The First Verse Of What Child Is This But Over A Painting Of The Pieta

i’d care if the person i reblogged this from vanished

idc if you reblog this from me but reblog it every time you see one of your friends or mutuals have reblogged it

I'm beginning to think that eucatastrophe may be one of the most important elements of a true Christmas story.

When Scrooge wakes up and discovers that it's still Christmas morning and he can spread the joy of Christmas and make everything right before it's too late.

When the Grinch returns to Whoville and gives all their presents and decorations and the feast back to them.

When Kevin McCallister's family comes back home just in time for Christmas - not only his mom who's been trying so hard to make it back, but also the rest of them who had to wait for the next flight - and the old man gets his family back too.

And especially, especially, when George Bailey gets to live again, and discovers that everyone in town has been pitching in what they can to help him pay off his debts - and not just for the $8,000! Sam Wainwright gives him $25,000 and he's the richest man in town!

Eucatastrophe. It's so perfect for Christmas because Christmas itself is the beginning of the greatest eucatastrophe of them all.

Oo, these are fun! Here's a few other ideas that popped into my head:

What if Coulson was alive for the events of season six?

What if May didn't leave Providence to find Maria?

What if Tripp was inhuman?

What if Hope lived?

What if Cal found Daisy earlier?

What if May didn't marry Andrew?

What if Jemma was the LMD?

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. "What If...?" scenarios bc s3 was lowkey mediocre and there were no AoS references throughout the season so now I'm salty and centering a whole season around AoS:

(yes some of these are from a previous post)

What if Fitz was the true HYDRA mole?

What if Coulson was dead the whole time and his adventures were all in his brain?

What if the team never escaped the Framework?

What if Daisy got corrupted by the Darkhold?

What if Raina got Daisy's powers?

What if Hive won?

What if the agents joined the final battles against Thanos?

What if half of the agents were Snapped?

What if Daisy was taken to Asgard by Sif?

What if May decided to not go to Bahrain?

What if Mack sacrificed himself in place of Lincoln?

What if Jemma remained on Maveth forever?

(TW) What if Kora never killed herself in the main timeline?

What if Ward was really a triple agent?

What if Loki and Coulson met again?

What if Izel controlled Daisy?

What if the Avengers found out about Coulson's resurrection?

Sign-Ups Now Open!

Anyone who wants to participate in the May Blind Fic Exchange can now sign up, from now until May 13th. Please refer to the pinned post for full instructions.

Below the cut is the official list of participants.

kuraiarcoiris

novelmonger

HELLO HI YES YOU

ARE YOU GETTING TIRED OF A LOT OF RECENT MCU PROJECTS BC THEY JUST REPEAT THE SAME ASPECTS AND THE CHARACTERS DON'T SEEM TO EVER SHOW UP AGAIN

ARE YOU LOOKING FOR SOMETHING MCU-ADJACENT BUT NOT TO THE POINT OF REWATCHING ALL THE MOVIES?

THEN MAY I PRESENT TO YOU: AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

COMPLETELY MCU WITH THE PLOTS WE KNOW AND LOVE ONLY DONE CONSIDERABLY BETTER THAN THE MCU EVER COULD

FOUND FAMILY!! PINING!! ANGST!! SEASONS-LONG RELATIONSHIPS!! WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT

TRY AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. TODAY

I attended a The Oh Hellos ( @theohfficialhellos )  concert this past Friday, which happened to coincide with Good Friday.  One of there songs, Caesar, describes Christ’s Passion, so I had to make a comic and give it to them (I was able to give it to their merch guy, I hope the rest of band saw it!)

On an aside, that night, the concert, was particularly healing for me, as I’ve been going through some dark valleys lately.  Sometimes Gods love appears in the form of a banjo ya know?

Canonically, Elanor doesn't like chocolate except occasionally when mixed with other things.

Canonically, Elanor is a very cautious person unless it involves a lake, at which point she will just keep going.

Canonically, Elanor ran around in costume shooting nerf bullets at people right after turning eighteen.

Putting “canonically” before saying anything you’ve done in the third person is hilarious, makes you feel like a character, and sounds like a crazy headcanon that’s actually 100% true. Observe:

Canonically, Morgan enjoys Nutella and peanut butter on her bagels.

Canonically, Morgan caused a Paramecium Incident right before her elementary school graduation (on accident; rip my several thousand microorganism pets in an uncovered plastic cup).

Doesn’t matter how mundane or wild it is, it’s still funny to me

If you see this, you’re obligated to reblog with your own canon life lore!🤣 (y’know, just if you want)

Mini-Review: Jet Lag: The Game

An American travel competition series, each season features a contest that sends players to achieve a geographical objective in different parts of the world, some of which are inspired by board games. Whether it's teams traveling to to US states to claim a Connect Four-style row or column, circumnavigating the globe via air travel, playing tag across western Europe, or driving the vertical length of New Zealand, players will race against each other and the reliability of transit to get the win.

Imagine: you are an adult, collapsing into a hotel bed after a long day of getting lost on the public transit of your vacation city. You're about to stream something funny and not difficult to follow—maybe Nailed It!, maybe Taskmaster—when you companion interjects, says they've been watching this really fun travel race show, and starts a playlist where a quartet of people in predawn darkness run away six seconds into the video, and suddenly you're watching people race to circumnavigate the world?

That was my introduction to Jet Lag: The Game.

Each season is a self-contained game, and they mix it up: the first season (which, for some reason, is the second playlist on YouTube) is a game of "Connect Four" across America, where teams must "claim" four states in a horizontal or vertical row by traveling to each one and completing challenges, while the second game is a race to circumnavigate the globe, and the third season is a game of tag across western Europe, primarily using train systems.

Sidequest-like challenges are an integral part of these games. In most of them, players must unlock coins or money (as in a video game) to have the in-game balance to buy tickets, or unlock information about opponents, etc., so the series is never a straight race. The challenges vary by season and location, but include things like:

Logic or trivia challenges

Go to a museum for half an hour and tell the camera 5 fun facts you learned

Eat a menu item at McDonald's you can't get in the US

Get 1000 feet from any building

Get a hole in one in mini golf

Find [animal] at [local attraction famous for animal]

Make cheese

Cursed! Listen to Tom Lehrer's "Element Song" on repeat until you reach the next city [over an hour away]

Cursed! Only take trains that leave at odd-numbered times

Acquire any food produced in your current state and mail it to your family

Explain the birds and the bees to a bird or a bee

Ride a horse

Get goosebumps while at least one goose is in the camera frame

Because the challenges are random (usually drawn from a shuffled deck of cards), it adds tension to the games: the player or team needs money/coins/points in order to travel, or thwart their competitors, and there's a real risk that they'll fail because it's physically impossible or there's not enough time to complete.

If you, like me, are wary of YouTubers™, worry not. The focus here is the game, and the players do a decent job trying not to bother other people: most faces of passers-by are blurred, players try to set up in out-of-the-way corners when filming, and when they need to interact with people, like at a customer service desk, the camera is usually pointed at the player. There's also a lot of being very polite to customer service, drivers, and others they interact with. You can see them get strange looks sometimes, but overall they do a good job of trying not to be Social Media Personalities™ disruptively.

And the players themselves also seem to be nice people to watch; they'll send "curses" or other interruptions when the game allows for it, but there's no out-of-game interpersonal unpleasantness that makes it into the show. Also, one player, Ben, consistently wears the brightest, most funky clothes. He has no camouflage in a crowd, but who cares.

Final comments: Highly recommend. It's fun, safe for most ages—swears stronger than "damn" get bleeped—and you can tell that a lot of planning and thought has gone into game development to balance things. If you like the idea of race-type reality shows combined with good attitudes and sportsmanship, you'll probably enjoy this.

Subtitle availability: English closed captions are available and very well-done, sometimes including different font colors to indicate different people in conversations, and some excellent phonetic spellings of mispronunciations! However, for the first two seasons (Connect 4 and Circumnavigation), only auto-generated captions on YT are available.

Where to watch (USA, as of December 2024): YouTube (playlists link [X]) and Nebula (which was partially founded by the game's creator)—which also has recap/discussion podcasts, and series outtake video tarting with season 8, and the service gets new episodes a week early.

Start watching with: The friend who introduced me started me with the first playlist that shows up on YouTube, Circumnavigation, so I feel like if it worked on me, it'll work on others. But if that doesn't appeal to you, starting with either the next playlist—Connect Four Across America (which is actually the first season) or the third season, Tag Eur It, would be good. I started my parents on Tag Eur It, a game of tag across multiple European countries, because I think it's got one of the strongest hooks of any early series, explains the rules very quickly, and the immediate urgency (runner must run; chasers start to follow soon after) draws you in very quickly.

But really, starting anywhere will work. However, because the creators sometimes reference outcomes from earlier games, especially when they are playing near the location of previous games, I recommend watching any similar-geography games in order (Tag 1 before Tag 2 or Hide and Seek, and New Zealand [Race to the End of the World] before Australia).

Status/Frequency: There are currently 11 complete seasons on Youtube (12 on Nebula), and so far new seasons premier roughly 3-ish times a year, with most seasons lasting 5-6 episodes, and episodes tend to be 30-45 minutes each. As of this review, there is no indication that this is likely to change anytime soon, and the 12th season premiers this month.

Click my “reviews” tag below or search “mini review” on my blog to find more!

Thinking about this quote in light of Christmas:

"And why, sir, I never thought of that before! We've got—you've got some of the light of it in that star-glass that the Lady gave you! Why, to think of it, we're in the same tale still! It's going on. Don't the great tales never end?"

There's no glass filled with the light of the Christmas star, but the light of the world that arrived at Christmas is still shining in and among us. The tale is going on, now and for always.