In Which I might Scream about...

 

Rebels.

Star Wars: Rebels.

Not a whole lot of people know about it. It's a four season TV show made originally for the Disney Channel. Most people who've heard of it think it's kiddish, boring, or cheesy.

Originally, I thought so too. My first encounter of this show was on Youtube, watching a "Funniest Animated Star Wars moments" compilation, or something like that. My first reaction was, "What the heck."

I mean, when my first look at this is these two:

there's at least a little grace, right? 

I mean, you grow to love them, eventually. But at the beginning, there's a bit of "Um, why?"

At least for me.

Anyways, I had no idea what I was watching, so I did what any responsible child should do (by child, I mean 13ish years old): I found my older sister and fellow Star Wars fanatic --at least at that time-- and asked her if she knew anything about it.

She only knew one scene.

And that scene almost made me completely run full speed away from Rebels.

Yes, that is Darth Vader riding on top of a TIE-Fighter, using the Force to make his cape blow majestically, because they are underground.

ANYWAYS.

You're probably thinking, "are you trying to convince me to not watch Rebels?"

No. No, I'm not.

I just want you to know what you'd be getting into, because the first few episodes of the first season are definitely NOT the gritty, gorgeous animation, a bit less kiddish Star Wars series. Especially with the Ahsoka series coming out, people might be thinking some of the Rebels characters are really grown up and fancy and sophistacated.

Not quite.

I definitely suggest watching Rebels before the Ahsoka series, since it looks like Ahsoka is a live action Rebels season 5. WHICH I AM PUMPED ABOUT.

Anyways again.

I wanted to talk now about why I do love Rebels.

A good portion of my family has watched it, and at least two have not been enamored, especially by some of the leading characters. So I want to reiterate, the first season is a little rough and young feeling, especially at the start. The first maybe four episodes are really just getting the story warmed up, introducing the characters' personalities, etcetera. There isn't a whole lot telling who the characters used to be before it started. And yes, Chopper is a bit of an acquired taste. If you were to say he's not for you, you would probably be my dad's new favorite person. 

But what I really love about Rebels, character wise, is the villains. There is a good amount of the nameless Stormtroopers and random officers, but most episodes follow Agent Kallus, Lieutenant Liste, Admiral Konstantine, Governor Pryce, Grand Admiral Thrawn, or one of the Inquisitors. The thing that kept confusing me in Clone Wars and occasionally in Bad Batch is that there are so many different villains. Often times, one random chap shows up, hops around being stupid in one episode, dies, and life moves on, la-di-da-di-da. But Rebels has a cast of good, smart villains, who are better than the rebel crew, so it's fun to watch them trying to outsmart each other. 

While not all of the bad guys are super smart --i.e. Konstantine and Liste-- they make it so there actually ARE stakes. And you get to watch them learn from their mistakes, prove why they got to be top of the class, and keep trying. I like that. I feel like a good bit of other Star Wars media has villains who just show up, throw a blaster around, and die, not really doing anything important or memorable. OR they show up already knowing EXACTLY how to defeat the heroes, and to me that's just a no-no. I like watching journeys, even villain journeys.

Enough about the villains, though. While Kallus does have those impeccable sideburns that just make his character so much better for some reason, the overall animation can look a little "hmmm" at times. The first time I watched it, I was a little uncertain about how I felt about how much the characters gesture and just plain wiggle. Eventually, it just faded into the animation style, and I grew to appreciate that it is actually very pretty. 

Don't get me started on season 4, that one is just ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh gorgeous and I love the story and the characters and someone stop me before I spoil everything....

But there are plenty of shots and scenes in the first three seasons that made me jump up and start screaming about how pretty they are. I do that a lot. No judgement, please. 

season 1

season 2

season 3

season 4

I took those as screenshots watching the show for the first time. Yeah, I think it's plenty pretty.

Anyways x3, moving away from visuals and villains, I want to talk just briefly about the heroes and the plot of the show. I know, I've probably been dragging on for a while; bear with me.

The heroes (Kanan, Hera, Zeb, Sabine, Ezra, and Chopper) have one of my favorite dynamics. They struggle to become a team, to fully trust each other, to learn how to change, to become something they think they're not, some of them tend to feud half the time... it feels realistic. So many times they just happen to be ready to let everyone do what they do best and not worry about how they got there. Clone Wars does that a little, including the movie, where you can see Anakin and Ahsoka figuring out what their roles are, but most of the other stuff is just implied. 

Don't get me wrong, it's implied very well, and I don't feel like anything's lacking, but I do enjoy getting to see the dynamic starting. I think that's really what season 1 is, getting the characters to their familial point and then using the later seasons to really explain why it was a struggle to get there.

Several people have said they think the characters are a bit flat. I can understand that. In the first season, and a little in the second, they do seem that way. But it's a four season series, with season four as the big culmination of all the arcs. Ezra and Kanan fully step into their roles as Jedi. Sabine becomes the leader she always was dancing away from. Hera and Zeb embrace their parts of the rebellion as a whole and stop trying to run away from the past. Chopper... is Chopper. Each character has a detailed story, and if it was tried to be crammed all into say the first two seasons, it would be too much and the last two seasons would be boring.

The series itself can seem to have several filler episodes, which are very annoying, but something from each of the "filler" episodes comes back, usually in the finale, to be something really important.

For example, in the season 1 finale, the crew realizes they need a TIE-Fighter, but they just blew them all up. Then Zeb and Ezra reveal that a TIE they stole in a filler episode is still around. It's little things like that that really hold the show together.

Alright, so I've been yammering on for a while. I'll stop now.

I highly suggest Rebels to any Star Wars fans who haven't seen it yet, and I especially suggest watching it BEFORE you watch Ahsoka, or at least refreshing your memory.

If you're part of that gang who's already watched and loved the series, thank you for bearing with me through all this insanity, and I hope I didn't completely waste your time. 

I hope y'all enjoyed my opinion of Star Wars: Rebels. Thank you for reading this far, and I hope you have a great Saturday!

Bit o' Writing Stuffs

 

Well, here we are! Some of my writing everything. My current WIP is (a guestimation) a little less than halfway done, so I think I'll hold off on screaming about it for a little bit longer. Definitely will get around to the screaming, but we'll wait just a tad bit longer. 

Instead, I wanted to scream about something else that happened recently: my storyworld.

oh also, the epicness that was going to be We are More than Conquerors has been called off because it was stressing me for some reason... :(

I have five fantasy stories planned out and/or in progress currently, all of which are in different worlds. Then a few weeks ago I started schemey-scheming another future story. (my brain is too busy sometimes, but I can't help it) The basic idea is PIRATES. And pirates need a lot of different ships/places/ports/etc. to plunder.

So I thought, "I have at least five worlds already created. What if they were in the same WORLD, but were each different continents?"

Well.

To say the least, it happened.

It happened rather beautifully, in my opinion:

For those of y'all who are curious, the stories associated with each world are as follows:

Niinia: Currently untitled, originally known as Blueberries Before Dark or THE Game. (note-- this was my first ever story idea. I came up with it when I was seven, I believe.)I broke one of my sisters' hearts when I first showed her this map, since Niinia was originally a planet in a rather large system of other planets, and there was a whole travel between planets everything that was a lot of fun to come up with, not to mention the fact that one of her planets in that galaxy had a waterfall falling from a moon orbiting the planet. So it was very extensive. I'm sad to say that epic bit of ingeniousness has been removed for the time being. We'll see what happens with it. 

Kraidare: Team 14. Also an older story, been through the works of my brain at least six times, probably more. I think I've made mention of this story before on my blog... several hundred years ago or something. Ah yes, here it is. This was another harder continent to create, because it was also a system rather than a singular world, with portals leading around to the other planets. Each planet had a different biome/common weather pattern, and was again very fun to create, but I decided a little while ago (before all this, actually) that the story would work better if it was all one world. As it is, the different countries in Kraidare are named for each original planet, and most of the land types are the same as what the planets would've had.

Myleck: The Last Phoenix. The only of the stories here that has been finished. Home of one of my most popular characters ever written, according to several of my friends who've read it. Myleck was a little kick to myself, since my greatest annoyance with TLP was that I didn't do like any worldbuilding, including I didn't name their world in the story, even though the plot of the story is Let's Save the World. So... I did a little more with the world. And when I edit TLP, there will be a bit more about the actual everything. 

Gerdin: Out from the Stellular. A story that originally was just trying to get me back into writing without any plot or cool characters, just practicing basics again... It worked, until I decided I liked the characters. Now, it's... going to be something more eventually. I never got far enough into it to really do a whole lot of world building, especially since the majority of the story was going to be in inter-dimensional rift full of stars and swirling colorful gases called the Stellular, hence the title... But there still needs to be a bit of a world.

Khogea: A Word Unbroken. My current WIP, and my character happy place... Although the characters themselves aren't very happy usually. It was actually the reason I decided to do this whole world combining thing. I wanted my pirates to meet some of my Khogean characters. Which will be chaotic. Especially when the dragons show up. Wait, did I just say that? I've said too much already... ooops. Anyways, I was already planning on making a map of Khogea before I did the whole world thing, because I've been making the setting a big part, since there's once more portals and world hopping although it's just over the impregnable mountains.... ehhehheh I'm going at it again. It's not that big of secrets, I just don't want to tantalize y'all in case it takes a while to fully rant about AWU. So I'll stop now. I'll get more into the world everything when I go on said rant. 

So today's writing stuffs was a little less about my actual stories. But I hope you enjoyed this little peek at what my brain is possibly cooking up and the basic settings of my future stories. Can't wait to talk about them more!

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

AND WE'RE BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK

 

Hello, hello everyone!

I cannot believe summer is already at a close. It went by wayyyy too fast for my liking. It was a very busy and fun and EXCITING summer, which is probably why it went by too quickly. 

Anyways, since school will be starting up soon, I figured now would be as good a time as any to start figuring out exactly what kind of chaos I'll be causing around here.

Also I figured I should probably explain where the new name for my blog came from... I've had several of my family members ask about it.

Well, whenever I talk to my amazing writing partner, Hannah, about my characters' current shenanigans for the day, I usually end (or start) with saying "chaos." Lots and lots of chaos. So I figured if I was going to go a bit more in depth about my stories here, there will probably be even more chaos, so I might as well say it up front.

And cinnamon rolls... mmmm... actually, that part of the name came from the meme "looks like a cinnamon roll, will actually kill you." If you don't know which one I'm talking about, here's a Clone Wars version:

Yeah, that's basically one of my favorite memes... My plan is when I introduce a new story, I'll drop one of these with my characters as the cinnamon rolls.

So now you know where the name came from. All good? Awesome. If you wanna bail before the chaos starts, I won't blame you. 

Okay! Now that that's outta the way... I wanna talk about my plans. I'm currently hoping to post at least three times a month, most likely posting on Saturdays, but we shall see. If I post more than thrice, that would be spectacular, but with my school schedule and position on my school's newspaper, I'm not sure how often that'll be. We'll also see which day will be the freest. I have no school (woohoo) on Saturdays (hopefully) but we shall seeeeeeeeeee. 

I will be active this year! 

I promise!

And now... I want to tell y'all about what I did this summer, because some of it was amazing. Actually, all of it was amazing, but some of it made a bit more of an impact. There was one really big event for all three months of summer so far (and another this month, but I don't wanna cry currently, so we'll skip that for the time being) so I'll focus on those!

MAY

Well, school ended in May. That in and of itself is crazy to think about, since that was my sophmore year that finished... BUT that's not what I wanted to focus on.

Also in May, my family went on a 10-day trip to Great Smoky Mountains and Shenandoah National Parks, full of camping, canoeing, car trips, and cuddles from the doggo man. We also stopped at the Natural Bridge State Park in VA on the way home, which was super cool, and we drove along the Blue Ridge Parkway for a little while.

And I got to stand under a waterfall and get soaked and be soaked for another two hours, which was FABULOUS (not sarcastic) and yeah I loved it. 

It was also great to spend time with my family, since my oldest sister is in her senior year of college this school year and my other older sister is starting her freshman year, so there won't be much longer for us to be the full family unit (ahhhhh I wasn't going to mention that yettttttttt), so I loved having a week just us being great for a while!

Also, because I want to, PICTURES:

JUNE

And then came June.

And I got to go with my fabulous church on a mission trip to Honduras for a week. 

And it was so amazing.

People have asked me what the most amazing thing that happened on the trip was, and my only answer was just seeing God answer so many prayers. I often get headaches and migraines, some of which make me feel like I just want to lie on the couch and be comatose for a few years. I'd asked for prayers about that, and other than a singular migraine in the airport the day we arrived, I had ZERO headaches. It was amazing.

For the majority of the week, I had the song "Livin' on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi stuck in my head. Funny fact: I don't even really like or know that song. But I realized, in a sense, my team really was living on prayers. We were doing construction work with our bare hands (in some cases, actually bare because we didn't have enough gloves to go around) and many of my teammates were getting small injuries or ailments. Then after our team prayer time, it seemed like they just vanished.

Once more, it was spectacular.

Anyways, before I start fangirling too hard (this isn't the worst thing I can fangirl about, but I want to keep this post short-ish) I'll just reiterate that it was an amazing trip, and God is working so many amazing things in Honduras.

While we were there, our primary objectives were putting on a VBS for about 120 kids from a nearby school and constructing a wall for a dorm space in a loft above the church. The dorm was going to be a place for men to stay while they were being trained to be missionaries and sent out to the nearby mountain villages.

I have to say it again, although you're probably tired of it: the trip was incredible.

AND PICTURES! BECAUSE WE GOT SOME REALLY EPIC SHOTS:

           

JULY

Almost exactly two weeks after we got back from Honduras, I set out for Virginia alone. First flight on my own, and it was delayed like forty times in a row.

Okay, fine, five... 

I went to a Multi-Media Journalism camp at Patrick Henry College for a week, and it was so fun. So fun. I've recently decided that journalism is what I want to do as a living in some way, shape, or fashion once I'm old enough to live alone. This camp definitely pushed me further down that path.

Also, it's pushing me towards going to PHC as my college eventually... so we'll see where God leads me.

Anyways, the camp itself had a few classes with the Journalism professor, who took us deeper into multi-media journalism. We learned how to do strong interviews, collect ambient sounds, did some green-screen reviews, listened to podcasts and analyzed what made them good, and made our own mini-documentary.

I spent the whole of my free time each day working on that documentary with my amazing teammates, so it was very satisfying that my team won. It was also very fun to learn that I basically found two awesome friends who are almost my twins....

Anyways, PICTURES:

AUGUST

My sisters are going to college.

Nothing more needs to be said.

Oh, and I'm turning sixteen and school starts and stuff....

Alright, now that we've got all that out of the way, I wanted to introduce myself a little bit more in depth. 

My name is Annabeth, but around here I go by Kal Tomson. I am fifteen, but turning sixteen in a little more than a week. 

My five favorite artists are The Arcadian Wild, Skillet, Sarah Sparks, Brit Nicole, and For King and Country. (I also like certain Imagine Dragons and Bastille songs, but not all...)

My three favorite books (currently) are Last of the Nephilim by Bryan Davis, Secrets in the Mist by Morgan L. Busse, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

My favorite movies are Call of the Wild, Polycarp, Rouge One, Return of the King, and Into the Spiderverse. (I also adore The Clone Wars, Bad Batch, and Rebels, but since they're all series, I can't quite count them.)

My current hobbies include taking long walks, writing, sometimes drawing, and singing Disney songs with my little sister. Sometimes repeatedly to annoy my oldest sister, Faith. Who knew she could scream so loudly at the Descendants soundtrack....

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this little flash of who I am and what I've been doing, and I can't wait to start doing this all more often!!!! Thanks for reading!!!!!