Pictogram of the Topes in Connections! The Unexpected First Collection

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Image showing the rating for the tropes in Connections! The First Unexpected Collection. Battle couple, wedding planning, and superheroes are all about 90%, Spicy is about 45%, and Origin Stories is about 75%. At the bottom, there’s a “Vibes”, which has an image from the TV show Star Trek: Short Treks (2018).
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Princess of Thieves – JenEric Movie Review

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How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2001 film Princess of Thieves.

Story

The story feels like a mid 1990’s feelgood made for TV movie. It’s slightly silly and it refuses to let its main character do much.

Score: 0

Characters

The main love pair are a lot of fun when they’re together. The rest of the cast is much too good for the material.

I am severely annoyed that they talked her up as being an expert archer, rider, and swordsman but she only seemed able to shoot. She needed saving far too often. They’d never have written the character in the same way had it been a boy.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

Some lines could be iconic, others are just bad. It has a lot of, “But daddy!” energy that could have been way more annoying with another actor.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

The visuals are pretty good, it shows that they filmed on location. The camera work is steady and well done, if very 90’s in style.

The music is a great match to the Disney Robin Hood and later versions. It’s heroic and fun.

Score: 1

Fun

This is the kind of movie that I expect is someone’s childhood favourite. It has all the elements to be great but needs the imagination of a child to put it together in a more coherent way.

Score: 0.5

Overall

A fun period movie that is bound to be someone’s favourite but that can’t decide what it wants to be. The acting and locations are excellent, but the rest is a little meh.

Final Score: 2.5 Stars out of 5

Couch Mira

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KPop Demon Hunter cosplays were the ones I was looking forward to seeing the most this weekend, and I wasn’t disappointed! I wasn’t able to grab a Bobby cosplayer, much to my disappointment, or a Baby Saja, but I got the rest of the main characters, starting with the awesome @princessofthenorth as Mira ready for the “couch couch couch!” And yes, she made all those delicious treats from scratch. No, you may not eat them, they’re not actually food!

A KPop Demon Hunters themed birthday party

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When your child gives you just over two weeks to plan a birthday party, and decides to make the theme that of the hit movie of the summer (the one that Netflix has yet to put out any merch for), you don’t panic.

You plan.

I hope that this helps you if you find yourself in a similar situation, whether by using the templates or getting inspiration.

This party had four parts: craft, dance, food, free play. (Note that we were in a park.)

All links are affiliate-free. Canva links contain all free items. The image background for the badges is from NASA.

Initial setup

Invitations and Thank you card templates on Canva (both French and English are included)

Badges (lanyard from chasingartwork, ID card holders from Amazon, badge – front and back template on Canva)

Child’s name protected by the white bar

Please note that if you need any assistance with the Canva templates, you can contact me through our contact us form!

Craft

Needed:

  • mirrored compact, plastic (Amazon)
  • emery board (Amazon)
  • stencil (or you can free-hand it) (Canva template)
  • nail polish (whatever brand you like)
  • spray sealant (Walmart)
Note that the kids didn’t use the inverse stencils. They also didn’t use the lion head.
example/test run

Optional:

  • nail polish remover and q-tips/paper towels
  • Exacto knife (if you’re cutting out a stencil like I did) and cutting board – do this in advance! It’ll take longer than you think.

Steps:

  1. Rough up the surface of the plastic with the emery board, just a little bit. This allows the paint to adhere better to the plastic.
  2. Tape the stencil in place so it doesn’t move around.
  3. Use very little nail polish to paint your design. Too much will leak underneath the stencil. Experiment! Different polishes will give you a different result.
  4. Remove the stencil immediately so that it doesn’t stick to the nail polish.
  5. Let it dry for a few minutes.
  6. Spray with the sealant. (outdoors)
    • Note: Don’t touch the sealant until it’s completely dry!

Dance

We had my sister to teach “Soda Pop” to the kids. If you don’t happen to have a trained dance teacher on hand, here’s a tutorial so that you can teach it. I might recommend “Golden” instead – it’s a little slower.

Food

We had popcorn from Papa Jack’s Surprise Box (like Zoey and Mira cry after seeing Abby’s abs) and juice boxes (generic) to snack on.

We made cupcakes, added blue food colouring to the icing, to look like the top of Derpy (the tiger)’s head. Then we printed out tiny images of Sussy the bird and taped them to toothpicks (you can search for these. I didn’t do anything special to them).

Free Play

Note that it is a good time to get everyone together for a picture before you release them to play.

We gave out gymnastic ribbon wands (Amazon) (to represent the honmoon) and played the soundtrack. They danced around waving the ribbons, and it looked super cool! Sorry I can’t share the picture – too many kids’ faces. Believe me when I say that it looked amazing.

Loot bags

We had to get creative with these as well, since there’s no merch yet!

Obviously, they got to bring home their painted mirrors and the ribbons. We taped up the popcorn bags if they didn’t eat it all, and put them in the bags too.

I forgot to add the popcorn bag to the picture

We considered adding mini microphones, but I didn’t like any of the ones I found.

We also considered doing facepaint as an activity, but decided against it.

I hope you enjoyed this post and found something useful to help you in your party planning! Feel free to reach out with any questions!

Tropes of “Connections! The Unexpected First Collection”

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Connections! The Unexpected First Collection. Cover art by @pinkpiggy93
Click the image to go to the link https://www.tiktok.com/@jendesmaraisauthor/video/7550805896675347732

Every book utilizes tropes, even if it’s to subvert them, and Connections! The Unexpected First Collection is no exception. This book covers: No angst romance, adult, hidden magical world, aliens, superheroes, dual POV, detailed worldbuilding, and origin stories

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The Wild Robot – JenEric Movie Review

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How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2025 film The Wild Robot.

Story

This treads the line between traumatic and adorable. On its surface, it’s a cutesy film about adoption and found family. Below the surface, the movie has a lot of awkward colonial tones.

Score: 0.5

Characters

The voice actors did a fabulous job. I particularly loved Lupita Nyong’o’s evolution throughout the movie from pure robotic to more humanized.

At the beginning it felt like the characters acted out for the gag more than the plot and it was a little tiresome.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

The dialogue was good mostly. It was a nice exploration of what it means to be a parent and a friend. The jokes were sometimes funny and sometimes over the top.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

The movie was beautifully animated and really did a great job giving each animal a personality.

The music was good, it did a great job at helping with the mood.

Score: 0.5

Fun

It was a fun movie. There are a lot of unanswered questions and word building issues, but they probably just annoyed me and weren’t that important.

The kids loved it.

Score: 1

Overall

A fun kids movie that explores what it means to be a family while showing the importance of change. It has its flaws but the acting will make you forget about it.

Final Score: 3 Stars out of 5

Dear Dragon – Welcome to Level 9

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Dear Dragon,

This past year has felt so fast, and you’re growing so much emotionally and intellectually. It leaves me in awe and makes me so proud. We’ve spent the past year closer to home without any big trips. We did go to a bunch of conventions. You’ve become extremely helpful during them. You’re helping with set up, tear down, and you’ve even started selling a little.

This year you’ve:

  • Did really well at school, your favourite subjects were math, music, and dance
  • Cooked several meals as head chef (you have a great instinct for flavours)
  • Really improved in piano and even performed your first concert at the school talent show
  • Played Clue with your mom and even came close to winning
  • Had a huge reading leap and are reading full novels now
  • Read mine and mom’s complete catalogue of books (not the pen name stuff)
  • Were diagnosed with ADHD and Gifted like your mum and I

There have been some hard times, fights with friends, and frustrations on understanding why people do things. I wish I could help, but I find so much of human interactions confusing. We’re in the process of getting you assessed for autism (again like your mum and I) and that could explain some of last years frustrations with friends but it could just be the randomness of kids. Either way, I understand. All last year’s angst seems to have been washed out over the summer, so that’s a good thing.

I’m consistently impressed by your mind and strength of personality. You are so good at seeing patterns in stories, puzzles, and games. You are getting better and better at guessing the end of a mystery. You also stand up for what you think is right. We’ve had other parents say that you’ve been a good influence on their kids.

It’s hard to get you to bed or to whatever is the next thing we need to do because I love talking with you so much.

You have some bad moments; you get angry/snippy when hungry and really rude when you’re stressed, but that’s just with us not with others. It’s something to work on but I’m not as worried as I once was.

We talked about IQ the other day and I told you that what is more important is: kindness, knowledge, and curiosity. You embody these three in most of your interactions.

I love you so much little Dragon!

Your Papa

The Scarlet Thread Irregulars (Serial Story) — Chapter 9

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Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12

Chapter 9: My team comes face to face with a villain

Thursday the 12th of October, 2006 – Shields Crossing, Ontario

They called him Galaus the Slayer. Might sound a little melodramatic but it was pretty fair for having killed half the council in the late nineteenth century.

There was a large sign at the edge of his property that read, “Stay the F out.” It was underlined by a black arming sword that looked a lot like mine.

Sylvie chuckled and said, “Really? The big bad slayer couldn’t write the whole word?”

The trees were tightly packed, but once we passed the sign,, there was a perfectly round clearing with a little white house in the centre. The clearing was at least half a kilometre in diameter. “Stay on the road,” I told the others as we walked up to the house, “I’d be ready to bet there are traps in the grass areas.”

“That’s pretty harsh,” Grant said, moving more into the centre of the road.

“Do you blame the man? He’s been hunted by Gatekeepers for over a hundred years,” Ursula added.

“That means he’s seen us coming already and he’s overly cautious. We should be ready to protect ourselves,” Sylvie said while zipping up her jacket and tapping the zipper three times. I assumed her fiancée had put some sort of protective magic on it.

“Keep your swords sheathed,” I ordered as we got half way to the little house. “We don’t w—” A streak of dark light flew toward me and suddenly an onyx black sword was being held to my neck. 

A man that looked like he was in his nineties but moved like he was in his twenties stood in front of me, holding the sword in one hand and a sawed-off shotgun in the other. “I thought the council had finally given up trying to kill me.” Despite living in the woods, he wore a three piece charcoal suit.

“We’re not here to kill you. We’re here to ask you for help.”

He laughed and replied, “You’re either desperate or stupid.”

“Oh he’s definitely both sir,” Sylvie quipped. Her posture was relaxed but it was a little forced. I knew her well enough that she was calculating the risks he posed and what she needed to do to neutralize him as a threat. 

“Ha!” he said and added, “Family huh? Interesting. Show me your swords.” His sword and gun didn’t waver. The group all summoned their swords and he relaxed a little. “What about you?” He punctuated the question with his sword.

I summoned my sword in reverse grip, planting its tip in the gravel road and leaning on it.

The man nodded and asked, “Who was your master?”

The rest of the group pointed at me and I sighed. If Lance was a traitor, he’d either framed or tried to kill him and I really didn’t want to say his name. “Please don’t puncture me but my master was Lance.”

“He taught a blackblade? I’m surprised. You must have been very trusting.” He brought his sword and gun down. “What do you want from an old, tired man?” He turned around and started walking to the house.

I took that as an invitation to follow and answered his question, “The Gatekeepers have made a name for themselves as being honourable. I had no reason to doubt him.”

“Sounds like you needed to believe you were chosen to do good.” He paused and took a deep, shaky breath before continuing, “I was the same way at your age. The Gatekeepers were the incorruptible knights. They represented all that was good and trustworthy. But not all of us liked following a strict moral code.

“War was brewing and we knew it was going to be massive. After the Magical community got together and voted to stay neutral, there was a lot of trouble. The wizards asked us to act as peace keepers. The Gatekeeper council decided to not interfere in the war but still keep helping individuals who needed it.

“The goldblades didn’t agree; they thought that we could do more good fighting the war than staying out of it. Lance and the others attacked the council and despite my best attempts I wasn’t able to save them.”

“That’s quite a story,” Sylvie said, looking not the least impressed. She glared at him, obviously waiting for more information.

Turning around to face me, the man said, “You have a lippy one. You’ll have to train some respect into her.”

“Never talk about one of my knights like that again,” I said growling a little. I was going to follow it up with something devastatingly clever but got distracted.

We were close to the house now and something smelled off. I should be smelling grass, forest, and some woodsmoke from the house, but instead I was smelling sulfur and rotten eggs.

I stopped moving and held my hand up in a fist to tell the others to do the same.

“Sylvie, Grant, and Ursula, could you please take out your swords?”

The moment the rainbow swords appeared, the environment around us changed. The perfectly manicured lawn became marshy wetlands, the small house turned into a familiar mansion, and the old man became Luc. 

“Oh darn, I almost had you.” He didn’t seem all that surprised. “It’s a matter of time. You’ll come begging me to help you in chapter eleven.”

“What did you do with Galaus?” I asked, ignoring his words.

The devil smiled widely and replied, “That’s the great part. I didn’t do anything. I just tricked your GPS.” To Sylvie, he asked, “When did you know?”

She replied, “Your tongue touches your front teeth after you lie. Your suit is too modern. A hundred year old knight would wear something more vintage.”

“I knew I should have gone with tails.” Luc snapped his fingers in mock disappointment.

Sylvie shook her head and said, “To be more authentic, I’d go with a long black double-breasted coat, a black vest, and a white dress shirt with a bow tie. Don’t forget the bowler hat.”

“That’s awfully specific, wh—” Luc was cut off by a dark blade piercing his throat. Behind him, having appeared without warning, was a large, sixty year old man sporting a bright orange handlebar moustache and dressed exactly as Sylvie had described.

Luc’s body turned to black smoke and floated into the mansion as both disappeared, leaving us facing the newcomer whose blade was now pointed toward me.

With a heavy Scottish accent, the man said, “Pie said you might need some help.”

Read Chapter 10

While you wait for the next chapter, check out the previous serial stories: