very violent hit by Ohio State Safety Will Allen. As a result of the hit, McGahee would suffer a torn ACL, PCL, and MCL. Despite this devastating injury, McGahee would still enter himself into the 2003 NFL Draft in which he was selected in the 1st round by the Bills.

#9 Jason Pierre Paul – Missing Finger(s) We talked earlier about the completely understandable, football related, injury which led to the loss of Arizona Safety Rashad Johnson’s finger. In contrast, I present to you the story of Jason Pierre-Paul. During the summer of 2015, news reports began to surface that the New York Giants All-Pro defensive end had suffered a severe injury to his hand while setting off 4th of July fireworks. These reports were later verified and it was revealed that Paul had lost actual portions of several of his fingers in the incident. Perhaps the greatest part of this story (at least from a writer’s standpoint) is that Paul was previously known for his ability to bat down balls at the line of scrimmage. Kind of hard to do with only eight fingers.

#10 John Cena – Broken Nose The #1 argument for critics of professional wrestling is that the action and competition is fake. The fatal flaw in this reasoning is that, though the outcomes are scripted, the maneuvers and acts performed by these phenomenal athletes are very much real. A perfect example of this is the #6 entry on our list, which occurred during an episode of Monday Night Raw in a match between Seth Rollins and John Cena. During the match, Rollins hit Cena with a high knee to the face, knocking him to the mat. Once Cena got back to his feet, it was obvious the trauma which had just occurred. Cena’s nose was clearly broken, and was so askew as to make the 16x World Champion look almost comical.

#11 Kris Commons – Weird Leg Lump For the other entries on this list, I’ve done my best to focus on the incident or circumstances which led to these gruesome injuries. With the #5 entry on our list, however, I cannot get past the picture of the injury itself. What exactly is that on his leg? It looks like his thigh is pregnant, that or this guy has about the world’s biggest pimple on his leg. Soccer players are often criticized (and I think rightfully so) for the outrageousness and insincerity of the “flopping” which has become commonplace in their sport. If there was ever a case for the toughness of soccer players, it would be this injury to Kris Commons. Commons actually finished the game in which this injury occurred. I’d say it’s pretty safe the tackler who caused this deserved more than a yellow card.

#12 Kevin Everett – Cervical Spinal Injury The injury to Buffalo Bills Tight End Kevin Everett wasn’t gruesome due to how it looked when it initially happened, but because of the long-term effects that this injury had on this man’s life and career. During the first game of the 2007 NFL season, Everett was on the kickoff team in the Bill’s game against the Denver Broncos. While attempting to make a tackle, Everett received a devastating hit which knocked him to the ground. Everett was carted off the field and rushed to the hospital where it was confirmed that he had received a severe cervical spine injury, leaving him partially paralyzed. In the years since Everett has regained use of his arms and legs, however his ability to walk is limited and he has been placed on government disability. This is certainly one of the saddest cases on our list.

#13 Jessica Dube – Lacerated Cheek and Nose – Mentions video You don’t often hear the word “gruesome” used to describe the sport of competitive figure skating, but that’s exactly what makes this list so great. Easily the most frightening injury to ever happen in the figure skating world occurred at the 2007 Four Continents Championship in Colorado Springs. During the event, Dube was doing a partner performance when the skate of her male her male partner got much closer to Dube’s face than she expected. The skate severely lacerated the nose and cheek of Dube, causing an immediate stoppage of the performance. Dube was rushed to the hospital where she was amazingly able to make a full recovery. After watching the Dube video, I cringe any time I see a figure skater sticking their bodies a little too close to their partners swinging skates.

#14 Anderson Silva – Broken Leg With some of the entries on this list, those of us watching live were unaware that anything unusual had happened until after the gruesome video replay was shown. Such was not the case with the severe leg injury suffered by UFC fighter Anderson “the Spider” Silva in his fight against Chris Weidman at UFC 168. There are mixed reports concerning whether Silva initially cracked his shin earlier in the fight, however, it is obvious that during a leg kick by Silva in the 2nd round, he severely broke both his tibia and fibula. Watching live you saw Silva’s leg wrap around that of Weidman’s, moving in a way more relative to a Stretch Armstrong doll than an actual human being. The fight was of course immediately stopped, causing one of the more abrupt (and of course gruesome) ends to any UFC fight that I’ve ever seen.

#15 Kevin Ware – Severely Broken Leg I don’t think that you can talk about gruesome sports injuries in any era without discussing the Kevin Ware leg injury. Ware was, of course, a pivotal part of the Louisville University basketball program that one the NCAA Tournament in 2013. Unfortunately, however, Ware will be forever remembered for an injury which occurred in an Elite 8 game against Duke that same year. Ware landed awkwardly after attempting to block a three-point shot attempt by Duke guard Tyler Thornton and suffered a compound fracture to his right leg which protruded several inches out of his shin. ESPN, much to its credit, refused to show replays of the gruesome injury but it still made quite the rounds on the internet and other news sources. After making his recovery, the press continued to focus on Ware through the rehab of his injury until he transferred to another school.

Source: TheRichest