Ever since he was a little boy, it’s been Plankton’s dream to take over the world—a dream he believes he can fulfill if he can only steal the infamous-but-secret Krabby Patty formula. The reason he believes this is a bit convoluted; but suffice it to say that Plankton’s plans have always failed, often foiled by SpongeBob himself.

Unfortunately, that repeated failure has taken a toll on Karen. She’s always supported her husband’s dream, but she believes he’s going about it the wrong way. Karen’s something of an evil genius herself—being a cross between a computer and a robot, after all—but for 25 years, Plankton has neglected to acknowledge her brilliance.

Well, enough is enough for Karen. So when Plankton refuses to listen to her ideas once again, Karen decides to end their evil alliance and take over the world for herself.

Realizing he can’t stop Karen alone, Plankton reluctantly teams up with SpongeBob. But the happy, yellow sponge doesn’t just want to save Bikini Bottom: He wants to save Plankton’s marriage.

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Proud. Drunken. Womanizing.

Those words all fit him quite well. He might even claim them. He’s also quite competitive.

And that competitive side of him always tends to peek its head up at the wrong time. Especially when Caligula is around, and he’s had too many cups of wine. Yes, it’s definitely unwise for a Roman soldier to purposely ruffle the feathers of Emperor Tiberius’ regent.

But Caligula is such a vile, self-indulgent man that he makes Marcellus look like a saint.

So Marcellus can’t keep himself from goading and prodding the man when he pompously parades into the slave trade. And soon after … Marcellous finds himself punitively posted to some barren outpost out in the desert. A dust bowl called Judaea.

The only good aspect of the whole affair is the fact that Marcellus reconnected with an old friend back at that Roman auction. Well, perhaps she’s more than a friend. Could he say that he once loved the pretty Diana? Perhaps. Perhaps.

In any case, Diana said she would talk to Tiberius on his behalf about Marcellus’ situation. All Marcellus needs to do is hold on for a while, and he’ll be transferred back to civilization before he knows it. And he’ll be returning to Diana. Yes, that prospect is sounding sweeter by the day.

So, Marcellus spends his time sweating and drinking. And waiting. When he’s finally called before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, the man looks very disturbed. Not at Marcellus, but at the fact that he can’t seem to get his hands clean.

There is this magician in the city who’s been giving the governor fits. The Jews—well, many of them—call this bewildering person a “king.” And all Pilate wants is to see the man called Jesus done away with. So, he tells Marcellus to simply crucify this criminal. Then he can be gone, and Marcellus can leave this terrible place.

Marcellus has never killed anyone in this manner, but a few extra cups of wine will surely get him through.

The rest is a blur. Blood on his hands. Dying men breathing their last. Gambling with the Centurion guards.

But there’s something strange about this man they call Jesus. He bleeds and hangs on the cross, to be sure, but it’s as if He calls the time of his death. “Father, forgive them,” the man cries out as Marcellus gazes up at him. “For they know not what they do.” And then He dies.

Marcellus feels the shift before he sees it. The day slides out of gear, the sky grows black. The clouds swell. The people standing around quiver, look up and cry. And then the rains begin to fall.

Marcellus grabs this Jesus’ cast-off robe—for he had won it rolling dice—but when he puts it over his shoulders it burns, it scalds. Is the robe cursed? Or is it something else? Is the pain he feels outside him, or in?

On the way back to Capri, Marcellus falls ill and thrashes in nightmares. And when he reports his story to the superstitious old emperor, Tiberius, the ruler and his soothsayers quickly see what must be happening. Marcellus’ agonies are surely a curse, caused by the foul dead magician and his robe.

Marcellus must return to the parched land of Judaea and find that accursed robe. That is his foresight, his destiny. That will be his salvation, they declare.

And in a way … they’re absolutely right.

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Officer Knight may not be the sharpest tack in the box, but he’s athletic and strong. His dog Greg, however, is as bright as they come. He just can’t communicate well because he’s, you know, a dog.

Together though they make a great pair of crime stoppers. (And hey, they don’t even need a police siren, since Greg’s doggy howl attracts far more attention.) They’re the best of the best and they get the job done.

Until, that is, they don’t.

One day while giving chase to the vile villain Petey the Cat, Officer Knight and Greg accidentally set off a bomb. And PAZAW! The two find themselves in a conundrum. They’re rushed to the hospital, and the doctor proclaims that the poor officer’s head is just no good anymore. And poor Greg’s body is no good either.

All is lost … until a nurse steps up to suggest that they simply sew Greg’s head on Officer Knight’s body. Which, of course, is a brilliant idea. Greg’s smarts matched with Knight’s athleticism results in nothing less than Dog Man, a truly terrific Supa Cop!

This incredible law officer can’t talk anymore, but hey, talking is overrated. Dog Man can lick crime better than the best of ‘em. He treats baddies like a dug-up bone. He’s incredible!

Of course, villains like Petey won’t just hiss and run for cover. Petey is still scratching up insidious inventions and hairball hoodwinks. He even goes so far as to clone himself! (Though his clone, Lil Petey, is just the cutest little thing. Ahem.) Anyway, Petey the Cat is up to no good.

So, Dog Man will have to put his nose to the ground and get to do-gooding and crime-solving. I mean, after he chases a stick and a tennis ball or two.  

Ruff!

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Paddington did find a family, the Browns. They’ve had quite their share of adventures since adopting Paddington, dodging a mad taxidermist and rescuing Paddington from wrongful imprisonment. But through it all, the Brown family, including Paddington, has only grown closer.

But lately, it hasn’t really felt that way.

Mr. Brown, ever the risk-assessor, has a new boss forcing him to throw caution to the wind. Son Jonathan sequesters himself in his room, using his inventions to enable his lazy lifestyle. Daughter Judy is applying for university, hoping to move out on her own. And Mrs. Brown is missing the times when her whole family could fit on a single couch, loving and laughing together.

So, when Paddington receives a letter informing him that Aunt Lucy has gone missing, Mrs. Brown announces that the whole family will help him find her. It’s the perfect opportunity to spend some quality time together, she reasons.

When they arrive in Peru, Paddington learns Aunt Lucy was searching for an ancient Incan monument called Rumi Rock. Rumor has it that Rumi Rock is the first step toward finding the legendary (and lost) city of El Dorado.

The Browns hire a local riverboat to guide them to Rumi Rock, captained by Hunter Cabot and his daughter, Gina. Unfortunately, they soon learn that Hunter has his own history with the Incan monument. For centuries, his family has obsessed over the rumored gold located in El Dorado.

And Hunter will do just about anything—including abandoning his daughter and kidnapping Paddington—to get his hands on the gold.

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Moana teamed up with Maui to find and return the heart of Te Fiti. In so doing, they calmed Te Ka (who, it turns out, was just who Te Fiti became without her heart). And the ocean was finally safe to traverse again.

Well, Moana’s been doing just that. As her village’s Windfinder, she’s been sailing across the sea, searching for new islands and new peoples.

As of yet, she’s had no success. Sure, there are plenty of other islands in the area. Some even show evidence of other tribes having lived there once. But nobody has responded to her conch-shell calls.

Then, Moana receives a vision from her ancestor Tautai Vasa, the former Windfinder of her island. According to him, Moana’s mission is doomed to fail unless she can find the legendary island of Motufetu. In ages past, the island served as a central connection point, a place where all the currents of the ocean (and all the peoples) met. Unfortunately, Nalo, the god of thunder and chaos who hates humans, sunk the island to the depths of the sea, cutting off the currents and preventing passage from one island group to the next.

Moana learns that unless she finds Motufetu and breaks Nalo’s curse, her people will eventually wither away and die alone in isolation. And not just her people, but the people of each island she’s yet to discover.

The voyage will be long and dangerous. In fact, it could take a lifetime to succeed—if Moana is indeed able to succeed at all. But she won’t let her people down. And so Moana chooses, once again, to leave all she loves behind to learn what lies beyond the horizon.

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“You’re not Charles Dickens,” Rizzo the Rat replies.

“I am, too.”

“No, a blue furry Charles Dickens who hangs out with a rat?”

“Absolutely!”

Well, Gonzo may not actually be Charles Dickens. But he does seem to know the 19^th-century novelist’s tale A Christmas Carol like the back of his hand. In fact, he proves it.

Gonzo narrates the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly old grump with love for nothing but money. As London’s citizens put it, “If they gave a prize for being mean, the winner would be him.”

But on Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by several spirits who warn him that if he doesn’t change his ways, he’ll suffer the consequences of his sins.

And it all starts with this famous line:

The Marleys were dead to begin with …

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That might be said for the annual pageant held every year in the little town of Emmanuel. For 74 years, the pageant had gone off like clockwork. Oh, different  Marys and Josephs and wise men might’ve come and gone. But the nuts and bolts of the production never changed: Angels would sing Christmas carols. Kids would shuffle on and off stage in bathrobes. Mary and Joseph would look down at their wriggling infant in the manger and silently encourage the audience to consider this, the greatest gift the world had ever received.

That was supposed to have been the case for the 75^th performance, too.

The Herdman kids are Emmanuel’s own collective township terror. Beth, a classmate and frequent target of ringleader Imogene Herdman, knows just how bad they can be. “They lied,” Beth tells us. “They stole. They smoked cigars—even the girls.” Threats and violence came second nature to the whole Herdman clan, and they honed both with ever so much practice. They even burned down Fred Shoemaker’s ugly tool shed.

“My father said that was the only good thing the Herdmans ever did,” Beth reports. “And if they had known it was a good thing, they wouldn’t have done it at all.”

Most of the townsfolk might’ve thought that the Herdmans would’ve burst into flames if they ever stepped into church. But lured by the promise of free food and candy, step in they did, and none of them so much as sparked. Soon, all six of them volunteered to fill the most prominent roles in Emmanuel’s Christmas pageant: Mary, Joseph, the three wise men and the Angel of the Lord.

And because there were no other volunteers—the Herdmans made sure of that—they took over the pageant itself, lock, stock and manger. 

What happens when the chaotic, bruising force of the Herdmans runs headlong into a tradition that never, ever changes? Well, the entire town of Emmanuel is about to find out.

And they wouldn’t miss this Christmas pageant for the world.

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For Moon, a tiny owl just getting his wings under him, shiny is the best. If he sees something glitter on the ground or gleam in the trees, Moon will grab it, yessiree. He’ll bring it home and show his boring ol’ dad.

So what if Moon kinda, well, wrecked the nest after his latest treasure hunt? He brought home something shiny, at least! And now that the family nest is destroyed, they can all rebuild it! In silver!

“When you’re grown, you can make your silver nest in any tree you like,” Moon’s exasperated father says. “But it’s getting cold, and we have no nest at all.” Dad’ll need to go out into the forest and try to remedy that—and bring home something for dinner, too. So he gives Moon a very important job: Watching his baby sister while Dad’s away.

“Stay very still and very quiet,” Dad says. “And don’t go anywhere!”

But being still and quiet and don’t go anywhere isn’t Moon’s thing. The nest is broken, and Moon figures he’s just the owl to fix it. I mean, all he needs to do is gather a few sticks, right? And whaddya know, they live in a forest! There are sticks everywhere! So Moon promises his sister that he’ll stay close to the tree and be right back.

And then he sees something shiny.

The next thing you know, Moon’s attacked by a hawk. Dad swoops into the rescue, but Moon tumbles down and breaks his wing. With danger still hovering, Dad still has some work to do—but Moon sure can’t make it home by himself. Not with a broken wing.

“You’re going to be fine,” he tells Moon. “Just stay in the tree. Stay. In. The. Tree!”

This time, Moon listens. He stays in the tree all night. He stays in the tree even as someone chops it down. He stays in the tree as it’s carried down the freeway. And he’s in the tree when it’s placed smack-dab in the middle of Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center, festooned with lights and glass balls and scads of decorations.

Shiny.

But as much as Moon likes shiny, he likes something else even more.

Home.

The post An Almost Christmas Story appeared first on Plugged In.

Dawson Gage has loved London Quinn, well, practically forever.

But London—effervescent, free-spirited London—has never requited her “best friend’s” plain-for-all-to-see adoration of her.

Until, maybe, the night she realizes that maybe her lifelong best friend could be more than that. A lingering look, a handhold on the way to ice cream, a sweet smile as she gets out of Dawson’s car and starts across the street.

London never saw the truck. And the driver didn’t see her.

It’s hard to say whose heart is rent more by London’s terrible, senseless death, Dawson or London’s parents, Larry and Louise.

Tears, mourning and the bittersweet possibilities of what could have been haunt them all. The loss is amplified by the fact that London had been set to donate a kidney to Louise, who is slowly succumbing to a kidney disease that will eventually claim her, too, if no donor steps forward.

In the days that follow, a secret slips out. “We should have told her,” Louise tells her husband and Dawson.

“Told her what?” Dawson asks.

London, it turns out, was an in vitro baby.

And there was another embryo. One that Larry and Louise donated to a fertility doctor they knew, agreeing never to seek information about what happened to it.

But Dawson never made such an agreement. And, driven by his own grief and curiosity, he’s determined to find out what happened to this other embryo, this other person—London’s long-lost sibling.

It doesn’t take long. Her name is Andi Allen.

And she looks a lot like London Quinn.

The post Someone Like You appeared first on Plugged In.

Megatron.

Anyone who knows the lore of the Transformers recognizes those two names. They’re the most powerful of the powerful, archenemies in a constant struggle of robotic right and wrong.

But did you know that many, many, many years ago, back when they were young bots, these two were meager laborers? Oh, yes. At that point, 50 cycles after the great war and the deaths of the Prime heroes, the inhabitants of planet Cybertron were struggling.

The planet’s denizens were divided between the haves, robots with cogs that allowed them to transform, and the cog-less have nots. And those lesser-than bots labored day after day as miners, dredging up the energy crystals needed for the community to survive.

Back then, the two future greats were known as Orion Pax and D-16. And both were thought of as fairly “useless” laborers by the robotic elites in the Cybertronian world. What they really were was … troublemakers! Not bad guys though. They were, uh, nice troublemakers.

Ater a bit of tug and pull, however, that disruptive pair became friends. And these buds had a common goal: to show the elites that the labor bots may not have cogs, but they can have dreams. They can have goals. They can make a difference.

What this pair of robos didn’t realize, however, was that their dreams were as small as a single tooth on a tiny gear. There was so much more cranking and rotating about in Cybertron. There was Prime betrayal afoot. Alien Quintessons had their metal claws in the mechanism of the hierarchy.

Oh, and there were hidden things of power waiting to be discovered … things that would change a pair of troublemakers and … transform Cybertron completely.

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